Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Meditation/Spiritual Connection

Question
Hi Jay,



I've been trying off and on for years to get a meditation practice started, and I don't think it's ever lasted for more than a week.  My reason for learning meditation is not just for stress management; it's to rebuild a connection to the Source.  Call it what you will - the soul, the universe, the Divine, the Creator, God, the Higher Self, the Formless - that's what I want to get in touch with and live my life through.  But I think part of the problem is that I'm unsure of what meditation will really lead to and whether or not it's worth all the trouble of trying to still this wild monkey mind.  What kinds of changes have you noticed in yourself over the years that you've been meditating?  Do you feel more inner stillness, more Presence, more peace of mind?  I apologize if this is a personal question; I just need to hear some encouragement from someone who's had a fair amount of meditation experience.  I've worked with a lot of the Eckhart Tolle material in order to be more present from moment to moment, but I think I need more and I'm hoping that meditation can help lead me to the deeper, more joyful and peaceful experience of life that I'm looking for.



Thank you so much for your time.


Answer
Hi, Tina.



Yes, I do feel more Presence (with a capital P) and an absence of many of the deep seated concerns of early years.  I find that meditative time, especially extended time such as in a weeklong retreat, allows a great healing of the confusions and anxieties, the sense of separation, that beset the nervous system, the body/mind.  In fact, extended meditation reveals the root of such anxieties so that they no longer accumulate so much in our daily living.



I can understand how in daily meditation it may not feel like much more than a temporary respite from the usual craziness.  You might start wondering then if you are doing it wrong.  But I think you might find more access to the Presence that you know is here if you can attend a longer retreat.



If someone takes up a specific practice that involves concentrating on things, repeating things, trying to hold certain states of mind, this is not the same as simple Presence and may not allow the simple revealing of the concerns in open space.  Meditative presence is simple - it is just allowing anything that is here to be revealed, without knowing what to do with it, the knower itself being revealed as it comes up.



I said it is simple but it is also true that it is not so easy to stay with this.  Over and over again reaction comes up and takes hold and sweeps the body/mind with it.  But then it stops at some point and  the simple presence is visible, palpable again.



In daily sitting just to be with this very simply without expecting great changes.  A moment of simple presence IS a great change, isn't it?  It is radically different from the usual reactive frenzy of the body/mind.  So just letting the presence be when it is here, letting it take root deeply into whatever we are, without knowing.  It is very ordinary and yet not usual at all.  It is radically ordinary!  Ordinary not in the sense of routine but in the sense of simple, here, down to earth, alive in a simple but living way.



I go to 7 day retreats at least twice a year at the Springwater Center in upstate NY with Toni Packer, who works in the way I'm talking about.



 http://www.springwatercenter.org



We've also had 4 day retreats at my place in New Mexico the last couple Decembers.



I hope this addresses some of your concerns.  I may not have expressed things very well so please let me know if you'd like to clarify some of this together.  If you'd like, it would be possible to talk on the phone.  That can be more direct.  Or to email me directly.



I look forward to hearing how this sounds to you and what it brings up.



Jay