Tuesday, November 14, 2006

The Myth of Meditation

Walking through the forest, mist filtering through the trees, the mind is empty while the senses are alive and awake. Far from a mountain temple, or secluded meditation room, yet a walk in the forest can bring one back to the center. Nature brings balance to a mind filled with turmoil, stress and pre-occupied thoughts.

What is meditation? It is often associated in the west with chanting, sitting lotus style, eyes closed, separate from the world, going on an inner or mystical journey. Usually that idea leads one away from the world we all live in. Renunciates in India renounce the world to take that journey beyond worldly concerns. To me, meditation is high awareness and having a clear mind in whatever you are engaged in. That especially includes all those moments awake, living life in whatever form it takes.

For instance, if you are cooking, meditation is the focusing on the art of expressing yourself through what foods you create. Whatever emotion you are experiencing at that time is felt in the food you make. By raising your awareness in the art of cooking, you expand that experience from being mundane into being pure joy.

Another example can be driving. I find that when I am driving on a beautiful road, preferably curvy and in the mountains, all my attention is focused on the act of driving and the visceral experience, and all my thoughts melt away.

Can each moment be a meditation? I think any moment can be a meditative moment, regardless of what you are doing. I think I can turn any regular thing one does during the day, and make it a meditative one. And it doesn't mean instead of playing hoops at the court you rise at 5am and chant your mantra. Perhaps it means while you are playing hoops you approach it with a different state of mind. One focused on observation, concentration, high awareness and heightened senses. Sounds to me like a recipe for Olympic greatness. It's no doubt the way to success in athletics is often the way to success in other areas of your life.

So next time you think "I don't know how to meditate" or "I don't have time" or "I tried to meditate but kept thinking", think perhaps that each moment can be a meditative one. Maybe it is not something you do, but how you do all the regular things in your life.

The only Zen-like thing I would like to say is, while you are doing all those things in your regular life, try doing them with such intensity that your mind has no extra room to think about anything else but what you are actively engaged in. This mind trick heightens any current experience tremendously, leaves the past for the history books, and lets the future come to you a moment at a time.