Sunday

This is a day for all forms of meditation to come to the front. From waking through arriving at the church, from welcoming the children in the choir to meeting with the worship staff; this is the day the Lord has made and I truly do rejoice in it. And this is also where I come to realize the many forms that meditation takes. Standing, sitting, walking or listening the moments of 'now' are incredible and sustaining with every voice being a breath of it's own.

I sit in my office typing these words as the choir warms up and as I think about my responsibilities for the day and there is no (or at least little) stress.

I am where I am with the people who are here, everything in it's right place.

Meditation best practices (as interpreted by me)

My only difficulty with meditation to date has been dealing with my own expectations and translating anything that doesn't meet that expectation as failure. I know myself well enough to know that's setting myself up to translate that failure into inaction and then the next thing I know, I haven't meditated for weeks. While meditating every day is a valid goal and something that I'm pretty close to doing, I've refused to make that the way I define my meditation and practice. I've instead committed myself to meditating and seeing how that feels. And? So far, so good...

Even though I don't blog every day (and believe me, I've treated blogging the same way I'm treating meditation), I meditate most days. Sometimes at home, sometimes at the church, sometimes while I'm out walking. Leaving myself some wiggle room generally means that I find time for meditation and self-care and freed of the tyranny of schedules, also means that my meditation time is usually when I'm most open and ready for it. I also find the mindfulness moments to be sticky enough to last longer which excites me to no end. I've got a bear of a schedule coming up and will need to be fully present in MANY moments with MANY people and am convinced that my fledgling mindfulness practises combined with my faith and the wonderful group of people I'm going to be with throughout much of the summer will be sustaining and uplifting and for that I am grateful.

So don't beat yourself up if you are unable to meditate on a daily basis or even any kind of schedule. That defeats the purpose and is as far from loving kindness (your own or others) as it is possible to get.

Theta dimensions

Rainy day so did my meditation in the chapel. Continuing an extended trial of non-verbal meditations, I used Theta Dimensions (the 20 minute version). It's tranquil and soft and light on the mind but substantive enough to actually get me to a peaceful place and keep me there for a bit. Since both Teta Nature and Theta Dimensions have proven to be useful and helpful and yes, enjoyable, I purchased both ($10 total) and would recommend that you do the same if you try either one and like them.

Theta nature.

Today's meditation was courtesy of Guenther Goerg and midipianist.com. It's a 20-minute sound-based meditation without any spoken words and it was perfect for the day. For those of you who live in a place other than San Francisco, the weather here has been cold, foggy, not very exciting to be in so to wake up to sunshine and warmth required something a bit different hence the non-guided meditation.

Sound-based meditations all seem to remind me of brain entrainment programs with the familiar sound of rainfall or crashing ocean waves and nature sounds with an undercurrent of binaural beats. Binaural beats are known or thought to be known as calming and relaxing and also increasing creativity. This of course is supposed to increase with use and while I believe that is indeed possible, I'm not quite willing to put this in the totally known category until I can know that for a fact myself.

In the meantime, it's lovely, tranquil, perfect for walking, sitting, laying down and useful enough to add to the links.

Namaste.

Today

Way too hard to get out of bed this morning so the meditation was short. Didn't mean it wasn't good but it didn't give me the normal stretch out I've been getting used to. I believe that's a good thing as I'm starting to understand what qualifies as good or at least helpful and that's a very constructive thing. Off to the Warriors game, see you all tomorrow!

Building a routine

"For those who have been trained by it, no discipline seems pleasant at the time but painful." Bobby McFerrin

I was always comforted by that fairly often heard paradigm that anything that you managed to stick to for 21 days became an ingrained habit. That was until I read an article by Ben Gardner entitled "Busting the 21 days habit formation myth". Now 21 days is only three weeks (not even a month) and that definitely always felt doable so this is somewhat disheartening but it gets worse when Mr. Gardner comes up with his figure of 66 days. Now we're talking about two months and who can do that?

Sigh. Pause for breath.

Surprisingly I think that when it comes to meditation, 66 days might be very doable now that I've found a routine that seems not only doable but desirable. Thanks to my friend Alison, I have two excellent bolsters that fit nicely on my sofa. If I follow the normal routine, I'm up at 5:30am to feed and quiet the cats, back to bed to listen to the news in a prone position until 6:30a, and then up, turn on the coffee maker and do my meditation while all that is going on. The coffee takes care of itself, one of the cats will join me on the sofa and I do a 15-20 minute routine that leaves my mind fairly clear and with the right energy to do some light cleaning, prepare breakfast, get dressed and leave the house purposefully.

A side benefit is that I find myself doing an additional meditation as I make my way to work: walking, riding on MUNI, whatever. It's certainly not out of a need to fulfill a commitment or to (hah!) impress somebody, it's just another little joy and positive addition to my morning. Back to the 66 day thing...

Maybe it's not important to keep a count right now. Maybe it's more important to just accept the fact that doing this (meditation) makes my day better. Sort of like understanding that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. There'll be challenging times ahead when I'm on the road and away from the things that ground me and normal habits would indicate that I'll stray away from the normal day to day things that help keep me sane. But why should that be the case with meditation?

OMG.

In all of my bumbling and stumblings looking at meditation and tools I came across an app and website entitled "OMG, I can meditate". While the app and the site put me off a little bit there was enough there to recommend at least giving it a try and so I did. Turned out to be a good decision as I've been using it in the mornings and liking it quite a bit. There is an introduction in the beginning that I find helpful and enables me to get into a ready position and the length is also just about right (15 minutes). The app is also set up to track your meditations and I like that as well as it's another way for me to keep on point. The first meditation I did was 14 minutes long but moving up to 15 gets me the same quality guide but more silence and I'm really starting to benefit from the quiet times. So kudos to the provider and yes, there is a link to the site!