Take time to meditate
This was really fun…for the first day; then I just became bored.
Listening to the contents of my mind is acutely dull – I mean, I’ve heard it
all before. Worse I see my faults so clearly and I always seem to want to ‘get’
somewhere rather than be ‘here now’. Dull and
pathetic it seems! No wonder I dislike it - but in truth my aversion stems back
to my youth.
The ‘new age’ meditation of my past was usually
characterised by visualisation which for me became another thing to be attached
to, fail at and feel bad about. In many of these spiritual groups, the sharing
of guided visual meditation experiences often deteriorated in to a contest of
who had the most profound insight, who could best visualise their ideal life and
who could reach the ‘highest’ insight and hang out with the guides. To me, even
back then, it smacked of all manner of grasping and yearning that needed to be
addressed in real life in the moment, rather than an hour a week in ‘group’. On
top of that, for all of my visualisation effort, most desires remained unfulfilled
and so meditation deepened the abyss I was trying to cover with ‘love and light’
rather than healed it – just like affirmation it seemed.
If you want to really sabotage your spiritual growth and
polarise your own inner wisdom, just compare your inner unfolding to that of another,
either in superiority or inferiority – both are equally damaging. If you are a
beginner to meditation, you need to find a teacher who understands this and
does not value or validate one experience over another. I prefer to do my guided
meditations alone, with an IPod in nature so I can feel my body and environment
as well. The guidance is focussed around energy work and never about the
manifestation of a desired object or event. Why would I meditate to bring in further
attachment? I meditate to get clear, to link in to the Global Grid, the OM vibration
of my heart and try to make room for more light. There is no moment or nothing I
could identify however, as proof of it actually working. This week I have come
to understand that it is the practice
that is the key, not the search for outcomes amid inconsistent effort. I have
massive commitment issues so it is quite a realisation for me and more than a
little intimidating.
So I have absolutely conceded that meditation is a critical
aspect of spiritual practice and one that I definitely need to develop further,
way beyond the weekly focus for this blog. Up until now, I have justified my
reluctance to hold a daily meditation practice because I believe, in some ways,
I that am always meditating since I am always mindful of seeking the highest
awareness in my day to day life. This does not mean that I always embody it,
far from it in fact, but I am nearly always looking for it, even when I’m wallowing
in density and judgement. Yet, in the limited genuine practice I do manage each
week in yoga, I am hopeless at staying on track as my mind runs wild and I
entertain all sorts of tangents. It is clear that I need to go deeper and rework
my relationship to meditation, transform it, heal it and make it an ally.
So I am going to learn to meditate all over again, starting
fresh with a brand new practice. I want to genuinely still the mind, honour the
silence, become empty and sit in allowance rather than grasping for what ‘should’
be or what I want. I’ve signed up for an 8 week “Calm abiding meditation”
course, also known as Shamatha where I will learn single pointed meditation. I
will do so under the guidance of a Buddhist Monk who, of course, embodies stillness
and non-attachment as a way of life.
With such a teacher at least I know I won’t have to worry about feeling
superior…I just hope I can stay clear of feeling inferior too!
I’m not divining an affirmation this week, instead I am
going to write an account of the first meditation class that I will begin next
Tuesday. Before then, I have a long weekend on the Gold Coast and time with my
gorgeous kids for school holidays, so I should be primed after that and ready
for some stillness.
Until then, have a great week.
Namaste
Sally
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