Meditation for Thursday 25th April 2024
“Meditation is a particular attitude to the things we experience in life, or way of relating to life, that holds the promise of both alleviating our suffering and making our lives rich and meaningful.”(1)
When meditating we are attuned to our moment-to-moment experience thus giving us a direct insight into how our minds create unnecessary anguish.
When our minds topple forward into worries meditation helps bring us back to the relative safety of the present moment. When our minds make envious or competitive comparisons our meditation helps us see that things are just symbols and no lasting victory is possible.
When our minds protest against the weather, against the heat or cold, meditation helps us notice that it is actually the protesting not the temperature itself that causes us distress. Even when illness or death visits us or our loved ones, meditation can help us understand and deal with the natural order.
By helping us observe exactly how we create our own distress, meditation teaches us how to let go of painful mental habits and replace them with more useful ones.
So to conclude we know that if we set aside regular times for meditation and compliment this with mindfulness practices we may end up actually feeling less pressured and better able to deal with obligations as our mind becomes clearer and our body less stressed.
Meditation
_____________________
- ‘Everyday Practices for Everyday Problems’, Ronald Siegel, Guilford Press N.Y. 2010
(Much of the above is based on writings from this book.)
Go to www.thecarmelitecentremelbourne.org for an up to date listing of programs on offer.