Why Meditate?

One reason we meditate is to find some kind of peace, and to protect ourselves from the constant barrage of negative internal and external forces. It does, at the very least, make us more resilient in the face of the constant bombardment we experience in every day life.

We are fed negativity through the media, social media, ourselves, friends and family.  We live in stressful times and it seems fitting that we protect ourselves from the onslaught of politics, human rights violations, cruelty towards animals, poverty, craving, aversion and the human condition in general.

Meditation is a method, a spiritual conduit if you like, to achieve some semblance of inner peace and connectedness with self. A few moments of peace can permeate our day in ways unimaginable, if done soulfully and with conscious effort.

If we meditate purely to escape, we miss the point. We meditate to accept! We meditate to heighten our awareness.

To sit quietly, while beneficial in some ways, does not constitute meditation, as the practice requires a level of conscious determination which makes us vigilant to our aversions and cravings. Meditation, with heightened awareness, leads to an observation of universal truths, aka, impermanence, suffering and egolessness (as taught in Vipassana meditation).

The conscious mind is aware of physical sensations, and we constantly react to craving and aversion. Being aware of these sensations and not responding to them is where the benefits begin.

We are “programmed” to respond to stimuli with little or no true reflection. In a world characterised by instant gratification many have lost the ability or motivation to truly spend time with the self in order to develop our inner resilience.  We rely on the external to make us “whole.” When we are abandoned by the external without inner resilience, we run the risk of imploding.

I am reminded by meditating that I have value simply because I exist.

“To have faith is to trust yourself in the water.  When you swim you don’t grab hold of the water, because if you do you will sink and drown. Instead you relax, and float.” (Alan Watts)

Talk to me about training and support for your personal practice of daily meditation on C: 0726913174