Meditation often begins where simultaneity no longer needs to be selected. Where thoughts, impressions, and sensations can coexist without being judged or controlled.
From this attitude sometimes arises the desire to pause briefly—
not to change something, but to give space to this moment.
Not to achieve something specific, but to perceive what is currently there. Perhaps this is already a small form of self-awareness.
This is where this invitation begins:
Pause for a minute.
Without a task.
Without a goal.
Without a purpose.
A few weeks ago, we launched the
“Hold Yourself Out” Challenge on Instagram and YouTube. An invitation to interrupt everyday actions together for sixty seconds and simply be present.
The Meditas team shows itself for a minute without cuts, without explanation, without dramaturgy. Especially in the social media format, this simplicity suddenly becomes noticeable:
a minute without stimulus, without a story, without “content”.
At the beginning, this minute may actually be bo-ring.
And yet, something happens.
You stay.
With yourself.
In your own moment.
One minute.
No scrolling.
No talking.
No reacting.
No optimizing.
Silently drinking tea.
Looking at the landscape or the sky.
Closing your eyes.
Breathing deeply.
Being present.
A minute seems inconspicuous. And sometimes surprisingly long. Because when nothing distracts, when no task awaits, when no next step is required,
then you are left with your own experience:
Thoughts, body sensations, feelings, restlessness, stillness. Or simply nothing special.
A participant of the New Year’s Eve retreat put it this way:
When you endure yourself or a situation, a space in between arises.
What does this have to do with meditation?
Secular, intentionless meditation means being present without wanting to achieve anything. Not to become calmer, more successful, or “better”. Not to optimize or solve something.
But to encounter one’s own experience as it presents itself in the moment.
Meditation in this sense is not a method for self-improvement,
but a form of presence and self-responsibility.
The writer and journalist Rebecca Solnit described this attitude as follows:
“Leave the door open for the unknown, the door into the dark.”
— Rebecca Solnit, Hope in the Dark
“Dark” here stands for the open, the yet unnamed. For that space in which nothing is fixed and not everything has to be decided. Perhaps this is exactly the space meant when one speaks of “enduring” — a space in which one does not immediately answer, does not act immediately, but stays with what is currently showing itself. In the space in between.
