I Cheat at Meditating...

I have tried meditating several times throughout my life.  Never seem to have much luck with it.  Six years ago I was diagnosed with ADD.  Several events in my life were said to be a result of my diagnosis; going to jail a couple of times, relationships, accidents, stuff like that.  Nobody ever said anything positive about being ADD.  Maybe someone should do a study on the positive aspects of ADD, like being able to multitask like a motherfucker.

It helps explain all my fruitless experiments with meditation.  Everything printed about meditation indicates the need for a "still" mind.  The purpose is to quiet the mind and be mindful of the moment.  Nothing else exists, just the timelessness of the now.  Then a certain enlightenment creeps up on you and you smile that beatific smile of a knowledgeable Buddhist.

As much as I've tried, that has never been my experience.  My mind is busy.  I have thoughts that compete for attention.  "Me next!  Me next!" says the food thought.  There is all of this mental detritus floating in and amongst the valid thoughts competing for attention.  The detritus is mixed in with the enormity of the other thoughts.  It's kind of like making tea and your tea bag bursts open.  You have all the tea leaves floating around in the tea and no matter how meticulous you are about trying to get the leaves out, you never get them all out.  Detritus.  Left over thoughts.  Thoughts from a conversation, a discussion, an argument, a promise, or a song heard weeks ago.  It's all in there.

The formal thoughts, legitimate thoughts, if you will, are still there.  They haven't been fragmented into leftover thoughts yet, although it's high time some of them were.  In the way of some sort of visual explanation, my thoughts are like floating platforms with me jumping from one to the other day after day, minute by minute.  Picture a dark room with no discernable ceiling.  Floating platforms of dry, layered clay float about, some larger with more layers, most smaller, fill the room with just enough space between them to keep them from bumping in to each other.  I am standing on one of the larger platforms.  That platform is a thought I am having as long as I'm standing on that platform.  Should I get it into my head that there is something I need on another platform, I start hopping platforms to get to it.  I'll be damn lucky if I get there.  Every time I step on a platform on my way to the platform I think I need to be on, I am filled with that platform's thoughts.  Which are now my thoughts.  In fact, all the platforms are my thoughts and seem to do ok on their own but as soon as I step on one of the platforms, my mind is adrift in the thought of that platform.  I may never make it to the platform I had originally set out for.

Meditation is meant to let the mind go and experience a platform of bliss.  That's why I cheat at meditation.  I can't keep a straight thought going sitting still.  I have done walking meditation, running meditation, drinking meditation, weed meditation.  Even weed meditation is a wash.  My thoughts become colors.  My platforms glow fluorescent green.  They bump into each other and I get paranoid.  After bumping into each other, the platforms push off from each other and then I am stuck on one platform and that platform is usually sleep.  I do not recommend weed for meditation.  Hell, I can't even recommend meditation.  It doesn't work for me.  I keep jumping from one platform to the next, thinking the thoughts of each platform on my way to another thought on another platform.

I get it.  I know.  If I train my mind, I can do it.  Stop jumping from platform to platform.  Make the platforms come together and join.  After all, they exist in the same human brain: mine.  What would be so difficult in getting them to come together?  That is the question.  Every time I sit down to meditate about it...yeah, it starts all over again.

Just stay busy.