Guilt, Love, and Meditation

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Meditation is so simple, and so easy, that it’s hard. The simple fact is that it is hard to do nothing. But that is not the only thing hard about it. The real question is why anyone would do it. Why should you dedicate yourself to a daily meditation practice? Quite simply, and at the risk of sounding overly dramatic, it’s because it will change everything. I’d like to introduce you to three of my friends who are teaching me about meditation, through their not practicing it. Here is what I’m learning…

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Guilt

This just happened last night. I was at a group dinner and the topic of meditation came up. It was only briefly mentioned but at one point one of my friends chimed in, “I know how good it would be for me and how much it could do for me, but I just cannot imagine taking that much time for myself, I think I would feel guilty.” When she said this I could barely manage a response simply because there was too much to talk about. And of course I could relate. So many of us, especially here in America, were raised with and thus adopted a three pillar approach to life – work hard, earn a living, raise a family. We can spend our entire lives with this approach, and at some point we may realize that dancing in between these three pillars is the implied but rarely spoken undercurrent that we also unwittingly adopt – to focus on and choose for our own happiness is not just of secondary value, it’s also selfish and self absorbed.

Mother Teresa

Of course we know that this is bunk. We are of no genuine use to any other humans if we ignore ourselves. I’m not an expert in the life of Mother Teresa, but I’m fairly certain that she must have begun with love for herself before she loved forty-thousand individuals, one by one. It certainly wasn’t guilt that made her who she was. It’s hard to begin a conversation about a meditation practice if we do not first debunk this idea that choosing for ourselves, choosing to take time for ourselves is somehow a betrayal of what we are otherwise supposed to be doing. Thomas Merton – the most famous of spiritual poets, a mystic and a monk said that “to allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit oneself to too many projects, to want to help everyone in everything, is to succumb to the violence of our times.”

A glass of wine

Of course when my friend said that she would feel guilty taking the time out to meditate I had neither the altruism of Mother Teresa nor the poetry of Thomas Merton on the tip of my tongue. I didn’t even have the wherewithal to reassure her that it was OK to make time for herself. To share with her that a meditation practice can, in time, rewire this very thing that is keeping her from starting. That it can undo this belief that she is not worth the time – that there are other things that she is supposed to be doing that are more important and more pressing than validating that she is worth her own effort. Generally speaking I am much better at writing about things in retrospect than contributing meaningfully in context. So I think that instead I said something like, “Yeah, guilt sucks doesn’t it?”

Keep on Keepin’ on

My second friend who does not meditate, apparently used to meditate, but then stopped. I actually don’t know why – we’ve not gotten around to talking about it. Regardless, it has me thinking about all of the times that I could have stopped my meditation practice. And there were many. For one thing, meditation is uncomfortable, at least in the beginning.

Uncomfortable

It’s a familiar image – someone sitting cross legged and upright on a small mat for meditation. This is the classic position, but not one that is necessarily comfortable. Any meditation teacher will tell you that to get started just find a seat that is comfortable and supportive. Not so supportive that you fall asleep, but supportive enough that you don’t feel like your body is working. I started in a simple dining room chair, and now I sit criss-cross-apple-sauce on the floor with my back against a wall. Bottom line is that if your body is working then this is pretty much all that you’ll focus on during meditation. You’ll want to physically move soon after you begin and this makes something that is already challenging that much more so. So maybe that is why my friend stopped meditating – maybe her body just hurt.

Another kind of uncomfortable

Or maybe my friend had some thoughts come up that made her feel uncomfortable. Maybe they were memories of something that she wished had not happened. Or maybe she latched on to a passing thought of aggression or fear. Maybe she started questioning all of her life choices, or found herself focused and overwhelmed by how fast her thoughts were moving. Or maybe she had any number of a thousand other types of thoughts that can come through when we first begin to sit down and notice what we actually think about – when we notice and begin to hear that which our ‘always on the go’ life of endless distraction prevents us from noticing and hearing. Or maybe she had so much come up in one particular moment that she felt as if her heart might beat right out of her chest, and instead of sitting through it, she responded to her body’s impulse to move. Maybe she stopped, stood up, and never tried again. I wish that I would have asked her – because then I could have reassured her that this happens to everyone, myself included. And that if she could try again, to muster her courage and love herself enough to sit and allow and trust, that the gifts of the practice will be there for her.

What lurks in the corner

Or maybe my friend stopped meditating because of that thing that we have all heard in one way or another, that thing that makes us afraid of who we are. That thing that has us believing that if we spend enough time getting to know ourselves, we won’t like what we find. Maybe she got a glimpse of that less than lovely side of herself, that side that lives within each and every human being – that side that was blown up into the wonderful epic saga of Luke and Darth Vader that is the ‘Star Wars’ story line, and she decided that this was not an acceptable part of her. Again I wish that I would have asked her – because then I could have reassured her that this also happens to everyone. That there is nothing within her to fear, only to accept, and that she may be surprised to find that despite the presence of a bit of natural human darkness, that her love and her light and her goodness shine so brightly that anything that is not this is no more than a spec of sand in her ocean.

I am so in love

My third friend who does not meditate is in love. We actually had a fairly lengthy conversation about it. This was a few years ago but I will never forget what he said. My friend said of his wife of many years that he is so love with her that when he looks into her eyes he feels as if he is looking into his soul. To read a verse like this in a book of love poetry is one thing, but to hear it said with conviction by a person sitting across the table from you is quite another.

Years later

I actually don’t know whether this particular friend has since begun a meditation practice, but as I look back upon the conversation I’ve realized something new. His beautiful statement about his feelings for his wife speak to touching the spiritual part of himself through romantic love. This is something that mystic poets have written about for centuries right? Divine love as a human being as accessed through earthly love with other human beings? But as I think about what my friend said, I realize that he was ruling out meditation because he feels he is already there. Which leaves me with the question, already where? I wonder now if we were having the same conversation. Meditation can absolutely be a spiritual experience, indeed for many this is precisely what it is. But I can honestly say that I have never sat down in search of my soul. I think for so many more who sit down to practice meditation, it is simply about gaining some peace and quiet – some space from our overly analytical minds, so that we can have a chance to come at life from a place that is more authentic, and enjoy all that there is here to experience. A place that is a little closer to who we truly are beneath our chattering minds. A place where the noise dies down enough so that we might now and then hear something of our intuition, and our inherent wisdom. And if we’re lucky, maybe we get a glimpse of the deepest layer of all, our souls. Hm. Maybe my friend and I were having the same conversation after all.

For what it’s worth, and for the knowing that all is well.

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