Meditation: Day 1

Today I sat in my basement classroom and meditated. Among the mildew and trash and before the onslaught of kids, I set a timer on a meditation app and had 5 minutes of the best nothing I’ve had in a long time. Through the app, I chose the sound of a campfire and an ending note on a gong. Thoughts sprang to mind and I wrote them down. I’m not sure how I feel about that. Uncuffing myself from my thoughts is a major reason I want to and need to meditate. But they didn’t feel forced or tortured; they felt more like the basic machinery of the system. I searched for nothing profound and I found nothing profound. And that’s fine by me at 7:15 in the morning.

In my first post on meditation, I made the link between it and prayer. The connection struck me while I was doing it and again later in the day. But for me, there’s a key difference. When I used to pray, it felt like work. I had a desired end and a supposed means to get to that end. Give me a goal and I use what I have to get there. But today meditation didn’t feel like work. I had no expectations except to slow myself down so that I can pay attention to my breathing. It took me a while to accept the idea that I needed to pay attention to an automatic bodily function and that paying attention to it could have any real effect. I came across an article saying 90% of people don’t breathe correctly. I can’t find that article now, but a basic internet search shows that idea is not new or isolated. What ultimately convinced me was when I paid attention to my breathing, I felt my normally racing mind slow to a near-halt. Time and the gyrations on of humans on a spinning globe are things I have no control over. I can’t slow time. I can’t ask life to pause itself so I can catch up. But that’s what it feels like is happening when you stop yourself and slow yourself enough to pay attention to the rhythms of your body.

One things for sure, the benefits of meditating before the onslaught of the day do not defend you against what that day has in store for you. I wished it worked like that. That my morning thoughts could he hardened like steel. That I could toughen my skin into leather. No such luck. I’m glad I didn’t go into mediating thinking that. I saved myself some disappointment. I didn’t have a chance to meditate when I needed to later in the day, but I did take a few deep breaths and in that space I was able to agree with myself that it wasn’t anything too difficult to handle.

A lot goes into having a good day. Mostly luck, I think. But meditation is shaping up to be one of my basic tools in my psych-survival kit.