Meditation for Thursday 16th March 2023
(Today’s reflection is based on material from “The Path of Meditation” by John Main. Pub: Crossroads 1984.)
- Meditation is a way of coming to our centre, the foundation of our being, and remaining there-still, silent, attentive.
- Meditation is in essence a way of learning to become awake, fully alive and yet still.
- It is in the stillness of meditation that leads us forward to that state of wakefulness and the sense of being completely alive that helps us to be in harmony with yourself and, gradually, in harmony with the whole of creation.
A point in mathematics has position but no magnitude; it has no size.
It has its place and that is all it has.
What we have to do is arrive at the central point of our own being.
In meditation we find our point, our position in the cosmos.
Coming to that centre, that point is like adjusting the aperture of a camera. When we have reduced our self to that one-pointedness and when we are still, the light shines into us, into our hearts
To tread this path you do not need any special characteristics or special talents except the ordinary talent of knowing that we must go beyond self-importance and self-centredness. We must root our self not in self-love but in universal love.
The light coming in that aperture is like a long exposure, the camera must be completely still and we must learn to be still.
Be patient….
A Buddhist monk from Vietnam was asked a question from a Westerner. ‘Would you tell us what method of meditation you teach to novices who come to your monastery?’ His reply was ‘for the first three years the novices makes the tea for the senior monks.’
In our society we have an acute sense of urgency. Meditation requires patience.
MEDITATION
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