For years I thought meditation was a technique for generating calm — a skill I could grind until it produced results. It isn't. The calm was already there. I was just too loud to notice it.
Not doing, undoing
Sitting still, you don't build anything. You stop building. Thought after thought arrives, and instead of chasing each one you let it pass — and in the gap between two thoughts there is a silence that was never absent, only crowded out.
You don't quiet the mind. You stop mistaking the noise for yourself.
The practice is returning
I drift. Everyone drifts. The practice is not staying — it's noticing you left, and coming back, gently, a thousand times. The returning is the meditation. The staying is just a rumor.