I wondered how it would be to meditate with eyes open.
I'd be curious to know why we meditate with our eyes closed.
If you meditate with your eyes open,
You'll have less distractions from your thoughts.
Of course,
Even with your eyes open,
You'll have distracting thoughts.
You'll have fear of them because your sensation is more overwhelmed by the visual and the auditory kind of stimulations.
The primary source of our suffering tends to be from memories of the past occurrences or our concerns and worries about the future plans.
And we must not allow ourselves to kind of delve deep into those and be awake in the here and now.
So if you close your eyes and you're quiet with your eyes closed,
The amount of these thoughts that are kind of invading in your thought space probably increases by tenfold as opposed to when your eyes are open.
And all those emotions or underlying emotions that you had suppressed,
If you close your eyes,
They start to come to the surface.
But if you can maintain the focus on the breath and be mindful,
Despite all these invasions of distracting thoughts,
Then it's a lot easier for you to carry that over to your everyday life and be mindful in your everyday life.
So if you are without tensing,
Without stress,
If you can maintain that equanimity with your eyes closed,
You're allowing all this kind of below the surface emotions and issues to rise through you.
The first objective in this is that you are able to maintain the mindfulness of the here and now,
Despite all these distractions that come at you.
You also allow all this kind of suppressed or repressed emotions and traumas to rise through you and evaporate.
Of course,
If you are fully practiced at this,
Then you are able to maintain that here and now mindfulness,
Even when you are walking about with your eyes open,
With your ears open in your everyday life.
However,
If you are just beginning this journey,
Then it's a lot easier for you to,
A lot better for you to meditate with your eyes closed.
But with your eyes closed,
You will experience drowsiness first,
And then you will experience deep sleep.
Then you will experience a lot of thoughts and images as if you are dreaming.
So some people open their eyes in order to rid themselves of these distracting thoughts and drowsiness.
However,
If you do that,
Then you don't allow your suppressed or repressed memories or traumas to start rising to the surface.
That's why it's better to meditate with your eyes closed.
For example,
However,
In other traditions like yoga or kind of a qi practice,
The objective of this meditation is to gain strength and,
You know,
To be able to open your eyes.
So you can meditate with your eyes closed.
Then this objective is not all about curing your trauma or repressed memories or whatnot.
So they tend to do it with their eyes open.
In short,
If you seek power through meditation,
You meditate with your eyes open.
However,
If you seek a spiritual practice in which your objective is to gain a clarity of mindfulness in midst of the distractions of the world and seek that nirvana,
State of nirvana,
Then you do it with your eyes closed.
People who seek nirvana does not seek power.
