Where do we sit when we meditate? By this I don’t mean, do we sit on a cushion or on a chair? I don’t even mean, do we sit in our bedroom or under a tree?

What I am asking is simply this: where do our minds sit? Are the thoughts that ‘run round our heads’ the thoughts of our work, of our relationships, our dreams, our concerns? Noticing this, and seeing that these are just thoughts, just one aspect of experience that comes and goes, is the heart of sitting.

Here’s an A.A. Milne poem that talks about this (illustration by Ernest H. Shepard):

Halfway Down

Halfway down the stairs
Is a stair
Where I sit.
There isn’t any
Other stair
Quite like
It.
I’m not at the bottom,
I’m not at the top;
So this is the stair
Where
I always
Stop.

Halfway up the stairs
Isn’t up,
And it isn’t down.
It isn’t in the nursery,
It isn’t in the town.
And all sorts of funny thoughts
Run round my head;
“It isn’t really
Anywhere!
It’s somewhere else
Instead!”

image from http://www.thelovelys.com/poetry-milne-800.htm