Now, with your eyes closed, begin to focus in a relaxed manner on the darkness behind your eyelids. What do you see? Nothing? Look again, more carefully. Whatever it is that you see — even if it is mere darkness — pay careful attention to that. Immerse your mind in the real seeing of whatever it is that you are seeing. You’ll notice your mind begins to wander, and suddenly you are no longer attending to sight. That is fine. That’s natural. Take note of the difference between your mind wandering and your mind focused on really seeing what you’re seeing behind your closed eyes. These are, in effect, two minds we have within us, and we need to become intimately familiar with both of them.
These two minds arise from two very different activities of the brain. One activity is characterized by story-telling, remembering, justifying, rationalizing — all of which we can call cognition. Cognition is by far the most active part of our minds. The other activity is characterized by direct perception of the senses: seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling and feeling what there is around and within us. We need both activities: perception helps us know what is in the world, while cognition helps us understand and make sense of what perception gives us.
But meditation begins by moving away from our habitual mode of cognition, and we can do this by strengthening the activity of relaxed attention to direct perception. Hence, the focusing on the darkness behind closed eyelids and watching as the mind moves between perception and cognition and back again as you refocus on perception. You can do this with sound, with the feelings of your body, even with smell and taste. In every case, watch for the movement between perception and cognition, learn how it feels, become accustomed to catching the movement as it happens, and you will develop a mental muscle crucial to a successful practice of meditation. You will also have a complete meditation practice as taught by many schools, especially commercial ventures like Headspace or apps like Calm — with all the major benefits, both mental and physical, associated with meditation.
If you would like to deepen your practice, then continue resting in perception, preceded by relaxation each session, for a few months, until you are very comfortable with the process and can watch yourself moving from perception to cognition and back again. Once you can rest largely in perception alone for minutes at a time, then you are ready to proceed to the third practice below.
