When there is a lot going on in your house or in your head, meditation may be the last thing you WANT to do. You may want to sort out the washing, the huge pile of ironing, you might be making a very important deal or there might be a most exciting thing you want to join in. It is so difficult to leave a cheery gathering even if no-one is going to notice you slipping off for half an hour. And then if you start, your head stuff may want to come to. If a problem slips in to your mind, it can be magnified a hundred times and played and replayed. Of course, there are peaceful times when you easily leave things behind and meditation is a delight. But it isn't there to always give delight, it is a bit like any relationship, you just have to work at it and when the worry or the enticing thought of holidays or wonderful creative possibilities comes in, you have to park them over and over again and make sure you are preferring the space where these things don't belong. In fact, the effort is really in cooking them up but it seems the other way round, the effort to be still is a non effort, it is just a stopping, stopping, stopping, again and again and again. Plus, it is only for 30 minutes twice a day, that leaves lots of time for everything else.
If I told you that your 30 minutes wasn't just making you better but was possibly creating a feeling for quiet for others to use when they needed it, when they were ill or were anxious or felt sad, wouldn't that be a spur to carry on?
As a householder meditator with plenty to keep my hands and thoughts busy, I am grateful to people who give their life to creating the sort of space we all need through their meditation. The speakers in November at ST Martin-in-the-Fields are marvellous in this respect. Father Laurence Freeman, Neville Hodgkinson, Lama Gelongma Zangmo and Ian Mason have committed their lives and their time to make the way of meditation available to as many people as want it and even if you don't feel you do, or you don't feel you can, their meditation along with so many others who do the same thing, creates a good place for those in need. Come to St Martin in the Fields or tune in via the live stream on November 23rd and find out how helpful this practice is and how it can transcend the pressing nature of worldly involvement
meditation
ReplyDeleteLove what you're doing here guys, keep it up!..