Presentation and inquiry with John Duncan, July 23, 2026

“Meditation without Effort”

We gathered at the Esquimault Gorge Park pavilion. An introduction to the topic, Meditation without Effort, was given. The emphasis was to create a greater understanding and inquiry into Krishnamurti’s assertion that true meditation is the spirit of religion, where one gathers all one’s energy to move from one dimension to another.

This is not to imply effort to make this movement; rather, it is a dimensional shift that takes place where the gathering of energy, which refers to attention, listening, observation—activities which do not require effort, they are activities of repose—are undertaken, and in so doing the dimensional shift occurs as such. It is wholeness vs. fragmentation that distinguishes the two dimensions.

To put it simply, fragmentation maintains the dimension of time, the me, and obscures the greater dimension of timelessness, the not me. The dimension created by psychological time, with its inherent conflict and fear, has been created by us and therefore it is our responsibility to stop creating it, to end it. As simple and logical an undertaking as this may seem, there are many challenges that keep this from happening. This is visible in oneself and by observing the whole of human history and the world today.

So, what are we to do? What is the *doing* of meditation beyond the description of what is happening regarding dimensional shifts? The tricky part is that there is no doer of meditation. Any action from within the dimension we have created as the me is only a furtherance of the me. The me cannot by its own effort remove the me.

It was noted that this was the Buddha’s key insight that led to his break from asceticism, which he realized was effort, and towards a period of attention that culminated in a transformation—the dimensional shift—that he was no longer attempting to control. His first words after the shift, “This cannot be taught.” This is not an effort.

Meditation without effort. Maximum non-effort. The stillness comes with the increased understanding that any action I make only extends the existence of the dimension of time. In that stillness, that listening, is the existence of something referred to as silence, which expands into the space made by listening. And soon one is listening to silence, rather than hearing the noise. The listening and silence has naturally quieted the noise. It is the silence that ends noise, not more noise.

The shift in dimensions is not one of time or in time; therefore, Krishnamurti’s assertion of Truth being a pathless land is key. This is not a progression of a me on a path, finally getting somewhere, finally arriving, achieving a fixed goal. No, this is a shift in dimensions where knowledge from the dimension of time has no validity. This is a trans-formation, a revolution in consciousness.

And the fact that the me is not a factor or does not have an existence in this dimension is one of the many challenges we mentioned earlier that make this a not-so-common event. Living with death, of an imaginary me, is the line in the sand. For all of us.

 

• John Duncan