Years ago my spiritual teacher said to me " practice, practice, practice"! I took this to heart. And I practiced and still do. At the beginning it was hellish; it seemed impossible for my mind to settle even for a few seconds. Now these twenty plus years later, meditation is simply part of my life. I no longer resist it, or question it. I simply sit every day. Sometimes my mind is busy, sometimes it is not. The important thing is to practice. Spiritual transformation involves our efforts and grace. It seems that grace loves our efforts. It is natural to encounter resistance, difficulty along the way. One of the reasons we come together to practice together is that there is a kind of renewing of commitment when we meet as a group.
So this week I encourage you to explore your relationship to your daily practice. If you don't have a daily practice explore the barriers, the obstacles. Are there real ones? Is there resistance? What kind of resistance? Are there worries? Don't use this as an opportunity to beat up on yourself. Sometimes it takes a long time for the desire to practice to arise.
If you do have a daily practice what is your relationship to your daily sitting. Do you put it off? Do you dive in? Do you judge your meditations? What kinds of resistance, distractions are you encountering? Just take a look at how it is going. Maybe you need to back off a bit, maybe you need to sit longer.
One thing I learned is that doing a daily practice because I should never worked for very long. The superego is not the effort that is needed.
Maybe you practice presence while you do yoga, read sacred texts, brush your teeth, fight with your loved ones ( that's a tough one!), watch moves (even tougher one!).... Remember we can practice becoming present at any moment. It is a kind of waking up and remembering to be present right where you are.
No comments:
Post a Comment