The Benefits of Meditation

I'm away from home this week and had forgotten to bring this week's postcard with me. So I appealed to my friend, with whom I am staying, for a suitable quote, and she came up with this: "Buddha was asked, "What have you gained from meditation?" He replied, "Nothing. However," Buddha said, "let me tell you what I have lost: Anxiety, Anger, Depression, Insecurity, Fear of old age and death."

And its truth reverberated in my soul. I find that meditating regularly, whether I simply sit in silence, or walk in nature, or peacefully craft, is such a benefit. A time out of my daily life, a time away from the busy-work that makes up my days, is hugely beneficial. When I return to that daily life, it is with a new feeling of spaciousness, serenity. I am able to cope far better with the small vicissitudes of my normal existence, because I have allowed myself the time to simply Be. As someone once remarked, "We are human beings, not human doings."

I blogged some time ago about the benefits of simply breathing, here. And about the practice of taking a breathing space between activities. And I stand by what I wrote then: "Meditation practices are an excellent way of grounding us in the present, particularly following the breath. Because we spend far too much time of our lives being "walking, talking heads", unaware of our bodies, oblivious to how they are moving through our days. And so we miss all the lovely moments of now-ness which are in front of us."

For me, living in the moment by consciously breathing, by choosing to be aware of the present as it unfolds around me *does* make me less anxious, less prone to anger, more able to let go of the petty insecurities and irritations when they happen. Give it a go -  I hope you will discover that I am right.

Effective Anger

The Ancient Greek philosopher, Aristotle, once wrote, "Anyone can get angry, that is easy. But to be angry with the right person, in the right measure, at the right time, for the right purpose, and in the right way, that is hard."

There is much wisdom in that. We live in an angry world, in which most people get angry with the wrong person, too much, at the wrong time, for the wrong reason, and in a non-productive way. And all that does, is to make the world around us a little more toxic, and (potentially) a lot more dangerous. It doesn't do the person getting angry much good either, most of the time: we end up feeling thoroughly frazzled, with upset stomachs, headaches, and high blood pressure. And, whatever has made us angry in the first place, is still happening. Our anger hasn't made a positive difference.

Don't get me wrong: I'm not for a minute advocating lying down and giving up. I believe that when we see injustice in the world (and there is far too much of it) we have a duty to "stand on the side of love" as the Unitarian Universalists say.  But I think that what Aristotle is saying is that we have to be considered in our anger, so that it has a fruitful outcome. Which is indeed, as he said, difficult. Because the first thing that anger does to us, is to turn off our higher brain. We come out, fists swinging, determined to beat whoever or whatever it is that is making us angry.

It takes an awful lot of discipline and self-knowledge to step back and say, "Hang on a minute. Is there a better way I could be responding to this? A way which would lead to the outcome I desire?"

When I am angry, I find that the most effective way of stepping back, becoming more considered, is to breathe. Just that. Breathe slowly and deeply, to recentre myself and turn my higher brain back on. Of course, there are situations in which this wouldn't be appropriate - in the case of immediate violence, for example. But most of the time, the things I get angry about are not immediately life-threatening, so there is time (if I remember) to step back, breathe.

Then, I can work out why I'm angry, and decide what steps I want to take to remedy that. Which is, as Aristotle said, hard.

Slow Down and Appreciate the Now

The 20th century Geman novelist, Wilhelm Raabe, once wrote, "Slowly, step by step, further up the stairs! Truly, the world does not offer such an abundance of pleasures that you should fly over them in jumps." (or something like that - the German to English translator on Google was vague). 

And I guess the implication is, that we need to walk through our lives slowly, "step by step", so that we are able to appreciate each beautiful object or pleasurable experience as we experience it, rather than being so fixated on some mythical future goal that we leap over them in our hurry to get there. 

Which is counter-intuitive for many of us. It is so easy to rush through the to-do list for the day (or the week) frenetically ticking off items as we go, with the idea that then, yes, then, we will be able to slow down, to rest. Only to find that when we finally reach the evening or the weekend, we are too exhausted and wound up to enjoy it properly. 

In the picture above, each blue vase of plants is beautiful in its own right, and each can be appreciated as a singular whole. How much more would we receive from our lives, if we slowed down and truly lived in the present moment? A lot, I suspect.

Meditation practicses are an excellent way of grounding us in the present, particularly following the breath. Because we spend far too much of our lives being "walking, talking heads", unaware of our bodies, oblivious to how they are moving through our days. And so we miss all the lovely moments of now-ness which are in front of us.

There was a fascinating article in The Inquirer some years ago, by Peter Hawkins. He was talking about borders, which he referred to as , "the spaces between places, between roles and between times." His argument was that we all need a breathing space between activities so that we can finish the present task properly before we start on the next. 

He recommended instituting a brief spiritual practice, which he defined as "a ritual to fully finish one event and empty myself before I cross the boundary into the next event." This could be something as simple as taking a couple of deep breaths while focussing on your breathing. I thought this was a really interesting idea, and try to follow it, when I remember.