Here and now meditation

Today I came across a page on the internet entitled "Here and now Meditation". Below is one paragraph from it:

In order to meditate and make our mind quiet, it is important for us to accept our life as it exists in the present moment. No matter how boring, banal, stressful , sad or colorless our present life is; at any given moment, it is all that we have with us. So accept your life as it is and remind yourself that you exists in the present moment. The aim of this step is to focus your whole attention on the present moment. This initial step act as a launching pad for the 'here and now' meditation as the entire attention of the meditator get focused on the present moment. So: Just be aware of the fact that you exist here and now !

I recommend that you click through and read the rest of the article. Here's one sentence I particularly like: "The main aim of this meditation is to break the habit of a mechanical life which most of us are living." Any practice that can help us stay in the present moment is all to the good.

Friday cat blogging!

Photo from Wikimedia Commons

Sitting with the world

Here is a very profound meditation instruction:

Take a seat ...and just sit. .... Relax. Don't try to do anything at all. Don't try to make anything come, don't try to make anything go leave. Let everything do its own work, chart its own course. As you sit, just sit with the world, with whatever is there, all of the arisings and passings away in your mind, body, and environment. As you notice sights and sounds, thoughts and feelings, memories and anticipations, relax into them. Relax your mind and body. Actively do nothing. Make no efforts. Just sit, just be, at least for now.
...
The mentality is this. There is nowhere that you need to go, nothing that you need to achieve, no one that you need to be....

-- Jundo Cohen

This is a very powerful antidote to the all too frequent obsession with "getting it right" in meditation.

I found it right here.

The best kind of knowing

I found this somewhere yesterday:

At the center of your being
you have the answer;
you know who you are
and you know what you want.

-- Lao Tzu

Of course, the question then is how to "find" that center of our being. You know what I'm going to say! We need to meditate consistently and also patiently. And never give up. Never, never give up!

Wednesday life form blogging

Photo from Wikimedia Commons

Something about distractions

Just came across this in a simple meditation instruction and I really like it!

If you become lost in thoughts, the moment you realize you have been lost in thoughts, you are no longer lost.

-- Kim Eng

That's a very good point, isn't it?

On the light side

Carolyn Loomis sent me this!

Try this as a mediative support

Remembering the Departed

Photo from Wikimedia Commons

Today is All Saints Day in the Christian liturgical calendar and tomorrow will be All Souls. Together they are the dates for the "Day of the Dead" celebrations in Mexico - a celebration that is now spreading all over the word. And it is a truly healthy observance, to my mind.

Whatever your religious or non-religious convictions, it is important to make friends with the reality of death because it is something that happens to all of us.

It seems appropriate, therefore, to share with you this wonderful poem - a classic:

Because I could not stop for Death,
He kindly stopped for me;
The carriage held but just ourselves
And Immortality.

We slowly drove, he knew no haste,
And I had put away
My labour, and my leisure too,
For his civility.

We passed the school where children played
At wrestling in a ring;
We passed the fields of gazing grain,
We passed the setting sun.

We paused before a house that seemed
A swelling of the ground;
The roof was scarcely visible,
The cornice but a mound.

Since then 'tis centuries; but each
Feels shorter than the day
I first surmised the horses' heads
Were toward eternity.

-- Emily Dickinson

May you remember your blessed dead today with joy and reverence.

By the way, I had the enormous privilege many years ago of attending The Belle of Amherst (a one woman play about Emily Dickinson) at the Kennedy Center starring the amazing Julie Harris. Just the memory of that performance stands my hair on end.