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Mirror-Like Awareness: Burgs on Deep Meditation Without Effort

Burgs & The Art of Meditation
Burgs & The Art of Meditation
Aug 15, 2021
8 min de lectura
Ver · 7

Close your eyes and notice where your body meets the floor. Burgs starts there, not with a thought or an image, but with weight. In his 2021 video "GO BEYOND. deep state meditation," the first instruction is to let the body become "resting dead weight upon the floor," and the rest of the practice grows out of that single act of settling. Over roughly twenty minutes of guidance, he moves attention from the hands to the chest to the whole body, and he keeps returning to one distinction: the awareness that feels the body is already in the body. You do not have to carry it there. This article walks through the ideas behind that practice, why the mirror image runs through it, and where the method can slip into something else.

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What does it mean to stop directing attention from the head?

Most of us learn to meditate as a kind of aiming. We pick a point, point the mind at it, and hold it there. Burgs takes issue with that posture in the opening minutes. "When I say relax back into your body it's not a command you give yourself from your mind," he says (0:13). Instead, you bring awareness into the body and feel from within it how relaxed or tense it is.

The hands example makes the point concrete. When he asks you to feel your hands resting in your lap, he adds that "the awareness that feels them is already in the hands" (2:48 in the transcript's timing, around 2:50 in the video). The instruction is not to send a beam of focus down from the head. He describes the mistake directly: "you're not directing intention from your head like some illuminating spotlight that's trying to concentrate upon your hands" (3:35). A spotlight is a useful image because it captures what the practice is trying to release. A spotlight is aimed, it has a source, and it throws everything else into shadow. Burgs is asking for something closer to the light already present in the room.

For a meditator who has spent years concentrating, this can feel like losing a tool. The reframing is that awareness is not something you manufacture. It is the ground in which the body, breath and room appear. The practice becomes less about strength and more about noticing what is already happening without adding to it.

Why is awareness compared to a mirror?

The central image of the talk arrives around the five-minute mark. "Awareness is in a state of rest. Like a mirror. It is not disturbed by that which it reflects" (4:54). A mirror does not grip the things it shows. A face passes across it, a candle flickers, and the surface stays what it is. Burgs asks you to bring that quality to your own experience: "Leave everything as it is, just rest within awareness" (8:36).

The image does a lot of work. The mind, he notes, "is constantly flitting around" (4:39). Thoughts, sensations and stories are all reflections. The effort of most meditation is to chase or reject them. The mirror metaphor suggests a different relationship: let the reflections come and go, and do not confuse them with the surface. He returns to this with a warning against narrative drift: "Try to not drift off into your story. Stay in the nakedness of the experience" (14:06).

What is striking is how concrete the instruction stays. You are not asked to imagine a mirror or visualize a lake. You are asked to check, moment by moment, whether you are adding something: "stop adding your ideas, adding your story, adding your commentary and adding your reaction" (10:19). The mirror is a way of naming a quality you can test directly, not a symbol to believe in.

How do you settle the heart without forcing it?

Around the nine-minute mark, Burgs shifts from the body to the heart. He asks you to feel "the area of your heart slightly to the left of centre of your chest" (9:16), and again to recognise "where it is disturbed or unsettled" and leave it to settle "naturally like water" (9:40). The water image is quieter than the mirror, but it works in the same direction. Still water reflects accurately. Agitated water distorts.

He ties the two together in a line that is worth slowing down for: "your heart settles like water and becomes mirror-like. And starts to reflect perfectly and undistortedly the experience you were actually having" (10:36). The aim is not a calm heart staged for the meditation. It is an honest one. Burgs also says plainly that disturbance will still arise: "try to be undisturbed even when you feel disturbance within you" (11:10). Settling, in this account, does not mean the absence of agitation. It means you stop stirring it.

There is a practical implication here for anyone who has tried to force a peaceful state. Force is itself a form of gripping. Burgs repeatedly names "the gripping quality of your mind" as the thing to release, and asks you to let it go "grasping at the experience of watching the experience" (12:12). The grip can be subtle: it can be the effort to watch yourself watching.

What is the trance trap, and how do you avoid it?

The most useful warning in the talk comes near the sixteen-minute mark. Burgs describes what happens when attention is not anchored to the experience itself: "you will drop into a calm but peaceful trance and you will lose your sense of presence" (15:46). The state feels pleasant. It is also, in his framing, a departure from the presence the practice is trying to reveal.

