Recently I did an all night meditation from midnight to 6am. In fact, I do this with my peers on a semi-regular basis (about once/month). This is part of our practice as core students of Evolutionary Enlightenment. There’s no rule that says we have to do this, but in our efforts to develop depth and confidence in the already free dimension of who we are, we have found it to be an immensely powerful and unifying practice. Why?
There are a lot of reasons why its powerful to meditate for long periods of time. For example, I meditate two hours every morning. For most people, that’s a lot. But when it comes to really letting go of everything and leaving the world behind it’s not very long at all. Whereas sitting overnight, in the quiet hours when consciousness is not cluttered with the melee of the work day, provides you a space to really abandon all the ambitions and frustrations of the day and genuinely let go.
Usually, during previous all night meditations, I would sit for an hour at a time getting up every 60 minutes or so to stretch, but recently I tried something different. At the encouragement of my teacher, Andrew Cohen, I abandoned the clock and tried to see how long I could meditate without stopping. I sat for four hours straight.
This blew my mind. I didn’t know I could do that but once I got going, it was like a different part of me kicked into gear and all that part of me wanted to do was see how long I could just sit there letting go again and again and again. Everytime I thought about time, I just let it go and experienced the existential release and relief that always accompanies genuine letting go. And so I just kept doing that…letting go of the need to know how much time had passed.
The more I did this, the more I dropped into a deeper and deeper space. I became incredibly still inside so that I didn’t want to move on the outside. As I dropped deeper and deeper, I could feel my awareness expanding and releasing from all the compulsive habits of mind I’m usually pursuing day in and day out. And as I did that, the perspective of freedom and limitlessness grew stronger and more powerful so that I didn’t want anything but to sit there and let go, knowing that there was nowhere to go in the universe that would make me happier than where I was at that moment.
We need to time to let go like this, to really release the world and all our concerns from our clutches. Unless you really make the time to do this type of long practice, it’s incredibly difficult to break through the powerful torrent of mind and time and world that we inhabit constantly and enter into the deeper dimensions of our beings.
Doing this with others is a sacred experience. Silently sailing through the cosmos on our cushions without a care and silently communing with the totality of existence is perhaps one of the most intimate things we can do together, even as we have no relationship to each other whatsoever!
Way to go, that’s so awesome and inspiring! Thanks for sharing this.
“I meditate two hours every morning. For most people, that’s a lot. But when it comes to really letting go of everything and leaving the world behind it’s not very long at all.”
Yep, I agree.
awesome – glad you are here at Foxhollow so we can plumb the depths together!
I recently sat for 2 hours, my longest time ever. I still move around and check the clock. I found this article very inspiring and I am looking forward to longer, deeper and better sessions. Thanks a lot.
Thanks Fernando. 2 hours is a great accomplishment! Good luck with your practice and let me know how it goes!
Thank you for sharing your experience&experiment. Yes – it is quite thrilling to see that we can not only develop curiousity in this area, but as well make all of that part of a communicative process.
seems as if this is a new way to contemplate and dwell about “things”.
Dear Axel, I couldn’t agree more. I think speaking about and discussing these questions is a powerful way to fuel intention and take the whole practice and experience deeper. It’s easy for meditation to become a fixed thing, an object even, and I find that really pursuing it actively like this opens new doorways to depth and discovery.
Morgan, it’s so helpful to hear of your experience.
I always wondered how you all meditated through the night!
Your experience and commitment adds fuel to our own travels to enlightenment.
I look forward to pushing into a 2 hour meditation!
Beautiful Morgan!
I have also done several all nighters lately and in the past, and I can say without a doubt at this point that meditation ONLY gets more interesting and poignant with time. Isn’t that something so mysterious!
Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about meditation as accessing pure motive itself, and how this is my connection to the best and highest dimension of life – something I can totally trust. How often can we say we know something so profound as that?
I love that this community is so unabashedly pro-meditation. But ironically, when you have spent substantial amounts of time letting go, you realize it isn’t even about the “practice” per se or the actual act of sitting down for a certain amount of time, but getting to know this pure, untainted, only good and holy space that is always here. Funny isn’t it?
Meg
Dear Morgan,
I will give a try!
Thank you for sharing
Amen! It is funny like you say…the deeper you get into it, the practice seeps through everything and it really does become more about developing your relationship to this pure unlimited no-place more than it is about just practicing meditation. It seems that interest transcends practice, and that practice is all about deepening our interest in zero across the board, not just in practice. I think that has to be the case to discover the transformative potential of aligning more and more with this limitlessness. That’s my experience anyways.
Beatiful, Morgan, thank you very much for sharing this
This was a very inspiring read Morgan. The strength of your intention to be free is palpable. I aspire to cultivate as dedicated a meditation practice as you so beautifully articulated. Off to the cushion!
Thanks for your inspiring blog post Morgan! I have started to do monthly 6 hour meditations and it’s very different to my usual 1 hour every morning. Yes, it does require time to truly explore this simple yet incredibly meaningful practice. To make the commitment to do it is in itself a concrete way of putting spirit first in your life. I have sat for 2 hours straight so far. There is always further to go – through effort or through ease!
Tangible transmission of the depth of Meditation in your description, Morgan. Thanks for sharing not only your experience but the transmission of it. The echoes and vibrations of genuinely letting go reverberate in time, beyond the cushion.
Thanks Morgan…what an inspiration! Perhaps there be a way to option in longer segments of meditation during the 24hr meditation marathon?
That’s a very interesting potential Linda – I would love that! I will ask Laura about it to see if we can work in some longer sessions!
Hi ya,
Nice to hear that you can meditate for 4 long hours in a stretch. I am also trying to meditate for long hours. But, After trying for 1 and half month, Now I am able to sit 1 hour in a stretch comfortably. One thing I want to know from you is, in which asana you are sitting in meditation? could you please let me know the procedure and the asana? Because, I am sitting in padmasana and after 1 hour I am feeling pain in my left knee. So, I have to come out of the asana to strech my body. Could you please share how to overcome this problem? Thank you very much in advance.
Hi Niranjan, I am sitting in half lotus. I think for extended periods of time that full lotus, as you describe, will be rough on those knees!
Thank you for your reply. One more question, Do you use any kinda support under your knees or your back side?
Hi. I do sit on a zafu yes. In fact I sit on two usually and that helps to keep my spine very straight. I don’t use any support for my knees.
I am so glad that you said that Pastor Robert .I love to meditate I love to just close my eyes and lisetn to my surroundings and just think of my GOD There is no one more precious than him Always loving my Father Jesus Christ.