Meditation for Thursday 8th December 2022
I hope you will forgive me for repeating a story I first shared with you in early 2020.
The story comes from Jonathan Sacks who for many years was the Chief Rabbi of Britain and the Commonwealth and a well-known author and broadcaster with the BBC.
A young chemist had been working for some time at developing a new bonding agent, a glue. Eventually the work was complete. He tried it out. It did not stick. What is the use of a glue that does not stick? It was a failure. Time waster, he thought, effort spent in vain. So, he went back to the laboratory to try again. Ninety-nine out of a one hundred people would have given up.
The young chemist was the one in one hundred who thought differently. Instead of deciding his work was a failure, he asked the question, “What if it is a success? What if I have discovered a solution then the only thing to do is to find the problem.” He refused to give up. He kept asking himself, “What’s the use of a glue that doesn’t stick?”
Eventually he found it and it became a huge commercial success. I use it all the time. The non-sticking glue is used for notepaper you can attach and detach at will. That is how the ‘Post-It Note’ was born. (Celebrating Life-Jonathan Sacks, Pub: Bloomsbury, 2000.)
In meditation it is important we persevere even when we believe that our efforts are fruitless. Although we may not find what we thought we might from meditation we will eventually discover that meditation can turn our life upside down. Naturally in a good way.
And now let us sit up with our back perfectly straight, our hands comfortable but not clasping, our eyes shut gently or half open in a soft gaze and our determination to remain in the present moment
Meditation
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