What Meditation is All About?

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This is a very spiritual story of Buddha & his disciple Ananda about the how to achieve a meditating mind.

Buddha is going from one village to another village. They are passing a mountainous track. It is a hot afternoon; he is tired. He sits under a tree. He is thirsty. He asks his  disciple, Ananda, to go back, because two miles back they left a small spring.’Go and fetch water from there.’

Ananda goes back, but by the time he reaches there a few bullock carts have passed, they have passed through the spring; the spring is dirty. All the dirt that was settled inside has surfaced; dead leaves are floating on it. Now it is not worth drinking. So he comes back and he says to Buddha ’It is not worth drinking. I will go ahead. I know that at least two, three miles ahead there is a beautiful river I will fetch water from there.’

But Buddha says ’No, go back. Fetch water from that spring.’ He is so insistent. Ananda cannot follow the logic of it. He says again and again that the water is dirty; Buddha says ’Go back! Even if it is dirty, bring it.’
Ananda goes back, very reluctantly; he has to go because the master has ordered. The whole thing seems to be absurd: in the same time he can fetch water from the river. Why this eccentric idea that the water has to come from that spring? But by the time he reaches, the spring is crystal clear; the dust has settled again, the leaves have gone. He can see the point, that just a little patience was needed, that’s all. He could have waited just a few minutes and everything would have been beautiful. Now he understands why Buddha was so persistent, absurdly persistent: he was giving some message, and it has been understood.

Ananda comes back with water, dancing. He falls at Buddha’s feet and he says ’Your ways of teaching are such that if we are not utterly devoted to you we will never be able to understand what you want us to understand. I went very reluctantly, but I see the point.’

And Buddha says ’Now do the same with your mind. Don’t be in a hurry, be patient. Just as the leaves have gone and the dust has settled, if you can sit silently inside doing nothing, the mind also settles, thoughts disappear, desires are gone, and the spring of your consciousness becomes crystal clear. Ananda, just a little patience! Sit by the side of your mind and wait. No doing is needed. Sitting silently, doing nothing, is all.’