Why do I Meditate?
Meditation has many benefits but this is about what draws me daily.
(Image: open front door revealing living room and balcony of our Tobago family home.)
Do you meditate? If you do, a desire to do so regularly may make more sense. If not, it may be a bit baffled. You may wonder why people do it. What is the appeal to sitting in silence and allowing the mind to clear?
Grounded in Being:
The theologian Paul Tillich calls God the Ground of Being or Being Itself. So it makes sense that by meditating, reaching within to the Source of Life, grounds one in that Being, or centres one, helping each day to begin in a kind of peace and clarity that is both beautiful and an excellent start to whatever needs to happen.
Touching Reality:
Meditation is a coming to terms with Reality on the only terms one can - exactly as it is. That means some mornings one feels ill, or in emotional distress, grief-stricken, depressed, in the throes of early love… whatever one’s situation. So it may be relatively peaceful, but it doesn’t always ‘feel’ great or easy. What it does feel like is what is really happening at that time, without an excessive identification or getting lost in the feelings.
“Tá brón orm. Sadness is on me.” –Pádraig Ó Tuama
“In Irish when you talk about an emotion, you don’t say, ‘I am sad.’ You’d say, ‘Sadness is on me – Ta’ Bron Orm.’ I love that because there’s an implication of not identifying yourself with the emotion fully. I am not sad, it’s just that sadness is on me for a while. Something else will be on me another time, and that’s a good thing to recognize.” -P.O. Tuama quoted in https://hopeinc.com/feelings-are-passing-by/
An Opportunity to Listen: when I first came to faith, I thought of prayer as talking to God. It can be, in part, of course. But I soon had to come to terms with the fact that it is easier to talk at God than to God, if one is too attached to a particular outcome. Also, as with any real conversation, there must be give and take, speaking and listening. It took me quite a while to figure out what ‘listening’ looked like, but it has become clear that the openness of meditation, letting go the tyranny and constant chatter of thoughts in favour of a greater stillness, provides the space needed to hear what Spirit may be saying at that time.
A Bracket at Day’s End Too: meditation at the beginning of the day has always felt easier and more natural to me than at the end. But I have come to understand this resistance needs to be worked with, as committing the whole of the day, with all the parts that were struggle and sub optimal things that are less comfortable and pleasant to look at, is an important way to help me come to terms with “the all of it”, as, again, the Irish say simply and eloquently.
Without surprise, I noticed that just as I was coming to terms with this, Ian Mobsby that day posted this excellent reflection on the ancient practice of Examen. For some reason, lately, it is as if Ian is reading my mind. :)
Held by God: ultimately, over the years, it has become increasingly evident that there is not one moment in the day when I am not held by God. So while I need to have these focused, dedicated times of meditation, more and more I also find myself “centering down” throughout my day: as I do my daily 7,000 (on average) steps, while waiting in line, driving, in church, before singing, at work, in a conversation with a loved one or a client (especially when it is challenging), while allowing the tropical ocean to hold me up…
I no longer set a timer for my personal meditations, though of course I attend or lead timed meditations weekly. It is interesting to observe that they naturally vary between about 20 and 45 minutes in length, depending on a number of factors, a key one being my level of fatigue.
After nearly four decades practising meditation on and off, I keep learning so much through the practice, about myself, my mind, and my relationship with God.