We Like To Think : wrestling with the meditation malarkey.
If you are anything like me you will have wandered and wondered for many a year about this meditation malarkey. Whether the 40 days in the wilderness of Jesus, Buddha, Mikao Usui and others; the portrayal of the isolationist life be it monk, or hermit, or billionaire; or simply in awe of those whose yoga or mantra practice spans the years of life and the hours of weeks.
I remain really happy for all individuals who have taken their Tai Chi or whatever process to a level of understanding and trust to significantly benefit their lives. Yet just as the word God can put off many from the benefit of community spiritual gathering, so too can over-facing offerings of long and complex practise as the meditative solution, put off the seeker of meditative calm and hope.
My experience began with finding and then developing the pause. The pause when I reply to someone. Not just via email. But face to face, in conversation. This began in an office working environment, one in which I was used to saying what I felt immediately and following that through almost regardless of whether it was right or not. Gradually fifteen years or so ago I began to realise that pausing was an improvement on answering. This was an awakening, an emergence.
Once I began to pause something arrived in my life. I couldn't and still can't really identify it. This is a new energy that was not present previously. This energy allowed different words to come out of my mouth than I expected. It allowed certain thoughts that I had probably always had to dissipate. At least that is how it felt at the time. Now I experience that as holding some thoughts in a place that I know is there somewhere , but I can't quite put my finger on it. The more I practised this pause ( yes you heard that right practise is essential ) the more this different energy began permeating my life.
Eventually a form of daily mantra arrived, for me in the form of words, movement and silence. There is no prescription for this, or indeed for anything in regards to the concept of meditation. Many in the West have tried to recapture silence as meditation, the contemplative meditation of Richard Rohr springs to mind . It matters not where from, or how, but simply that it is. You may then find yourself open to some religious sounding language and not get all freaked out about it.
There is no miracle greater than meditation for transforming the human being (adaptation from Osho). There you have the real point of looking for and finding a pause. Once the wrestling begins this pause can achieve the status of silence. Stopping for a period of silence, at any time, introduces energetic forces we have perhaps become hard wired to resist. For many this is the process of prayer and a personalised divine space. For me, and many others, it is an acknowledgment of our source, a recognition of our smallness in the interconnectedness of All That Is. Actually, it doesn't matter what it is. Just be willing to try.
This allows then gratitude. It refreshes your relationships. It rekindles your personal and physical energy.
This meditation malarkey is a malarkey worth persevering with.
Good luck and may your moon shine on things you have never previously seen.
Links to videos :
We like to think : https://youtu.be/FBOfTYsvVFo
Awaken : https://youtu.be/7PvZhtCnDsc
A Prayer lies bound in me : https://youtu.be/-MKzNBLuiVU