He offers a diagnostic. If you cannot sustain attention on the experience, the body is still physically present in the room, and the room is still still, "whether you recognise it or not" (17:23). In other words, the basics of presence are already there. You do not need to produce a special state to confirm them. "These aspects are innate within the experience," he says. "They're not produced within your mind. You do not need your mind to know them. You only need awareness" (17:34).

For a practitioner, the trance trap is worth naming because it looks like success. The breath is slow, the thoughts quiet, the body heavy. Burgs asks you to check whether presence is still there in that quiet. If it has faded, the practice is to resettle attention on the experience rather than to enjoy the drift. The instruction is "settle your attention within the experience," and he adds that this is done "without adding with the mind, without taking with the mind" (18:22).

Why does the practice end with "May all beings be happy"?

The last few minutes shift from settling to offering. "Feel your whole body as one," Burgs says, and then "feel from your heart with gentleness" (19:27). The phrase "May all beings be happy and peaceful" follows, first for all beings, then for oneself, then repeated three times for all beings (20:01 through the close).

The turn is deliberate. The method has been about releasing the grip of the mind, and the closing verses point that released attention outward. A heart that has stopped distorting its own reflections is, by the logic of the talk, a heart that can offer something without strain. The blessing is not an add-on to the practice. It is what the settled heart does when nothing is being added to it.

Burgs does not explain this transition at length, and the video does not say how long a listener should sit with it. That openness fits the rest of the talk. He gives you a direction and a set of checks, then leaves the experience to you.

Where to go from here

If you want to try this method, begin small. Sit with your eyes closed and let your body rest on the floor or a cushion. Feel the hands, then the heart, without sending a spotlight from the head. When you notice a story forming, do not argue with it. Notice that you are adding, and let the addition go. If you slide into a pleasant blur, bring attention back to the physical experience of the room and the body in it. And when you are ready, end with the same line Burgs uses: "May all beings be happy."

The full guided practice runs about twenty minutes in the video, though the listing title says twenty and the running time is closer to twenty-two. It is worth watching once with the transcript in view, then sitting with the instructions on your own. Many of the most important lines are short: "awareness is in a state of rest," "there is nothing to add," "you only need awareness." Those are the ones to return to between sessions.

Burgs also points to the wider body of his teaching through his channel and website, Burgs & The Art of Meditation, where his retreats, workshops and inspirational talks are offered. If you want to continue, look there for his longer guidance, and let the mirror be your reference point.

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Transcript

[0:13] So when I say relax back into your body

[0:18] it's not

[0:18] a command you give yourself from your mind. You bring your

[0:24] awareness into the body to feel through your body, the degree to

[0:28] which you are relaxed or not.

[0:47] recognising

[0:50] where there is a gripping or contracting or tensing quality

[0:54] in your body,

[0:56] just try to relax into it and encourage your body

[1:02] to yield

[1:03] and settle

[1:33] working towards coming to a state of just resting dead

[1:37] weight upon the floor.

[1:55] Feel that quality of settling naturally within you.

[2:16] The awareness that knows the body is already in the body.

[2:25] It's not something

[2:27] you generate in your mind and direct from your head down into

[2:32] your body.

[2:48] When I say feel your hands resting in your lap,

[2:50] the awareness that feels them is already in the hands.

[2:59] All you need to do is bring attention

[3:16] you're not directing intention from your head

[3:35] like some illuminating spotlight that's trying to concentrate

[3:39] upon your hands.

[3:47] Feel your hands resting in your lap.

[3:55] Feel the degree to which they are tense or relaxed.

[4:31] Bring you attention to a state of rest.

[4:39] The mind is constantly flitting around.

[4:54] awareness is in a state of rest

[4:59] Like a mirror

[5:01] It is not disturbed by that which it reflects

[5:18] bring it

[5:21] to a total state of rest

[6:24] Letting your body settle into its own space.

[6:34] with a sense of physical presence emerges gradually

[6:52] as you withdraw from the abstract state of your mind into

[6:58] the genuine state with mountain like presence.

[7:11] Relax into it

[7:38] let go all the gripping quality

[7:43] of your mind.

[7:45] Relax your mind

[8:36] Leave everything as it is

[8:43] just rest within awareness

[8:50] leave the sense of your physical presence

[8:55] to just appear within awareness as if within a mirror

[9:04] there is nothing to add.

