Illumination In Meditation

Produced in a lightning flash of creativity in the Year of the Fire Horse 2026, Episode 15 explores Illumination in Meditation. My heart goes out to the meditators who believe they cannot meditate and that enlightenment is an unattainable state of consciousness. Enlightenment is your God given birthright that everyone has. Wishing you Godspeed and mountains that you won't move.

Nature of Meditation monthly podcast is an exploration of the nature of silent meditation practice. Produced by Ayla Michelle at The Therapy Garden, a BAMBA registered mindfulness teacher.

Transcript

Hello, My name is Michelle. Welcome to episode on Illumination in Meditation in this year of the Fire Horse, 2026. Let's start with a five minute meditation practice to become lighter. Allow yourself to relax as best you can. We want to experience the earth first. Feel light, Feel grounded and present before we can fearlessly open up our mind and heart. And as I said in previous episodes, Relaxation can be very illuminating. So let's sit now for five minutes to allow ourselves to relax and come more into present moment awareness. So you may be, You may be aware of your breathing and the breath is breathing itself. You may be aware of your mind experiencing itself. You may be aware of life living itself. The sun does not move. It just illuminates so that things can live and be perceived and experienced. The illumination of the sun lights up everything, Penetrates everything and everything is illuminated equally. The sun doesn't choose this or that to illuminate. Everything is included. Everything is open. And this openness cannot close. It is eternal. So coming out of the meditation and the invitation is to remain aware of your breathing or your body to continue embodied experience. So I chose illumination in meditation as the topic for episode 15 that follows the previous episode 14 on awareness in meditation. Because awareness is deeply intertwined with illumination. Illumination flows naturally from open awareness. And in the next episode 16, I'll talk about clarity in meditation. Because when the lights are switched on, We see clearly. So following on from the previous talk on awareness, The open awareness that I spoke about in the previous episode is an awareness beyond single pointed awareness that's focused on one object. While open awareness is a broader panoramic awareness that is vivid and bright and enlightening. So open awareness naturally brings more space and light into your perception and experience. It's a bit like being the vast clear sky. There's more light about because nothing, There's no thing, No object blocking light in any way. So you get a sense of the vastness and infinity of open awareness that tends to be bright. So open awareness is enlightening. And the illumination has no beginning and no end, As it is eternal and eternally present. Meditating in open awareness is to experience the true nature of reality. It allows us to be in contact with the brightness of existence and of our true nature. Because it's not just the world out there that is bright. Your true nature is bright. It's your radiance that you see and experience reflected back at you from your environment. In your perception and experience of open awareness. Being in contact with experience, A bright clarity appears before you from within you. Meaning that the light which is in your own mind is reflected in everything in your environment. So the brightness is not just about your experience, Theoretically. Actually, It's your own mind that is bright. And it's your open awareness that everything is arising and passing in. If your experience wasn't arising in your awareness, You wouldn't be experiencing it. If the brightness and light you perceive and experience wasn't arising from within you, You wouldn't perceive or experience it. Everything you experience in meditation is arising and passing from within you. And when I say you, I'm using the broadest definition of you. Of course, I'm not referring to your individual ego identification. By you, I'm referring to your true nature. So if you can enter into a stable and balanced meditation and naturally open your awareness, That is enlightenment. And that state of silent illumination and bright clarity is your own nature, Illuminating your experience of life. So it's the radiance of your own true nature that you see reflected everywhere. And by the term or phrase illumination of mind, I mean a clear awareness of things as they are. I mean a natural radiant clarity of mind where you're fully awake and in direct contact with experience. To the extent that you become merged with your experience, So there's no longer a thing out there and a separate you in here experiencing it. There's no longer any separation between subject and object as the individual self has dropped away. One's true nature is interconnected with everything. When you go deeper into your meditation practice, Your body, Heart and mind and the environment become one as internal and external are united. You and your environment are experienced as one and your mind is open and very clear. Illumination is often likened to a mirror that is still and crystal clear while images appear freely before it. Your illuminated mind is this mirror, As silent as it is motionless, Revealing all forms, Everything before it. And experiencing your internal and external environment as one, You're not affected or influenced by anything in the mirror, Anything internal or external. The experiences are all still here, Coming and going in and out of the mirror, But your experience is absorbed in your stillness and concentration. So it doesn't affect you because your stillness and concentration are much stronger, Much bigger, Wider, Deeper, Much more true. And if you're still experiencing your bodily sensations, Emotions and thoughts when you're meditating, And you're aware of these things, Sensations, Thoughts, Emotions, Feelings, Fantasies. If you're still aware of these things when you're meditating, That means you're not yet in a state of unification. It means you're not in a state of oneness. That's not the consciousness you're experiencing at that moment, If you're remembering or focusing on things such as sensations, Emotions, Thoughts. As I explained in the previous episode on awareness, An open illuminated awareness is a natural state of consciousness. It's a bit like when you're doing something new for the first time, And you're fully engaged and absorbed in the experience. You feel alive and naturally and freely flowing experience is fresh and vivid, A bit like the flow state