Guided Meditations

Word vs. Thing

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• Get into a comfortable seat, let your eyes fall closed, and still the body.
• Focus on your breath for a few minutes, and let the mind too fall still.
• Think about the concept or idea “table.” Try and get in touch with the little word in the back of your mind—the one that makes you understand the letters “t-a-b-l-e,” the one responsible for all the tables you ever saw.
• Now think about how “table” relates to a table or the table. “Table” is a blanket idea that encompasses all the tables you ever saw. And a table, in turn, is a thing which resembles “table”. You could also say that a table has the quality of tableness.
• Where does this tableness come from? Is it in the table itself? No, it is inside the word “table”—that tiny idea in the back of your mind.
• Now think: have you ever actually seen a table? Or have you been looking at “table” all along?
• Find the gakja—get a sense of absence as you find the table that you thought was there, the table that doesn’t exist at all.
• Do this same meditation using any other object.