I often say I am not good at being meditative. Christian literature encourages it, the Psalms speak about about meditating (though "on the law"), it is found in other religious traditions. A very big deal is made of the ability to be silent before God and listen for his voice.
I've been at it for decades, and I still don't know what they're talking about. The mind just keeps going, going, relentlessly. At its worst (I have had the greater part of a year taken up with this several times) I yearn for just thirty minutes of everything coming to a halt. I did used to kid that when I had to work evenings when few were around and no one to call or meet with, that going down to the gym in my street clothes and shooting foul shots was the American form of Zen. I have read that there was an early form of Buddhist meditation that involved watching fish swim around in a pond. I could do that. That might be as close as I could get.
Yet as I was looking through music to break up the posting today it occurred to me that the Pachelbel Canon has long seemed to me to be an excellent image of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in its three parts. (I know it is written for four, but it is often performed as three.) I listen to this and with that image, perhaps do meditate in some way.
2 comments:
You could try the hardest and best meditation if you want. Its called 'just sitting' and is at the heart of Soto Zen.
It is my favourite, but quite difficult for beginners. ;)
I read Powers of Mind some years ago. Interesting book, recommended.
One of the stories involved a guy visiting an eastern monastery, hoping to find something amazing, and learning to his disappointment that what they did there was "count breaths." I tried that--it's hard. The attention required to count messed up the breathing rhythm.
One thing that seems sometimes to slow the old hamster wheel is recitation. There are still plenty of squirrels even so.
Post a Comment