I spoke about in the early episodes of this podcast. For example, Artists or anyone engaged in something and they just get lost in it because they're so absorbed in it. Maybe get lost isn't the right way to put it. In the flow state, One is absorbed, But not lost, Because they are actually in the right place and time, Which is in the moment, Wholly, Entirely, At one in that moment. So open illuminated awareness is a natural state of consciousness, And it's not a method, But a natural way of being. So there's no method, Technique, And no instruction how to do illumination, And there's nothing to attend to or worry about or be anxious or neurotic about. And as I said, When you're stable and balanced in your meditation practice, Space and light are available, And there's nothing to do other than being. The illuminated mind then is awake and fully active, Fully working, Fully functioning. But not indulging in or attaching to thoughts, Emotions, Fantasies, Sensations about oneself or others. The illuminated mind is working, I. E. Perceiving and experiencing, But without thinking or analyzing or daydreaming or fantasizing or any neuroses. Because in the illuminated state of consciousness, The conceptual, Discursive, Distracted mind is not at the fore, Is not in the foreground. And because the discursive mind is not predominant in illuminated states of consciousness, A bright clarity of experience can appear before you from within you. Because there's space, There's space, And there's no longer any objects, Any things to block light, To block space. So you feel bright with an aliveness of experience. So as I've just said, The illuminated, Open mind is not deliberate or contrived, And there's no method, Instruction or direction needed. You cannot make illumination happen because it's a natural way of being awake and present with a bright, Clear mind. So the illuminated mind, The illuminated, Open and free mind, Is fully awake without falling into dullness or drowsiness. And I feel deeply that it's very important to teach this because many meditation practitioners get into drowsiness practice instead of meditating. And sadly and frustratingly, Oftentimes it seems to me that drowsiness practice is more prevalent in our society than meditation practice. And of course, With an open heart, I understand through my own lived experience that learning to meditate is a journey. And oftentimes a very long journey, As it was in my case, But it doesn't have to be a very long journey and it can happen in one moment. You can learn to meditate in one moment, Meaning you can suddenly awaken into a unified state of consciousness. But of course, I understand it's not always easy and nothing is permanent. Everything is changing, Including our meditation practice. At the same time, The reason we cultivate stability and groundedness is so that we can continue being grounded, Centered and stable in our practice. So sitting in a state of drowsiness is not meditating. And in fact, Drowsiness is the direct opposite of meditating. Meditation is to be fully awake, Moment by moment, Consistently awake, In vital experience, As vivid, Vital experience. So the illuminated mind is fully awake and present in an immediate, Direct and vital way. Fully alive, Fully experiencing, Fully awake and vital, Fully present, Fully open and aware. Fully engaged, Fully functioning, Fully perceiving, Fully switched on and bright. And the luminosity of the awakened, Illuminated mind just continues to flow and be experienced. So the mind flows with whatever presents itself, Whatever appears in the clear mirror. It relates to all experience without discrimination, Without judgment. It relates to our bodily sensations, Emotions, Thoughts, Our perceptions in this very immediate, Direct, Intimate and illuminated way. Because the mind in meditation, When it is awake, Open and illuminated, Is not a dead mind. It is alive. The mind in meditation hasn't switched itself off. On the contrary, It has switched itself on. So when we experience a bright light in our meditation experience, This points to our mind being fully awake, Vibrant, Bright and clear. So the mind is always working in meditation, In that phenomena is always being experienced. In open awareness, Whatever phenomena is reflected within and without in our clear, Empty, Open mind. And of course, In single-pointed awareness, One particular sensation, Such as the breathing or one's hand, Or a particular bodily sensation, That is constantly, Continuously, Seamlessly experienced without disturbance or interruption. And as I explained in the previous episode, We begin our meditation, Usually with single-pointed awareness, To become more centred and grounded and concentrated. And once we're really at home in our stability and solidity, Then it's just natural that we are able to open up and experience more clearly, More lightly. So I'd like to gradually bring this episode to a close with another meditation period. Let's try and do, Maybe we could do five minutes, At least five minutes. Let's see how it goes. So this is new for me. So I'm improvising here now. And let's see if we can experience a bit more lightly. So the invitation is to take your seat, Finding a comfortable, Stable posture that you can settle into. And in your own time, Coming into contact with the experience of breathing, Relaxing as best you can and feeling your body sitting here now. We really want to make full use of our stability, Our groundedness, Our centredness, Our concentration, Our focus and our stillness. We want to make as much use as possible of those foundational things, Those foundational states of consciousness or foundational experiences, Meditative experiences. We really want to make full use of a meditative stability and solidity in order to feel brave, Strong and courageous enough to let go and open up. So I'm actually going to adjust my own posture now so that I can sit with you. And I'm going to move away from the microphone slightly. Checking the time. Let's sit for five minutes and see if we can lighten up a bit. Yeah, Just a bit for five minutes. Okay, So coming to the close of this episode, I hope you find some of the teaching in this episode helpful in some way. And as usual, You're welcome to post comments, Send me an email if you have any questions or comments. And as I mentioned at the beginning of this episode, The next episode will be about clarity in meditation because it's much easier to see clearly when things are bright. We can't see so well in the dark. So I really enjoyed making this episode for you in this year of the Firehorse 2026. So I hope you enjoy. Bye for now.