Meditation and knowing people

She said how surprising it was to find that the people you thought you knew something about were not what you thought.  And there is an interesting thing, the people you think you know about are in your own head! not in their own space.  If you let them go free, they are there in their glory, in their own right and you might just see something or find something you never suspected was there, you might find they are even more lovely than you had imagined!  Certainly, if you had thought they were horrid, that gives them a chance to be newly seen and both you and they are free of the past and may have quite changed.
Meditation helps because consciously we put down our old thinking, we try to clear the mind and to hear a new sound, a mantra which will produce a different condition.  It is a bit simplistic to equate a mantra to a hoover but it does clean and order the substance of the mind and heart.
She and I meditate each morning on this study fortnight on the balcony of our room.  We had before this known one another through talking and exchanging stories and facts about our lives.  To meditate together is to let the space between us be the place of exchange.  We would both say that we have found new things about one another every day I think.  Here we all are at the outer wall of the Temenos of Apollo at Delphi.  Do you know who's who!

Missing People?

Charioteer through the crowd

This Granny was very touched to be told that her grandson missed her because

The Charioteer alone

"Well she lets us pick raspberries around the garden……. and blackberries - when they're done. And she takes us to the park. And of course she's lovely, so I don't really need to say that. And I like her big smile, when she comes in a room and she gives a cheer and does this [opens arms]. That's all. I just really miss her". 
This is the one who asked if I would die first and because I love him and all other grandchildren dearly it seemed an idea to look at what missing might mean.  
So, first Sebastian, when you think about missing someone, you search in your memory for the person and they pop up with, in our case, raspberries and blackberries and our big greetings for one another.  And our heart responds to the memory and we might think yippee we're going to see one another again soon or oh dear, when will we meet again.  But the precious thing is the person we have in the memory is what is  so dear to us because of the way they make us feel.  
Every time I think that you like me and every time you think that I like you, we feel good.  That is important.   It also shows us that where we are is not just in our bodies or in particular places, or when we are awake or in England or in Dubai, Singapore or Devon; it shows that our real existence is there all the time and everywhere we want it to be.
So, I hope you are sleeping well because where I am it is earlier than where you are, and of course I am looking forward to seeing you because you are dear to me and seeing you reminds me of that.  
Here are wonderful pictures of something which reminds us of how beautiful mankind is.  He is the charioteer who was made hundreds of years ago, then was buried, and then found again.  You see him in the distance and then close up. Daddy will remember him I think.

Meditation and Delphi

Is there someone there?

Meditation rescues us from both the bad dreams but also the delicious feeling of slipping into more sleep.  Today, instead of climbing away from chaotic dream, I was just slipping back into the bliss of sleep when the alarm went off.  Slow obedience to it but obedience nonetheless and then out onto the quiet early morning balcony .  It is just 6.00 am and nothing has quite woken, no people, no cicadas, no birds, no motor bikes.  This is better bliss than the possible sleep scenario.  I am alert when the being rests between the night and the day, aware of the waking up world but totally detached.  This is worth breaking away from sleep for. Today we go to the Temple site at Delphi today and try the feel of the site so revered in antiquity for its potency.  Will the Gods still be there?

Finding the still point

In studying through Plato, the comparative virtue of the life of pleasure and the life of reason, what begins to show itself is the unsatisfactory nature of two opposites opposing.  It might seem simple to go for one rather than the other but for sure, that means polarity, it means that if you are the aesthete, the danger would be that you became so high minded and disapproving of the pleasure seekers that you would find yourself consumed by criticism in your solitude.  You might not of course but it is a danger!  And if you go for pleasure as the best and highest, you might find that your attitude to the holy and high minded was dismissive.  You would be polarised.  Plato tries to expand our thinking so that we can find the steady point and it turns out that this point, while being within us, is really a universal.  What do I mean by that? Well, like water is everywhere but is contained by the sea or the river or the bottle on your desk, stillness is universal and can be found everywhere if you tune in.
You know that I am going to say that tuning in is meditation don't you!  Well, meditation gives you the chance to tune in, and tuning in in a place which is quiet and where others are tuning in too, does seem a bit easier.

pleasure and pain so close

Waking in the quite hot room from a restless dreamy sleep again, (is it eating late, drinking too much wine or the excitement of playing cards and chatting?) showering, dressing and going outside on to the balcony to meditate in the early morning, the slight change in temperature from warmer to cooler brings great pleasure and rest.  Settling down in this cool and turning to meditation, the mind gradually moves away from sleepiness and random thoughts of things to come and things that have been and settles to the rhythm of the mantra. Slowly the mind settles itself into a quieter state, ideas may flicker across and some catch the attention but there is a proper rest, deeper and cleaner than the troubled sleep and very welcome.

Bad nights, Meditation calms

Into your dreams tips all the rubbish of your world, all jumbled up and with no solutions.  Every person you ever knew or liked turns up at YOUR invitation to stay in a tiny tiny cottage with very few beds!! And some others you have never met but you somehow feel you have a duty of care for them.  And then after a bad night's sleep they all leave blaming you.  During this process, you wake up a few times wondering if it is morning, but no, so back to sleep or back to that awful muddle!  What a relief when morning comes and you clamber out of the dream and the cottage and go out onto the balcony and look out at  the untroubled sky and landscape and meditate soothing away all the imaginings of the dotty mind.

Meditation and Mental Health

Blogging away lightly about meditation might make it seem an ordinary everyday thing but really it is the ordinary everyday thing which makes each day extraordinary and more importantly it evens out our mental conditions.

Image of Christ from Monastery Church an icon of faith

Everybody knows that holidays are good, they stop the machinery of our lives and give us a chance to change the programming, to stop the mechanical charging about achieving this and that.  They recharge our batteries.  In the longer term, we need more of this stopping to keep us healthy, we need to clear out the accrued mental and emotional rubbish regularly and meditation is just the discipline for this.  Everything else is short term but meditation is the real deal, it provides us with space.  It is like cleaning and sorting out a room on a daily basis, allowing the day to start freshly.  It puts us in touch with our deepest possibilities, our object of faith if we want that.  It allows the angels or the gods or whatever powers are believed to come in and help us as individuals.  It helps us to move forward cleanly and it allows us to put our doubts and concerns down which is the greatest possible help to our mental state.
Take it one step further too, if our mental state is clear, that will surely help others we meet, for we are much more likely to be able to hear them and respond to their needs cleanly.