Ben Haun

Meditation Guide

Ben has been meditating for over two decades, and spent the majority of time sitting with Jon Bernie and Pamela Wilson, both who come from the lineage of Ramana Maharishi.

Ben’s invitation is to sit and allow unwinding to happen, without any agenda.  There is nothing to get, nothing to accomplish here.  The busyness of modern society can make everything seem so rushed and performance-oriented.  We get this sense that we have lost our original nature(and use meditation to get it back).  There is this expectation that we need to get something out of the meditation, to be somewhere more peaceful than where we are right now.  The truth is, the peace we’re looking for is already here.  It’s immediate and available, we can just relax into it, and trust that the body/mind know how to unwind and get back to their original states.  The support of a group of meditators(Satsang) creates a powerful tuning fork that makes that peace resonate loudly.  Presence comes to the foreground all by itself.  

You may think that the human stuff will get in the way: a chattery mind, aching heart, a tightness in the gut, etc.  None of this is a problem - it’s all very welcome in Satsang.  It may even become amplified.  These messengers that are asking for our attention can be fully listened to, expressed, and allowed to relax back into their true nature.  Some people say “I’m not good at meditating because my mind is so busy.” or “I lose focus.”  There is some pre-conceived notion of what it means to be meditating correctly, like if you are doing it correctly, you will instantly be in this tranquil blissful paradise.  And we certainly all want that bliss.  But the busy mind is not a problem, and maybe it even gets amplified as a result of sitting with it in stillness.  Then we can truly meet it and allow it to show us its vast intelligence, honoring its efforts towards whatever it truly wants.

Anything that arises in the human condition can ultimately relax and be shown its true nature, even the mind.  The peace and bliss of conscious awareness is amplified 100 fold when we fully meet these human conditions with the loving attention that they need.  When we address our problems from a place of relaxed awareness, the conditions become freed and dissolve back into presence.  They become integrated into the ocean of awareness that we are.  

Every time you sit, the presence is more available and amplified.  Or maybe it’s available all the time.  Fantastic! Now we get to explore how that presence integrates with our daily lives, continuously discovering how our human experiences are rooted in unlimited consciousness.  And ultimately how this human experience and the vastness of consciousness are one and the same and eternally dancing.