Category: Meditation

Practicing meditation again!

11/15/2020

If through the years you’ve read my posts, you’ll know that I keep having a go at meditation. The accurate phrase is ‘to practice meditation’, the idea being that it is not something to be achieved but to be present to, to practice.  And so, from time to time I practice meditation, and in doing so, new experiences, insights, and awarenesses appear. I say appear, because that is the closest word I can come up with to describe what happens.

    Here is this morning appearance as I was practicing. I set out to let go of all thoughts and be in God’s presence, and so I went to that time-honored practice of returning to the breath.  I noticed, however, that I wasn’t letting go of my thoughts because the following thought kept coming up: “You are not feeling your breath, you are thinking about it.” And then, a miracle happened. I stopped thinking, well at least I ‘think’ that’s what happened. For a while I wasn’t thinking, I was practicing meditation. At least that’s what I thought had happened after I started thinking again. The miracle was a feeling of peace and oneness with the Holy.

   Don’t be concerned if you don’t understand what I have just written. Perhaps if you don’t think about it, you’ll know what I’ve said, perhaps you’ll intuit my point, my blah, blah, blah.

Meditation: Just show up!

9/5/2020

Once again, I have to push back on watching so much news. Once again, I return to spiritual practices that bring me hope. It’s pretty simple: when I let go of a bad habit, I have time to bring back a good one.

Meditation: I’m terrible at it, but that’s not the point. The rules are simple:
1.“Show up,” is the first. I smile at this one because what it is telling me is that if I don’t meditate I won’t’ meditate!
2. Set a timer and don’t open my eyes until it rings. If I follow that rule, there is no way I’ll be checking the clock. 15 minutes gives me success.
3. Sit up straight. Ah, less chance of falling asleep.
4. When a thought comes up, let it go and pay attention to my breathing.

15 minute meditation

3/31/2019

Sometimes I can be rigid, but thankfully I can also be flexible. Today I decided that I don’t have to meditate for twenty minutes, just because ‘they’ say that’s the optimal length. ‘They’ also say that if you just have a minute, meditate for a minute. I have a friend who meditates for an hour.
This morning I set my timer for fifteen minutes instead of twenty, and that felt just about right. As I meditated I didn’t dwell on the time, nor did I sneak a look to see how many minutes I had left. I was more into the meditation itself, and was surprised when the timer went off.
Clearly there is no optimal length; try what works for you.

See where your heart takes you~

2/28/2019

I’m tired of talking and thinking about prayer. When I say that I mean, stop talking and thinking prayer. Let go of different meditations and ways that others have written about. Do what my heart tells me to do when I shut my eyes, take a few deep breaths, and settle into God’s presence. That’s all I’m going to say about it. See where your heart takes you.

My morning reading

2/2/2019

My morning reading includes a daily section from Around the Year with Emmet Fox (1952). Fox was so wise, so forward thinking. I could quote him every day, and never run out.
     Fox affirms my belief and coming to know that God has called me to pray for people. I continue to reread and ponder the following. I encourage you to do so, as well.

    Prayer does change things. Let us be perfectly clear about this. Prayer does change things. Many people say that prayer is a good thing because it gives us courage and fortitude for meeting our troubles. They say that prayer often gets a man out of difficulty simply by giving him self-confidence which he would otherwise have lacked. Of course, this is not spiritual Truth. The fact is that seeing the Presence of God where the trouble seems to be does not merely give us courage to meet the trouble; it changes the trouble into harmony.
    Prayer heals the body by changing the tissues, and it does this by first changing the mind which forms them. Prayer brings man his salvation by changing his nature fundamentally; not by making the best of him as he can be. The body, the environment, the universe itself, is plastic to our thought; and it always reflects our sincere belief. Emmet Fox (1886-1951)

Listening to Bede Griffiths

3/7/2018

Bede Griffiths 1906-1996

    "Each man must discover the Center in himself, this Ground of his being, this Law of his life. It is hidden in the depths of every soul, waiting to be discovered. It is the treasure hidden in a field, the pearl of great price. It is the one thing which is necessary, which can satisfy all our desires and answer all our needs…it is the original Paradise from which we have all come."
Bede Griffiths, Return to the Center

