If you’ve done meditation consistently (and my guess is you have), you know that in time things happen. You have insights, you feel different, there’s something there. Oh sure you read about it, you hear about it, but then it happens. You’re a better person for your meditations and it’s kind of a shock.
I mean you kind of hoped for it, but then you’re different. It’s real, it’s not sayings and advice and poems and words. You feel different and the you that feels is different.
But the question is: what’s next? This is something I’ve read several times in my Taoist studies, and I wanted to share some thoughts and insights from my own meditations. I’ve had those moments of insights of “shifts” where you’re a little bit different and you know you’re on the path. There’s something in you that is different, it’s better, but then what?
You can’t seize these moments, these changes, and hold them. You can’t force them to happen, which I think is frustrating to many. If you’re a meditator I’m sure you’ve been here. I certainly have, where a very solid change falls apart when you grasp it.
First, a thing I find helpful to remember is that it’s the meditation that brings you here, those moments of mind resting on breath, the flow of energies, or what have you.. You can’t force these changes, can’t push them but you can keep up the practice that makes them possible. The positive changes you experience are due to the practice making them possible.
The changes you experience – “Signs” is what I’ve seen it called in my Taoist readings – are indicators you’re doing well in meditation. Keep going with the meditation.
But those moments of insight, of feeling better, of feeling aligned, of feeling there’s something in you that’s better? Another useful idea I’ve seen in Taoism is the idea of nurturing and guarding. Taoist writings talk about how one may experience a “seed,” have “the elixir,” develop a “spiritual embryo” and so on at various meditative stages. These are not things to be held or grasped, but guarded and nurtured.
Whatever positive changes (and whatever symbolism you might use for them) you want to nurture them. Not grasp, force, hold, but gently nurture. The exact nature of that may depend on your level of meditation and spiritual path, but it takes gentle work to maintain those “positives.”
I find these are usually a combination of things. Recognizing that you’ve experienced change due to meditation. Maintaining meditation. Understanding behaviors that support these positive changes – ethical and social cultivation.
You also want to avoid destroying these evolutions – guarding them.. This may again be making behavioral and social changes, dietary alterations, and consideration for how your choices affect you. You might even get some insights into how your bad habits harmed before.
I think this is why the physicality of Taoist ideas helps me. Imagining carefully brewing an elixir, nurturing a spiritual embryo, “moving to the center” and so on resonate with me and obviously several thousand years of practitioners. It’s easy to imagine guarding and nurturing a physical thing.
I hope in your practices that you have these changes, these moments. I hope you can maintain your meditations. And I hope you can guard and nurture what you find.
Plus if you want a deep dive into Taoist symbolism, I got some books to recommend . . .