Let your practice be chaotic

In allowing room for chaos to come up in meditation, you unlock access to the full potential and benefits of your practice

As a meditation instructor, I often come across the interesting notion that meditators exist in a perpetual state of serenity, Zen-like calmness, and unwavering relaxation. This is interesting because it is simply not true.

In fact, the greatest teachers I have had the pleasure of learning from have not been the transcendent, aloof masters but those who are downright vivacious, brimming with the richness of their full spectrum human experience.

They are not always serene - oftentimes they are wild. They don’t always court bliss - oftentimes they welcome agony. Their practice is not always calming - oftentimes it is chaotic.

To witness the life force move through my teachers via their practice is deeply moving. It is a fascinating model of meditation as sacred expression. The sheer range and depth of all that is available to them - be it power, focus, will, love, joy, health, on and on we can go - as a result of practicing meditation in a way that welcomes all the rawness and messiness of Life is nothing short of awe inspiring.

Let your practice be chaotic

To meditate is to be in touch with the deepest currents of Life. All of Life. So let your practice be chaotic, disorderly, and messy!

You do not need to be consistently composed during your practice. Welcome that which is wild and untamed. The goal of meditation is not to only feel good. Willingly embrace your despair. Your practice shouldn’t always be tranquil. Allow yourself to be consumed by chaos.

Chaos is a natural law of Life and mathematicians and scientists refer to this phenomena as Chaos Theory. It’s the element that precedes every single creative, generative, and forward moving action. Furthermore, the etymological origin of ‘chaos’ refers to it as a formless, primordial matter. In other words…the Life Force!

Think back to previous experiences that have led to meditative states and you will find the element of chaos woven into that journey.

The weary cleanliness you feel in your heart after a good, hard cry. The period of reverberating silence after listing to Jimi Hendrix on full volume in your car. The humming weariness in your body, still damp from a hot shower after a long run outside in brisk weather. The sweet, gentle afterglow, rich in unspoken connection following an evening of intimacy with a lover.

Do you feel the dance between chaos and serenity? Is it not undeniable, their inextricable, life-giving relationship?

Unlearning Rigidness and Rules

Many students are hesitant to embrace the chaos that shows up in their practice. After all, they already avoid and distract themselves from their recurring anxieties, debilitating fears, and intrusive thoughts so that they may keep their everything running along - why would they want to welcome any of that into their meditations?

Because

  1. We know that we aren’t actually transcending the chaos by turning away from it and that it will eventually find a way to express itself and

  2. Where else is it safer for this expression to surface than in your personal meditation practice?

There is no safer, more solid place to walk fully into the chaos of Life than your meditation practice. Do you feel all the seemingly unacceptable and taboo parts of yourself that you have banished from the outside world still clamoring within you to be let out? You can express it in your outer life - messily, dangerously, haphazardly - and then deal with the sticky consequences. Or, you can express it all within your practice. Minimal clean up required.

In our practice, in our own space, with just ourselves, the possibilities for full-range expression are endless, and you are safe and secure to explore it all. A practice is routine and scheduled. It has a start time and an end time. It fits neatly into your calendar and life.

My practice is orderly so that I may be disorderly.

My practice contains myself so that I may be un-contained.

My practice is neatly knit so that I may fully unravel.

Here’s a secret. During meditation,

You can have millions of chaotic

thoughts

and emotions

and memories

and sensations

and yearnings

and it’s no problem

as long as you are not imposing the rule of

‘Not Allowed’

Examples of ‘Not Allowed’ Rules:

‘These thoughts shouldn’t be here.’

‘I shouldn’t be feeling this. It’s crazy.’

‘Why am I crying? This doesn’t make sense.’

‘Bodily pain is taking up all my attention and it’s messing up my practice.’

‘I shouldn’t go there, it’s a delusion.’

Do not fear the chaos that shows up in your practice and hold on to rigid rules for safety. If we continually turn away from the ragged, unsavory aspects of ourselves during practice, meditation becomes a space that is formal and distancing. The false sense of safety a more rigid practice affords us is ultimately cutting ourselves off from accessing our full life force.

Are you practicing within a set of rules because it gives you a steady foundation from which you can totally unfurl, or are you holding on to arbitrary rules of practice because you would rather cling to the illusion of control?

What if it’s too much for me to handle? What if I don’t know what to do with it?

What I have seen time and time again, in my own practice and in guiding the practice of my students, is that your practice will never present you with something you cannot handle. The wisdom of our practice is such that it always brings you that which you are ready to metabolize - nothing more, nothing less.

In all chaos there is a cosmos…

Let your practice be your place of sacred expression. Let it be a dynamic space for your chaos to artfully move through you. Let it liberate the wellspring of creativity within you. Let it nurture the process of Life pulsing through you, which demands to be held, worked on, and released…again and again and again.

The intersection of all that you yearn for and all that beckons to you awaits you at the edge of chaos. Will you answer the call in your practice?

“In all chaos there is a cosmos, in all disorder a secret order.” - Carl Jung

Previous
Previous

I’m bad at focus ≠ I’m bad at meditation

Next
Next

Meditation doesn’t work for you because you’re not a monk