Simplifying Meditation: Why
Practice? To Wake Up!
By
Thomas Roberts
Thomas Roberts leads The Path of
Simply Being: A Meditation Retreat, April 9-12, 2015
These
days you hear a great deal about meditation. This kind of meditation, that kind
of meditation; all sorts of books describing what it is and what it can do for
you. Often meditation is associated with a particular religion or spiritual practice.
Let’s clear something up right at the start.
Meditation
is not a religion. Meditative/contemplative practices have been part of
numerous spiritual practices throughout history. No one owns it.
Meditation
is not Prozac. It does not cure or solve anything.
Meditation
does not make you a better parent, a better doctor, a better student, help you
be less depressed or anxious.
In
fact meditation does no-thing at all!
Like
everything else that gets exploited, meditation is now neatly packaged for your
consumptive desires.
Everybody
is touting and selling meditation. Step right up and get yours.
Okay
let’s restore some sanity here.
A
meditation practice doesn’t help you overcome anything. It just helps you face
your life with greater patience, openness and compassion.
If
you do meditation for some outcome you’re not doing mindfulness. I’m not sure
what you’re doing and it may be beneficial but it is not meditation.
You
see, the real practice of meditation has no outcome. You don’t do meditation to
get anywhere or achieve anything. If you do, you run the risk of becoming
attached to that particular outcome and that interferes with your meditation
practice.
So
why practice mindfulness?
All
the great teachers (Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, Toltec, Muslim, Native Peoples)
have taught one thing:
The only reason to practice mindfulness
is this:
to wake up!!!!
That’s
all.
To wake up!
A
regular meditation practice simply peels back the layers of self-deception to
see things clearly as they truly are. The more you wake up, the more you are
able to live your life from an open compassionate heart, and a balanced calm
mind; from a deep place of innate wisdom. The benefits of awakening move in all
directions throughout all your experiences.
Meditation
is the awakening of our entire experience, not just our minds; the awakening of
our entire body-mind and its sensory experience. This awakening reduces our
fear-based reactions and cultivates our natural ability respond to others and
ourselves with great patience, openness and compassion. Our senses become alive
with wonder and curiosity for past conditionings and limiting attachments.
So
let’s stop all this nonsense of trying to practice meditation for any
particular outcome.
It
comes down to this: Practice this enduring skill for its own sake, and
everything else will take care of itself.
The
simple yet profound practice of mindful meditation, whether on a cushion or in
a chair, or in a grocery line, or talking with another, just keeps you in an
open, balanced, and compassionate place that just makes this a better world.
The
Path of Simply Being retreat will be a wonderful experience in developing a
meaningful and beneficial meditation practice.
You
need not have any prior meditation experience. Or you may wish to attend to
deepen or re-kindle your practice.
Hope
to see you here at Shambhala!
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Gassho.
Tom
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