Another good reason to meditate especially if you're a child

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/10114132/Transcendental-Meditation-may-boost-student-grades.html

See this article from today's newspaper.  Mind you, meditating for academic results is only one reason for meditating, there are many many more so keep reading!

you can't mend the coffee grinder when you are meditating

Have you noticed how your mind does things when the thing isn't there?  Sometimes it seems useful, say when you are driving along and you replan your house/wardrobe/diary! but this habit of drifting into a future which doesn't exist follows you straight through the door of meditation and there you have to be determined to stay focussed on your practice and not try to mend the coffee grinder until later.

BK's best friends and best at discipline

Have you met the Brahma Kumaris, they are the best!  You may have seen BK centres in different cities, often called Inner Space.  They dress in white and they smile all the time.  You may wonder why they manage this and I can tell you the secret now.  They meditate, and they do the job properly, rising and meeting at 4.00 am every morning and then discussing the traditional teaching given through their founder Brahma Baba and all this before going to work!  Many of them give up all their worldly lives and fully participate in spreading the word that meditation and kindness are needed in the world today.  They get my highest marks for commitment and kindness.  I am more of the householder type of disciple and whilst my admiration for their self discipline is a source of inspiration, householders also traditionally have a really important place in the spiritual scheme of things.
Keep your eyes open for the Brahma Kumaris, you will know them by their qualities first and you will want them to be your best friends, they certainly are mine.

she used to meditate, who is she?

She used to meditate, or perhaps she found boring when life picked her up and said come on and live a bit! but a few years down the line she found it difficult to focus.  Recognise this anyone?  When I was young my mother said I couldn't be still for a minute and this girl is the same, full of get on and go and good fun to be with.  She asked if she could try again and 'come and join us from time to time;' of course we said 'yes.'  I'll tell you how she gets on.

feeling better and worse

Everyday dawns and the fact that I am the same person waking up fools me into thinking that everything is the same.  I don't notice the constantly changing world.  Oh no you may say, we know that the years roll by, we see that dates change, seasons change, children grow, but the fact is, we don't notice that every single thing is in a process of change ALL the time.  Meeting friends and relatives, they seem to be the same even if their hair grows grey or they change shape and it isn't until we suddenly face the fact that we are losing someone that we realise the changing.  Having been caught up totally in a busy changing weekend, people, events, conversations and exchange of smiles, kisses, opinions, I didn't think that I might never see such and such a person again.  It is only recognising the changing and the inevitability of losing everything and everyone we think are there for ever, that we perhaps recognise that their preciousness lies in their being.  And we get a flash of realisation that we should treasure them for that reason.

Mozart Thursday, Rodriguez Friday Searching for Sugarman

Mozart on Thursday evening with supper in a garden with 60 gentle meditative souls, Rodriguez, (Searching for Sugarman) on Friday at the Apollo, Hammersmith with 2000+others, not apparently meditative.  But maybe not.

Have you seen Searching for Sugarman?  What a wonderful and inspirational film about surprise success.  A musician from Detroit makes an album, it fails to sell but a copy goes to South Africa and becomes the iconic sound for the young South African anti apartheid movement.  He knows nothing, goes back to work on a building site and 20+ years later, some music journalist teams up with a record company executive and they find him.  They bring him to South Africa where he plays to sell out audiences, he is bigger than Elvis! and in between these visits he simply goes back to his house in Detroit and work and gives his money to family and friends.  The journalists make a film about the story and now the whole world knows about him, knows his songs and is at his feet.

He is 70 and tired tired tired but his performance last night had an intimacy and kindness to it which somehow quietened the audience who were waiting to go wild for him.  At the end, he collapsed with sheer effort but it was hard to know who might have seen that.  I wondered if Mozart would have applauded; I think he might.  Both lives are thought-provoking and each show in some way, that the energy flowing through the music is extra-ordinary and that the lives of the musicians are part of the requirement of the music to find expression.

Setting a goal

I am awakening to the idea that any effort made in a lifetime needs to have a goal otherwise it tends to go to waste, so in the smallest sense, if your goal is just to have a cup of tea, you have to assemble the bits and boil a kettle.  Therefore meditation needs a goal and that might vary between people; it could be just to become calmer or it could be an aid in conquering an addiction, or it could be for freedom and enlightenment.  Reading what the Dalai Lama says in regard to meditation, Buddhist tradition includes a systematic meditation/reflection on the virtues and on detachment and also developing compassion for all beings as goals along the way to enlightenment.  To accept these requirements means that we understand that we are still prone to non virtue and attachment and more so, we are not in a state of universal love for all beings.  Fortunately he says that we need to be patient and proceed with one thing at a time.  Simple meditation as a practice of clearing the mind of whatever impedes the focus of meditation, is a general practice which will help all these other goals.
Onward Ho!