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VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

Let’s discuss the significance of the subjective mental experience we have while practicing the Access Stillness technique. Why is it important to allow the mind to de-excite? There are two important reasons.

Every day we experience a high volume of thought. We’re constantly bombarded with information. Ask a neuroscientist how many thoughts you have in a day, and they'll tell you that on average we have anywhere between 60 to 80 thousand thoughts per day. What are thoughts? Thoughts are all the sensory information that we perceive and acknowledge. When we smell something in the air, and we realize that we're smelling it, that moment of realizing what you're smelling is a thought. The same goes for the visual stimulus, what you see; the auditory stimulus, what you hear; the olfactory stimulus, what you smell; the gustatory stimulus, what you taste; and the sensory experience, the sensations in the body, what you feel. All of that sensory information we interpret are thoughts.

But thoughts are also things that aren't in front of you right now. Memories from days prior, thoughts about what might happen tomorrow, the speculation about what might occur, those are thoughts too.

If you're in a good place both mentally and physically, you could be having 60, 80, 100 thousand very pleasant thoughts every day, and they're fairly enjoyable. It's still a whole lot of thinking going on. It's nice to get a break from that thinking. But if you happen to be stressed, and you're anxious, or you're unhappy, then it's really great to get a break from all those unpleasant thoughts that you're having, and so we gain that through the Access Stillness technique. But that's only the first reason.

The second reason relates more to the design of the experience.

The Access Stillness technique is designed to leverage the mind’s intrinsic nature to move in the direction of greater happiness. When given the choice, the mind is going to choose the more fascinating, satisfying, fulfilling experience. And so, the reason that the mind is settling down with the mantra is that the mind finds more contentedness in those quieter states of thought and thinking and awareness. We describe that contentedness using a very loaded word in meditation. You'll hear meditation teachers use this word all the time, and the word is bliss. I want to unload that word for you. Bliss in this context doesn't mean ecstasy, ecstatic happiness, or euphoria, but bliss refers to that contentedness.

At the surface, the mind starts to take that inward dive because it starts to experience some bliss and continues moving inward because it's experiencing more and more of that bliss until it reaches a certain satisfaction point, a certain saturation of bliss or contentedness where the mind just goes, "You know what? I'm good. I can't think of anything better right now." And so, the silence and the stillness that we experience in meditation is a product of that bliss. That's why the mind experiences stillness and silence in meditation. It's not by force. It's not by effort. It's not by concentration. It's through leveraging the mind’s very natural tendency to move in the direction of greater contentedness and fulfillment that we experience silence and stillness in meditation.

Why is this significant?

It's the direct experience of that fulfillment and contentedness that changes our orientation moving forward into the day. It's like going to the beach on a really hot day, and you're driving your car. You've got the AC pumping, and you're relatively comfortable in the car. And then, you get to the beach, and you lie down on your blanket. You might be wearing some sunscreen, but you don't have an umbrella or a canopy or anything. And so, the sun out there, you're exposed. The sun starts hitting you. You start overheating within 5, 10 minutes.

And then, you get off your blanket and jump in the ocean, and the water temperature is really cold. Despite how cold it was in the car, water is much more conductive. You get in the cold water. It cools you off very quickly. You're in that cold water and you forget how hot you just were.

But here's the important part. You get out of the water. You get back on the blanket. You're in the same place you were before, but now, that place feels completely different because of the state that you're in, oriented coming out of the water versus the car. Now, that sun can beat down on you for an hour or two hours before you get that overheated again, and that's what the Access Stillness mental technique allows us to have.

We have the direct experience of contentedness and fulfillment in meditation. It's a source of self-referral happiness. So, you hear a lot of meditators say, "I'm a lot happier because I have this practice."

Now you have to remember, I was very skeptical about meditation before I learned, and I’m still skeptical. I’m probably the most skeptical meditation you’ll ever meet.

I know that some, even a lot, of the happiness that meditators experience comes from the relief they get from their meditation practice. When we’re no longer suffering from anxiety, depression, and insomnia, of course, we feel happier. Happiness also comes from clearer thinking, improved productivity and creativity, and the confidence that comes from having the enhanced ability to face life’s demands without feeling overwhelmed, stressed, and anxious. There’s no argument there.

But I do believe, despite my own skepticism, that the “bliss” we experience directly in meditation has something to do with making us feel happier too. Being happy for no reason, unconditionally happy is a good thing. In fact, we can argue, it’s the probably best thing.