Gilbert: Thoughts on Meditation

As I meditated, I thought on what I was aiming to do. I was trying to empty my mind. I figured that is what peace is. To not be worrying or thinking about much of anything. I recalled in class the story of Midas hunting for the demon Silenus in the forest. He finds it and asks what is the best and most desirable thing for human beings. Silenus doesn't answer until finally goaded by the king to do so. He says the best thing for man is to have never been born, to have never have existed.

If you were to take a pebble and remove it from everything around it; other rocks, earth, trees, people and everything, would it exist? We would be unable to see it, it would not be present to be seen. One could argue it no longer exists. Now, meditation seeks to empty the mind. To create calm. To think upon nothing. If you remove from the mind all context of its existence, all of the constant cycle of processing and perceiving you are in effect removing it from the context of the world. You are attempting to not exist.