This is an extraordinary time in the history of the world, certainly in my lifetime. During this lockdown, Stage 4, one path we can lead us to more anxiety about missing out on living our ‘normal’ life and the other path to embracing opportunity for developing new interests and doing things differently. Having said that I’m reminded of Woody Allen who said, “one path leads to despair the other to extinction. Let us pray,” says Woody, “that we have the wisdom to choose correctly.”
Reflection
Richard Sullivan, a Professor of Creative Writing at Notre Dame University in the 1960s and a writer himself, taught his classes that the two most important physical dimensions of the writing profession were time and space. “Write every single day at the same time and in the very same place”, he said,” weather you have anything to say or not, go there and sit and do nothing, if necessary , until the very act of sitting there at your writer’s time in your writer’s place releases the writing energy in you and begins to affect you automatically.” In the same way as meditation practitioners it’s good to develop a routine that takes us to the same place at the same time each day. And on those days when the head is fuzzy and we feel meditation is beyond us at least by being in our meditation place our intention remains and we benefit greatly from the exercise.
I often remind myself that I meditate not just for myself but for the benefit of others. When I honour this obligation I’m acknowledging our interconnection with all beings. “In India,” Ram Dass writes, “when people meet and part they often say, ‘Namaste,’ which means: I honour the place within you where if you are in that place in you and I am in that place in me, there is only one of us…’Namaste.’
As we meditate tonight we can enfold others conscious that our meditation can help to bring peace and harmony, calm and joy to an otherwise fractured world.
oOo
And now let us meditate in the fashion that we are accustomed to.
You might like to dedicate your meditation to those that are affected by Covid-19 virus either through illness, bereavement or unemployment. And as I said earlier we meditate not just for ourselves but also for the benefit of others.
(Meditate for up to 20 minutes.)
oOo
As we go about our daily activities I hope that by being in the present, by remaining mindful we will find joy in the midst of this trial. Peter