meditation according to Jidu Krishna Merti is not a matter of following a system repeating a mantra or sitting in a specific posture all such practices he said only condition the mind further making it dull mechanical and dependent what he pointed to was something far more radical far more alive something that could never be taught as a technique or learned from a teacher he called it choiceless awareness choiceless awareness is the art of observing everything your thoughts your emotions your reactions your surroundings without any preference without judgment without the division between the observer and the observed it is the seeing of what is without trying to transform it escape from it or condemn it krishna Merti would say "Look at a tree a cloud the movement of your own mind not with the intention to change or analyze it but simply to see it as it is." And that very seeing if done without interference from thought or will brings about a transformation more profound than any method could ever promise we are conditioned to choose constantly we choose what we like over what we dislike we choose beliefs that comfort us and avoid those that disturb us we hold on to pleasant memories and run from painful ones this movement of the mind to grasp and to resist is the essence of conflict and where there is conflict there can be no silence but awareness without choice that is seeing without picking and choosing has no conflict in it it does not divide experience into good and bad spiritual and worldly desirable and undesirable it simply sees and in this seeing the fragmentation of the self begins to dissolve krishna Merti did not say try to be aware he said be aware of your unawareness watch how the mind moves watch how it escapes how it compares how it judges watch the thought arise and fall without interfering the moment you interfere you bring in the past the image the ego but if you can observe thought like a leaf floating down a river without naming it without resisting it that is choiceless awareness it is not something you cultivate it is not a higher state to achieve it is there in the very act of listening fully of seeing completely for example when you listen to the sound of a bird do you listen with your whole being or is the mind already labeling it that's a crow i heard it yesterday it's too loud when there is no naming no verbal reaction no psychological movement there is just pure listening that is awareness this awareness does not come from discipline it comes from freedom freedom from effort from the desire to become from the urge to achieve something through meditation in fact the moment you want something from awareness you are no longer aware you are pursuing an image a goal to be choicelessly aware is to be intimate with life without wanting it to be different to watch the sunrise the trembling of a leaf the cry of a child the rush of emotion in the body without wanting to hold or change it that is sacred krishna Merti emphasized that there is no observer apart from the observed when you say I am angry you are separating yourself from anger but in truth you are that anger in that moment can you watch that anger without saying I must get rid of it can you stay with it not analyze not suppress not escape but just be with it like you would sit silently with a friend that presence that stillness with what is dissolves the division the observer disappears and only the fact remains in that space in that undivided attention something extraordinary happens thought begins to quiet down not because you force it to but because it has been understood and when thought is quiet when the mind is silent not controlled not made still but silent because it has nothing more to say then there is a different kind of intelligence a different kind of clarity krishna Merti would often say that truth is not something you arrive at through effort it comes when the mind is still naturally effortlessly still like a pool of water without a single ripple in that stillness perception is immediate direct without the distortion of thought choiceless awareness is not the opposite of concentration in concentration you narrow the field of attention exclude distractions and fix the mind on a particular object or idea but awareness includes everything it is open spacious alert like the sky that holds every cloud every breeze every storm without preference such awareness is the beginning and the end of meditation there is no path to it because the moment you make it a path you turn it into a goal and the mind becomes caught in time again always becoming never being but when you sit quietly not to meditate not to achieve but just to be and let the whole movement of thought and feeling unfold before you without resistance when you are aware of the sounds outside the sensations within the breath the silence the subtle movement of memory and you do nothing but watch then the flame of awareness burns bright without fuel and in that light all shadows dissolve that is meditation not a doing but a seeing not an effort but a discovery not a path but a direct insight into the nature of the self and the world and in that awareness Krishna Merti said "The sacred is not in temples not in scriptures not in rituals but in the vast silence of a mind that sees Peace [Music]