Meditation rarely comes easy to me. Too much of a busy, ruminating mind, often forcing the realizations or checking in with its experience. And through all this willing by the self, the mind often gets jammed up with agitation feeling worse than before the session started. How ironic.
I actually do better off the cushion at times. The simplicity of being with nature, listening to a beautiful piece of music, or conversing with a soulful person gets me closer to the stillness.
So why meditate? It seems to me there is always a deeper way to be. I know this intellectually, but I also intuit it. And this deeper place can move us in life affirming ways. It may lead to touching the hand of God, getting to know who I really AM, and finding the Ground that will allow me to traverse the storms of life.
Despite what I once believed, it has less to do with happiness. Although happiness may be its by-product. It seems we are here for more: to become saints would be the ultimate goal as the Catholics say. But before that, we should aim to be free.
I know an it can be contained by the mind, whereas Existence can never be. Not that all concepts are bad. They serve a useful purpose, and can often be a doorway of their own to spirit. “All schools, therefore, have to admit the important role that intellect plays in removing ignorance and causing the rise of knowledge of Self” (Deba Brata SenSharma).
I have practiced for many years in the Tibetan Buddhist path of Mahamudra/Dzogchen. Like much of Buddhist practice, it is very refined and systematic. For my persona, this can also make it a tad dry at times.
The teacher this weekend said maybe it may be better for me to feel my way into it like a mystic. Incidentally, the girlfriend is reading a book that makes the point to fall in love with meditation. She also added, maybe it's “enough with the technical path.” Maybe so.
All in all, I see meditation as not just a practice, but a posture toward life. The structures for practice are useful, but I am realizing the need to experiment with my own way of self in relation to Being. Without a magic bullet, all I can do is be curious and available.
In allowing for more of my absence, I am allowed to sense more presence. At least until I grab onto an intriguing thought, and get the mind in a jam once again. Over the weekend we explored those thought grabs, which often for me include seeking pleasure, survival concerns, and manipulating experience.
Then again, these are all spiritual seeker problems (in a context where there is no problem).
Back to that saintly goal; I feel it's quite a distance from this fallible self. My recent read adds to this, as I experience some heavy heart reading about a dying neurosurgeon reflecting on his challenges in supporting his patients through their own mortality. The doctor muses, “Those burdens are what make medicine holy and wholly impossible: in taking up another's cross, one must sometimes get crushed by the weight.”
This story, among many like it, moves and humbles me by how much love can do through these vessels we are given. My practice is a challenge, but it has far from crushed me. So I meditate, so I can animate this finite vessel with as much as the infinite will allow.
And in the process, fall in love with love.
Despite what I once believed, it has less to do with happiness. Although happiness may be its by-product. It seems we are here for more: to become saints would be the ultimate goal as the Catholics say. But before that, we should aim to be free.
I know an it can be contained by the mind, whereas Existence can never be. Not that all concepts are bad. They serve a useful purpose, and can often be a doorway of their own to spirit. “All schools, therefore, have to admit the important role that intellect plays in removing ignorance and causing the rise of knowledge of Self” (Deba Brata SenSharma).
I have practiced for many years in the Tibetan Buddhist path of Mahamudra/Dzogchen. Like much of Buddhist practice, it is very refined and systematic. For my persona, this can also make it a tad dry at times.
The teacher this weekend said maybe it may be better for me to feel my way into it like a mystic. Incidentally, the girlfriend is reading a book that makes the point to fall in love with meditation. She also added, maybe it's “enough with the technical path.” Maybe so.
All in all, I see meditation as not just a practice, but a posture toward life. The structures for practice are useful, but I am realizing the need to experiment with my own way of self in relation to Being. Without a magic bullet, all I can do is be curious and available.
In allowing for more of my absence, I am allowed to sense more presence. At least until I grab onto an intriguing thought, and get the mind in a jam once again. Over the weekend we explored those thought grabs, which often for me include seeking pleasure, survival concerns, and manipulating experience.
Then again, these are all spiritual seeker problems (in a context where there is no problem).
Back to that saintly goal; I feel it's quite a distance from this fallible self. My recent read adds to this, as I experience some heavy heart reading about a dying neurosurgeon reflecting on his challenges in supporting his patients through their own mortality. The doctor muses, “Those burdens are what make medicine holy and wholly impossible: in taking up another's cross, one must sometimes get crushed by the weight.”
This story, among many like it, moves and humbles me by how much love can do through these vessels we are given. My practice is a challenge, but it has far from crushed me. So I meditate, so I can animate this finite vessel with as much as the infinite will allow.
And in the process, fall in love with love.