It is the easiest thing in the world to take medicine when you need it; when you are feeling poorly and your appetite for everything else has gone. Then you are so grateful for the way back to health that you swallow antibiotics, anti-emetics, anti-inflammatories, anti this and anti that. The same thing with meditation, you are very grateful for it but until the habit is firmly established, you can easily fall away from a twice daily practice. The other thing is that once you have missed one meditation for some very good reason; a visiting aunt or an urgent call or you have been somewhere you just don't seem to be able to make the move to a meditation seat, then it is much harder to get back to it and much harder to do the whole half hour. This has given me cause for thought especially as I think what other things in my life I seldom miss. A morning cup of tea or lunch for instance, a riveting programme on the telly or the radio (not the Archers, you can catch up on that!) and the irresistible call of cheerful voices in another room just asking to be joined with. The pull of meditation is there but you have to develop a taste for it above all other temptations because reasonably one day the other things won't have the same hold over you and you will want to be able to naturally move into the space which meditation provides. The speakers at St Martin-in-the-Fields on November 23rd are there to show how it is possible to establish and unshakeable practice of meditation. You can listen directly by coming to St Martin in Trafalgar Square, London or you can tune in via the www.justthisday.org website by clicking on the sparkly globe. It will be worth it I can promise you.
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