Formless practice - permission to play

I’m lying on my back, feet in the air, moving in ways that make much sense to the impulse I’m following, yet could be considered nonsense from a logical adult perspective. Words come out—images, fragments, nonsense. I’m not performing. I’m not trying to be clever. I’m following whatever wants to emerge, trusting that the answer to what I need is already here.

This is formless meditation practice, a very open Social Meditation practice.

The only rule: there are no rules. Except a start time. And an end time. Within that container, anything goes. Sounds like Fight Club, right?¹ Well, there is another rule: keep your clothes on.

When doing this practice I started to experience a sense of inhabiting child-like play—trusting impulses as they arise, responding to what others say or do, improvising without needing to caretake or perform. The space holds everyone’s experience: some quiet, some joyful, all fluid. It felt like remembering something.

This raised a question: are we already in the formless when we’re children? And when we learn the forms—names, rules, the right way to do things—do we forget how to play? To make sense of the unknowable in the bold quest to advance our careers and university educations?

I came across developmental psychologist Alison Gopnik’s work, which helped me think about this. She describes infant consciousness as lantern—diffuse awareness that spills light everywhere, taking in everything at once.² Adults, by contrast, operate in spotlight mode: focused, narrow, task-oriented attention. We learn to filter out everything except what’s immediately useful. Gopnik describes what it’s like to be a baby: “like being in love in Paris for the first time after you’ve had three double espressos.”

Children arrive in lantern mode. Before language, before names. A chair isn’t “a chair” yet—it’s texture, weight, something to climb. A pile of sticks can become a bridge, a battle, a ritual to make sacred space. Then we teach them form: this is called X, this is how Y works, this is the right way to do Z. Schools train us to explain and substantiate. The prefrontal cortex develops.³ The spotlight sharpens. The lantern dims.

Form makes the world manageable. It can also close doors.

In Zen, beginner’s mind points to something similar—perception before labels. Perhaps this is the space formless practice helps us access: come back to the basic qualities, and play with them. Say out loud the automatic arising thoughts, the felt sense perception, the action impulse to draw or stand up with your back to others.

Formless practice inverts the childhood journey. Children move from formlessness to form—lantern dimming to spotlight, learning rules, names, categories. Formless practice is for adults to unlearn—to let the spotlight soften, the lantern glow again. Or another way to think of it: to remember what it was to look at a tree and see beyond the word we were given for it.

The time boundary holds us. And within that holding, we return to the lantern. And usually, lots of fun.

Want to try formless practice? I facilitate sessions with We Practice Together, a group of peer facilitators and practitioners exploring Social Meditation. Check the link for upcoming live sessions.