This blog is adapted from a daily talk given at reflectivemeditation.org/dailyonline. Sessions run 9–10am PT and include a short talk, silent meditation, and group reflection.
Experience at the center
Sue Hamilton writes that as human beings, experience is both what we most share and the only thing we directly have access to. Early Buddhist teachings emphasize this, and Reflective Meditation does too. We keep returning to your experience—during the sit, in the afterglow, in reflection, and in speaking it aloud. Not everyone finds this focus appealing. Some want solutions rather than stories. Yet we remain curious: How are you with that? How do you move through what’s present—depression, aversion, resistance?
What do we mean by “experience”?
Borrowing from Nelly’s glossary: when the senses (and the mind) make contact—seeing, hearing, tasting, touching, smelling, thinking—experience develops. You may like what you contact, dislike it, or not care; reactions unfold accordingly. Contact is a big field: thoughts, memories, imaginations, speculations, ideas are included. This is one reason we avoid debating someone’s experience. Instead, we ask: How is it arising? How is it conditioned? How might it become more trustworthy?
Contact and reactivity
Where there’s contact, reactions usually follow. Another glossary entry, “Reactivity,” names the signs—pounding heart, tight breath, heat, the impulsive words we wish back. Many teachings aim to eliminate reactivity and call that liberation. We take a different tack: be curious about what you react to—something really matters there. Rather than editing reactions out, we sit with them, reflect on them, and speak about them.
Freedom within, not from
The freedom we cultivate isn’t “freedom from reaction,” as if we could guarantee calm on demand. It’s freedom within reacting—more room to notice, relate, and respond while something is flaring. Sometimes that room opens later, not during the event. The experience doesn’t end when the bell rings; it keeps unfolding. Trust builds as we see that space will return—often unpredictably—if we keep practicing.
A familiar reaction
“I don’t want to.” It surfaces for some of us like clockwork—on steep hills, in hard conversations, at the edge of change. It can feel like the opposite of freedom. The practice encourages a second look: How am I reacting to my reaction? Even if curiosity arrives late, it still loosens the knot.
Begin as you are
We don’t have to wait until we’re more patient, the world is more decent, or we’re in the right mood. We don’t need to be fully healed or perfectly mindful. We begin with things as they are—resistance included—and let experience teach.
Ritual of Reflection
If you’d like, take a few breaths and recall a recent reaction—large or small. Without fixing it, sense what mattered so much there. Notice whether a little more room appears as you reflect.
