It isn’t boring, it isn’t non-Christian and you do have the time for it
I’d just lost my job. And I hadn’t seen it coming, so I didn’t have anything lined up. ”How are you OK with this? Why aren’t you freaking out?” asks my coworker, Matt. He’s seen me walk through setbacks and disappointments before. “Well, it’s lots of things, but daily prayer and meditation is a big part.” Matt responds a little too quickly: “Oh, I can’t meditate. I tried it. My mind won’t shut up.”
His rejection of the idea that meditation might be a tool he could use is the most common I hear. Matt thinks he can’t meditate.
My old friend Stacy is a cradle Catholic and she gets a lot out of yoga. She heard she should meditate, so she got a book and tried a local Buddhist sitting group a few times.
“I don’t have time to meditate,” she says. I counter, “But you find time for your yoga.” “That’s at a studio,” she says. “There are interruptions at home. And meditation’s boring anyway. I don’t get serenity out of it like I do with yoga.”
Stacy thinks meditation needs special surroundings; oh, and she wants instant results.
Matt and Stacy are missing the point.
The promise of meditation
The promise of meditation is not the 20 minutes of refuge from an otherwise insane day, wonderful as that may be. The promise is to gradually cultivate a way of living that is less insane.
I’ve noticed over and over: People struggling with anxiety over things they’re powerless to affect rarely have a daily prayer and meditation practice. The Rev. Cynthia Bourgeault, a leading figure in Christian meditation and wisdom teaching, describes the promise of a contemplative practice:
“It is not a matter of replacing negative emotions with positive emotions — only of realizing that… presence can be sustained regardless of whatever inner or outer storms may assail you… You discover that at the depths, Being still holds firm.”
You may feel calm and restored after meditating. It’s wonderful when you do. But you may not. You may enter a place of profound stillness and awareness and feel conscious contact with God. But you may not.
We call meditation a practice. Think of your daily meditation as practice for life, practice for being in the moment, practice for letting go, practice for attuning to God.
I’ve been practicing Centering Prayer since Cynthia introduced me to it over 15 years ago. Gradually, I assure you, with daily practice we can develop the posture towards life described in 1 Thessalonians 5:17 — to “pray without ceasing.”
And when we do that, what the Buddhists call monkey-mind — the constant chatter in our heads — abates. And with that, we stop fighting so much, we start trusting more, and we can just be.
[Read the rest of What Works: Meditation at bustedhalo.com.]
