At the beginning, your Imagination, far from being a distraction or an obstacle, will be your greatest ally in meditating.
Here’s why:
The primary ingredient that makes a thing interesting or stimulating is “Contrast”; it’s not the thing itself. We miss this because we’re trained to focus on content rather than context. So we tend to focus everything on the ‘object’ of our activity.
‘I want this job because it pays such and such or confers such and such status.’ ‘I like this woman because she has this physical shape and this personality.’ ‘I like this music because it uses these notes, and these chords, and is written in this style.’
Those are all reasonable statements, and probably accurate.
But they’re missing something.
You also strongly appreciate that given activity, person, target, etc., because it stands in contrast to many other things that are less desirable or just different.
This sounds abstract or weird so here’s an example:
You’re waiting for the light to turn green so that you can cross the street. You are somewhat in a rush to get where you’re going. You don’t want to be late. It takes 14 minutes to walk there, and you have about 14.5 minutes. You are listening to music on your phone and are really focused on getting to your destination. The light changes and you step into the street,and…
Just at that moment, someone breaks you out of your ‘focused trance’ and physically pulls you back by your arm.
As they do so, a large truck (breaking the traffic rules) barrels through the space in front of you, right where you would have been if you had just automatically crossed the street without looking. It is very clear that you would have been dead or badly injured, and that this stranger who pulled you back just saved you from that.
That person is in a rush too. So, you say thanks; she says, ‘Cool, no problem’ with a big smile. and you get back to walking to your destination; this time, of course, with more attention. You make it to your appointment on time. And also, thankfully, still alive.
Okay. What’s the point of this story?
For the next 2 or 3 hours—or even the next 2 or 3 days if you’re particularly sensitive—you have heightened appreciation for everything. The blue of the sky. The act of breathing. The feel of cardboard. The sound of your parents’ voices. It’s all so vivid and amazing, because you’re subconsciously contrasting it to the possibility that you would have been dead (and unable to experience any of it). Your sense of gratitude is heightened during that time. You recognize the truth that you are lucky to be alive. We humans are very ‘adaptable’, so the feeling fades after some time; but there’s a period of time where that CONTRAST makes just about everything more beautiful and more interesting.
Contrast.
You can introduce it either by manipulating circumstances and conditions, or by adjusting and applying your own imagination and perception.
Here’s one example (out of 30000 examples):
What if a disembodied ‘Alien Spirit’ was a scientist who chose to come to Earth and investigate the sensory experiences of being a human being. On that person’s world, people are in the form of gas clouds, and so they’re very interested in how a carbon-based, primate-style being might experience life. They have a technology that allows them to settle into a human body, interface with the nervous system, and basically ‘ride’ inside of the person, experiencing whatever they are feeling.
The alien’s goal is to pay as close attention as possible so that they can return to their own world and describe what it is like to be a human earth person.
Now imagine if you were that ‘alien spirit’, and you had the opportunity to observe life in the @HumanBean body.
That’s an example of using Imagination to create an artificial contrast that supports paying attention in meditation. It’s a story that reminds you of how stimulating your ongoing mind body experiencing really is.
But again, that’s just one possible story of a million.