[9:16] Relax your heart.

[9:20] Feel the area of your heart slightly to the left of centre

[9:25] of your chest.

[9:29] Again, recognising

[9:33] where it is disturbed or unsettled

[9:40] and leaving it to settle naturally

[9:43] like water

[10:19] You stop adding to your experience

[10:24] with your mind

[10:26] stop adding your ideas adding your story adding your

[10:31] commentary and adding your reaction

[10:36] your heart settles like water and becomes mirror-like.

[10:42] And starts to reflect perfectly and undistortedly

[10:49] the experience you were actually having

[11:10] try to be undisturbed

[11:15] even when you feel disturbance within you

[11:22] settle naturally

[12:12] let go the gripping quality of your mind

[12:17] grasping at the experience

[12:20] of watching the experience

[12:28] leave everything alone.

[12:44] Let your mind relax and disengage.

[12:53] Rest in awareness itself

[13:02] mirror-like quality of awareness.

[13:11] Leave everything

[13:14] to come and go.

[13:59] Try to not drift off into your story.

[14:06] Stay in the nakedness of the experience.

[14:13] The stillness of the room

[14:16] your presence within

[14:19] your heart settling

[14:23] as you stop disturbing yourself

[14:26] with your mind.

[14:56] Meditate with the attitude of letting go

[15:01] into the experience itself.

[15:13] There is nothing to add.

[15:46] If you don't

[15:48] anchor your attention

[15:52] to the experience itself

[15:56] without grasping

[15:58] settle your attention within the experience

[16:00] and as you let go the gripping of your mind you will drop into

[16:06] a calm but peaceful

[16:10] trance

[16:13] and you will lose your sense of presence.

[16:34] It is a sign that you are letting go the gripping of your

[16:37] mind

[16:47] you will not remain present.

[16:51] If you cannot sustain your attention

[16:54] upon the experience itself,

[17:09] your body is physically

[17:12] present within the space you are in.

[17:16] You are settled and relaxed.

[17:23] Your heart is calm and settled and the room around you is still

[17:29] whether you recognise it or not.

[17:34] These aspects are innate within the experience they're not

[17:38] produced within your mind you do not need your mind to know them.

[17:42] You only need awareness

[18:22] we settle our attention upon the quality of the experience itself

[18:28] as it is naturally

[18:31] and rest with it

[18:34] without adding with the mind without taking with the mind.

[18:45] The sense of spontaneous presence emerges

[18:51] within the mirror like quality of awareness.

[19:27] Feel your whole body as one.

[19:31] And relax through your whole body

[19:38] and feel from your heart with gentleness.

[20:01] May all beings be happy and peaceful.

[20:10] May I be happy and peaceful.

[20:59] May all beings be happy.

[21:10] May all beings be happy.

[21:16] May all beings be happy.

Burgs & The Art of Meditation
ArtistBurgs & The Art of Meditation

Burgs founded The Art of Meditation after more than 25 years of leading retreats, and his path was shaped by healing his own brain after a traumatic injury through meditation and c…

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Preguntas Frecuentes

In this guided practice, Burgs asks you to rest awareness the way a mirror rests, reflecting sensations, thoughts and sounds without gripping or adding a story to them. He describes awareness as "not disturbed by that which it reflects," and the practice is to let experience come and go while staying in the bare experience itself.
Burgs explicitly warns against directing intention from the head "like some illuminating spotlight." Instead of aiming attention at a point, you bring awareness into the body and let it feel from within, recognising that the awareness that knows the body is already in the body.
He describes it as a state you can drop into when attention is not anchored to the experience itself. Burgs says this trance leads you to lose your sense of presence, so he advises settling your attention back within the experience rather than enjoying the drift.
Burgs asks you to feel the area of the heart slightly to the left of centre of the chest, notice where it feels disturbed, and let it settle naturally like water. He says the heart then becomes mirror-like and reflects the experience undistortedly, without you stirring it with ideas, story or reaction.
After settling into presence, Burgs moves to a loving-kindness phrase, first for all beings, then for oneself, and repeats it for all beings. The talk frames the offering as what a settled heart does naturally once it stops adding to its own experience.
The instructions are simple and physical, starting with feeling the body resting on the floor and the hands in the lap, which makes them accessible. Burgs does not describe prior experience as necessary, though the practice asks for sustained, non-grasping attention that may take time to develop.

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