Keeping it light

This is an ongoing series running through May to compliment the twice weekly meditation sessions that I will be hosting on YouTube (and are now archived on my YouTube page). If you have any questions, please contact me.

I have spoken during these May Meditation Nudges of the importance of just showing up, of sitting with our emotions regardless of what arises and the need for vulnerability. This might appear on the face of it as though meditation is rather an ordeal, especially when I speak about meditation being a marathon and not a sprint. It might seem that through embarking on meditation practice, you are setting yourself up for a long, hard, slog.

First, from my experience that is not so. For me meditation has not been a slog, but one of the greatest gifts that I have given myself.

Secondly, the importance here is in keeping a lightness in our practice. When emotions and difficult states of mind arise in practice, the instruction is to gently note the distraction and with no judgement, return to the object of meditation. How ever often there is distraction, we approach the thoughts with the same gentle equanimity.

With time, by being present in this way with what arises in the mind we develop a more intimate relationship with our emotions and with ourselves. The fear diminishes, fear of those emotions that we don’t know because we have chosen to avoid them. Through our meditation practice those emotions are no longer strangers. When someone else acts in a way that we react against because it is a reflection of an aspect of ourselves, we see that for what it is. Our awareness of ourselves creates a greater awareness of how we and the world around us is working. Meditation opens us up to who we are and to the world.

Gentleness, lightness, humour, all of these are what enable us to be with ourselves, to be with what arises in our mind in such a way that we can work with it. Being heavy is not going to solve the problems. We need a lightness of being in ourselves to have the openness to transform our heart.