If I told you to sit down and close your eyes and not think of anything at all, what do you think would happen?

Most likely, you'd settle in, relax, breathe slowly, and think something along these lines:

"OK, I'm not going to think...that's it, no thoughts at all...that clock sure is loud...wait, I'm thinking about the clock...blocking the clock, blocking the clock...that's not working...I'm supposed to not be thinking anything...great, now I'm thinking about not thinking...alright, let's try this again...that's better...settling down, settling down...I wonder what's for dinner tonight? ARRRRGHH! THIS IS IMPOSSIBLE!!!"

So much for a peaceful, quiet time of meditation, right? Know what the problem is? People have lost the secret of meditation.

Somewhere along the line, we started believing that meditation was only the inner silence, and everything else was a distraction to meditation.

Not so! We live in a world of dualities: dark-light, up-down, rest-activity...and countless more.

Meditation has a dual mode as well. It is a two-stroke process - inward stroke and outward stroke...and it happens for very logical reasons. The next page offers a basic overview:

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