     I have posted this by Bede Griffiths before and undoubtedly I will do so again. It is the reading for March 7 in “The Mystic Vision: Daily Encounters with the Divine,” compiled by Andrew Harvey and Anne Baring.
     It is a hopeful messages. God is within me, at the center of my being, there for me to discover. Griffiths writes as a Christian, but he affirms that the Christ message is for all people.
     As we know, it takes commitment, perseverance, and risk to find any treasure, and this is true of the Christ treasure as well. We must seek it with all our mind, body, and spirit, and be willing to pay the great price of letting go of the demands of self so we can find our Soul, and thus rest in the Ground of our Being, which I call God.
     The search for physical treasure takes physical activity, whereas the quest for the hidden treasure in our soul takes stillness. Meditation is one of the essential physical activities that can lead us to this treasure, to this original Paradise. I doubt that we can find it without it.

Breath or sacred word?

10/18/2017

    Tonight I’m leading a session on Centering Prayer at my church. I’m no expert, but I show up daily to be in God’s presence, and that’s all that’s required. Show up and sit for twenty minutes with a clear mind. When a thought shows up, let it go, and return to be in God’s presence.
     Fr. Thomas Keating, who in the 1980s articulated contemporary Christian meditation known as Centering Prayer, suggests we chose a sacred word or symbol (such as Om, love, peace) to return to when a thought comes into mind.. “The primary function of the sacred word is not to push thoughts away or to thin them out. It is rather to express our intention to love God, to be in God’s presence, and to submit to the Spirit’s action during the time of prayer.”
      I find a sacred word too distracting. Like many other meditation practices, I choose to return to my breath, which is always with me. My breath is in my body, whereas a word is in my mind where my thoughts are. And thoughts are the very thing I’m trying to let go of during this time.
        Sacred word, breath, choose the one that eases you back to faith and love toward God.

Meditating anew~

10/12/2017

     I’m back to meditation/contemplative prayer. Oh, I’ve been ‘doing it’ most days, but more or less fitting it in when I can. Even though I know that a consistent meditation practice is an essential component to leading a spiritual life, it seems to be one of the most difficult to keep going. Why is that? Because I forget because I am too much in my head and not enough in my heart! As simple as that.
    It’s a challenge to follow Jesus, even when I know that whatever he said or did came from his heart. Meditation opens my heart; thinking can’t do it. Why wouldn’t I want to meditate day and night?
   In his beautiful book, Looking at Mindfulness: Twenty-five Ways to Live in the Moment Through Art, Christophe Andre tells us: “Meditation is not a time to hope or aim for anything, but simply to open up to what exists, to be present to receive. No more than that.” Heart, not head.
    When I meditate I am amazed at the holy answers I receive to questions I never asked, much less imagined.

Love and coffee

5/16/2017

    I've posted this on my cottage by the sea blog. Of course you readers know that this morning meditation time is my prayer time. If we pray in the morning, we will pray throughout the day. A good way to live.
    Silence, solitude and simplicity are hard to catch in this world, especially when the first offerings of the day come from technology, politics, and the lure of money, or when my morning starts through the lens of computer, newspaper and TV. Friends tell me they love to start their day with a cup of coffee and the newspaper. I get the coffee part, but the newspaper part—not a good idea, at least for me. I find it almost impossible to avoid reading the headlines as I walk up the driveway with the newspaper, or commenting on them as I hand the paper, along with coffee, to my husband, who, needless to say, he is a coffee/newspaper man. Our one reprieve is that we start the morning mentioning what we are grateful for—which is often coffee and newspaper.
     While my husband continues with coffee and newspaper, I go to the Angel Room and once again commit to meditating for twenty minutes before continuing my morning routine of silence, solitude, simplicity, and, coffee. Starting with meditation is a daily challenge, but when I give myself this time with the Holy, the lure of technology, politics and money fades into the background, with less chance of taking over during the day.
     This centering time is important to me, not just personally, but for the planet. I believe this fragile, negative world we live in can only be turned around when the majority of its inhabitants feel, think and act positively, the essential ingredients for sending out love. Love and coffee.

Maybe I'll stay sick~

1/15/2015

Maybe I’ll stay sick. I have a cough and fever, which makes me feel extremely logy but not so awful that I feel dying won’t be so bad after all. All I want to do is rest with my eyes closed, which immediately brings me to meditation--feel the breath, in and out. My mind is still, and so I’m grateful for this gift of God’s presence.

I am aware that with severe illness pain, fear and anger can take over and push God away. So let me cherish this moment, learn from it and carry it forward to whatever life brings.