ABOUT MEDITATION

I am a beginner. I have read books to try to understand. I have stared at trees. I asked others questions and never got an explanation that I could understand. I just kept hearing, Do it; it works. What I gather is that meditation is simply quieting the mind, stopping the thinking of the future or ruminating about the past. It is the silence. It is the noticing of the breath in and out of your nose, of the air or sun on your skin, of hearing the sounds or lack of sounds and not judging or evaluating. It is just noticing. It is the you behind the voice in your mind. Meditation even works if the you behind your voice keeps reminding you to be present and stop thinking.

Eckhart Tolle in A New Earth on page 267 writes, "Through the present moment, you have access to the power of life itself, that which has traditionally been called ‘God’." Later on page 269, he writes, "Your primary purpose is now to enable consciousness to flow into what you do." Thus our purpose in life is just to be present. In a recorded program with Oprah, Tolle asked his listeners to be fully aware when doing even mundane tasks. While walking up steps, just be aware of how it feels as your feet hit the ground. When brushing your teeth, just be aware of how the bristles feel on your gums. This awareness without thoughts intruding is meditating.

There is a lovely line in Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert on pages 131-132. She writes, "prayer is the act of talking to God, while meditation is the act of listening."

Why meditate? For those of us who have not owned Macintosh computers, we have had the experience of computer crashes or lockups. The only solution is to reboot. Meditation is like rebooting the brain. If you can play a sport better when you are in the zone, not relentlessly criticizing yourself, then you can be better at life in the zone, being present and in alignment with now and not being distracted by thoughts.

According to Wikipedia, "Meditation is a mental discipline by which one attempts to get beyond the reflexive, "thinking" mind into a deeper state of relaxation or awareness. Different meditative disciplines encompass a wide range of spiritual or psychophysical practices that may emphasize different goals from achievement of a higher state of consciousness, to greater focus, creativity or self-awareness, or simply a more relaxed and peaceful frame of mind."

Jon Kabat-Zinn leads a worthwhile talk on mindfullness at Google, recorded on YouTube.

QUESTIONS TO THINK ABOUT

How often do you stop to listen to the sound of your children’s laughter, of your spouse’s humming, of the wind in the trees, of the lap of water in a lake, to the silence? How often do you stop and be silent?

A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. - Albert Einstein