"Sleep and Meditation" by Don Gerz
Last night I lost a piece of my laptop mouse. I was 100% sure it had slipped under the seat of the stuffed chair I had been sitting in when I discovered the piece was missing. I searched the chair, took it apart in fact, but I could not find the missing piece of plastic. Thinking it had probably slipped into an area inside the bottom of the chair that my hand could not fit into, I finally decided to give up and just buy a new mouse. In disgust, I went to bed. I was asleep by 10:00 P.M.
At 4:00 A.M., I awoke with a start, sat up in bed, and said to myself: "It's in the laptop's carrying case!" I went downstairs and looked in the case. Sure enough, there it was! My idea that it was in the chair was 100% wrong. It was an unexamined assumption.
What happened to my mind between 10 and 4? Sleep. Rest. Relaxation. Meditation is, in some respects, a bit like sleep. In both instances, thought is suspended and the mind is emptied of all ideas. Space is made available after waking and after meditation for fresh ideas, new ideas, and new ways of looking at things. We, ESPECIALLY IN THE WEST, believe the essence of solving problems is to strive harder and harder and harder. Often, we think we are thinking when in fact all we are doing is obsessing. It's good to strive, but not indefinitely, and certainly not obsessively.
We must rest and empty our minds through sleep and/or meditation so that new and better ideas flow into our minds, indeed, into our very beings. We need fresh ways of looking at things, new and previously unexamined ideas and, indeed, inspiration. We cannot fill a vessel with fresh wine that is already overflowing with rancid spirits.
