Meditation. It really isn’t what you think. I talk it up to everyone, and people share that they can’t do it for one reason or another.  I get that! I feel resistance to sitting down to meditate, just like anyone else. But, what I want to share with you is this: Meditation is not what you think. It isn’t the thoughts in your head that can go on unceasingly. Brains think, that’s what they do, just like lungs breathe. The good news is, we are not our brain or our thoughts. We are something way more interesting. We are the consciousness that knows and observes that we are thinking. That means we get to choose if we take off with a thought or if we stay present and simply observe it. Meditation quite simply is sitting in that field of conscious awareness and noticing. That’s it. All of it. Sit. There may be bliss, or enlightenment or just a pain in your side.  As Dr. Seuss might say: Sit on a chair or sit on a floor. Sit on a couch or sit on a pouch.  Sit on the grass or under a tree. Sit here or there. It doesn’t matter at all. All that matters is that you sit tall.

The real benefits, over time, encourage us to carry on. We feel happier, better, and calmer.  Last week my meditations were wonderful! This week I am fidgety and distracted. But I am hanging in there. A teacher once said that the only way to fail at meditation is if we don’t sit. Sharon Salzburg says, few of us have the ability or means to change the world, but we can affect the three feet around us. Meditation helps with that. So we sit. What comes to my mind is a quote from JFK about going to the moon:

“We do these things, not becausethey are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept…”

The truth is that sitting and doing nothing can be very difficult for humans, like trying to get to the moon.  If we can commit to a meditation practice we could bring peace and calm to the three feet around us.  That could change the world.

Let me know if you want support with your practice or if you have a meditation story to share. The meditation circle at HCEM will be starting back up in the fall. I hope you can join us.

Namaste.

Hillary