a little lesson from the dog

There was a squirrel caught in a trap this morning and when the dogs went past it, they changed from being two docile and friendly family pets to a couple of feral creatures.  We had to get hold of them and drag them away into the house.  As soon as they were out of eye and earshot of their prey, they returned to two docile and friendly family pets.  What I learned from this is that the emotion only belongs to the event, and if I were like Algie or Muffin (names of dogs) I would leave any emotion, positive or negative just where it belonged and not drag it like an old bone into meditation.

Grantchester conversation on Plato would have appealed to with Ruby Wax,

Meeting under the trees in Grantchester, Cambridge, a small group of us discuss Socrates' approach to death.  As I have just signed my will which states that I want my body to be cremated, this is rather appropriate. The actual sentence, with and I and the body separated by a verb is stating that the I and the body are different, (however, this doesn't make me want it to happen right now).  Socrates gently presses  the idea that life and death are just two sides of an opposite with a flux of states between them.  There are five of us looking at the possibility that the other world might be just as real as what seems so real about us now.  Everything though about the garden setting and the summer sounds made this world seem very attractive.
Plato's laying out of Socrates' argument move our ideas around so we begin to think about things differently.  In the Times today, there is an article about Ruby Wax and her intelligent use of the mind to change ideas which affect the state of her emotions.  I think she would think that Plato was an advocate of cognitive behavioural therapy and Socrates was what could now be called a facilitator.

How does this lead to meditation as a practice?  An idea to consider is that meditation is a sort of practice of death, it is a death of attachment to the passing ideas, a disbelief in them for just that part of each day.  Good luck with that one!

meditation and sleep

The reason sleep is blissful and meditation is meant to be blissful is because when you set yourself off to sleep, you consciously stop the aggravating thoughts which keep you awake.  At least I do, I just turn off the light and get into the sleep position, shut my eyes and heigh presto, sleep comes.  So, I had a little look at how this happens and I am pretty sure that I have programmed myself to stop thinking.  When I started meditating today, I watched carefully, and adopted the same conscious choice to not think that 'I do' when going to sleep, and it was good.  I noticed that as in deep sleep, there are no emotions running counter to the state of being and that was good too.

a longer line

There is a story of a mathematician who answered the question of how to make a line drawn on a board shorter, took the chalk and simply drew a longer line, making the original one look shorter.  Meditation is the longer line.  This morning, meditation allowed a large large inner space to become real, rather like the sky but with a feeling of great benevolence.  Of course, a few old thoughts and some new flitted across the space, but weren't captivating.  It may be a frivolous analogy but it is rather like being in a room with a lot of people who are all interesting, attractive and talking, but you are with your best friend, comfortably at home with them or consequently not attracted to the melée.  It is friendly and without any walls.  It is a larger space, a longer line, but extraordinarily familiar.

sunday, under the tree

Having failed to make it to formal meditation, I sat with the little girls under a tree.  First cuckoo cuckooing, little girls picking up fir cones, pigeons swooping and circling, last blossom blown off the trees, what a vast area of perception and how completely marvellous too.

sympathy for the busy

Having had 2 small children for the weekend, I totally remember what it was like trying to find time to meditate when my own children were small.  It isn't the fault of the children, it is just that a complete mechanical person gets up inside and becomes involved with the detail, whizzing round with a damp cloth after the marmite and toast crumbs and the dropped Cheerios.  But hey ho, I am determined to turn that off, let the cheerios shower onto the floor and march forward to stillness.  Of course, the other thing is that I could have got up even earlier than them.

abracadabra

I creep out to meditate in the summer house because Grace, aged 3 is staying and we usually meet early for Cheerios.  There I sit, eyes shut and just starting and a small voice outside calls my name.  Clearly I am not in deep meditation! because I know I have to respond, after all, its quite cold outside.  So, in she comes and asks me what I am doing.  Meditating I say, and she then asks me what that is.  I say, well, I just sit very still and close my eyes and say my magic word.  Oh, she says and then asks if she can join me.  We sit for a short time, both with our eyes shut, and I hear from my side of the summerhouse a small voice saying abracadabra!!  I find it hard to finish meditating after that so we go in for Cheerios and the day gets started.