This morning I spoke with a man who called from London (UK) to express his gratitude for my guided meditations. Our local meditation group had just left and I was already feeling quite mellow, but the phone call brought me to a deep state of love and gratitude that has remained with me all day. I was so deeply touched as he related how much our podcast and CDs have helped him. As he spoke, I felt such gratitude that this is happening in my life, that in some mysterious way people receive the same grace from me that I have received from so many teachers and others through the years. It could just as easily have been me thanking him for how much he has enriched my life. When I sit with my meditation group or to record a meditation, I enter into a meditative state and speak from that place. It seems that those who resonate with my meditations are somehow brought into that state with me. Today on the phone, it felt as if the gratitude my caller was expressing was my own. What a gift to be brought into that state of gratitude! Gratitude is said to be the "highest" possible emotion we can experience. To me, it is an experience of love -- not the emotion of love but of the very essence of life itself. There's no way to describe or understand intellectually what gratitude is, but when we have the good fortune to feel it, it's good to dwell in it and allow it to nourish our spirits.
Beyond Pain Guided Meditation
We've just published our latest podcast episode, Beyond Pain. It was hard to come up with the right title for this one. The experience of pain is so complex. If we are speaking of physical pain, the pain itself is just a sensation in the body. Unless you are someone who enjoys pain, and there are some people who do, pain is much more than "just a sensation in the body". It can create enormous suffering.
What makes the sensation of pain so difficult? Besides the fact that it can be so strong that it grabs our attention totally, making it difficult to focus on anything else, there are many ways that we suffer with pain. Much of the suffering comes from the thoughts and emotional reactions that we have along with the pain. It may trigger fear, sadness, anger, or frustration depending on our past experiences and beliefs. We may start to wonder how long it will go on, what it means, where it will go, and whether or not we'll be able to endure it.
There may be some underlying feelings about the pain that are very subtle and not so obvious, like the sense that it is a punishment or due to our failings. It can bring up a sense of abandonment or betrayal. Pain can bring up all sorts of feelings. Next time you are experiencing pain, you can investigate what comes along with it and also whether the suffering you are experiencing with the pain is from the pain itself or everything else that it brings up.
The purpose of the Beyond Pain meditation is to bring about a greater sense of ease with the presence of pain. We may tend to tighten up and resist pain which in fact makes it worse. The meditation encourages you to relax into the pain, and to let go of the involvement with all the mind's stories about the pain and the emotional reactions to it. It can help you come to a place of peace in spite of pain. Whether or not the feeling of pain becomes less, the suffering that comes with pain can be released.
We'd love to hear about your experiences with this meditation and invite you to comment!
Meditation: Life without Endings
I just finished watching a mini-series on DVD. It was one of those that has a cliff-hanger at the end of almost every episode. I couldn't wait to to find out what happened next and, of course, I wanted to know what would happen in the end. But this series didn't really end the story. There was no knowing "how it all turned out". Obviously the last episode was made without the producers realizing it would be the last. Otherwise, the loose ends would have been tied up and the characters would have lived happily, or not so happily, ever after. At first this really bothered me. I didn't like the feeling of everything being up in the air. But when I thought about it, I realized that this is how life actually is -- a series of events, some favorable, some unfavorable, with no end. Something about that feeling of being left up in the air felt so unsettling, and yet so alive. The end of anything is a stopping point -- the end of movement. Everything must end for something new to emerge, but when we hold on to endings from the past or are fixed on how things will end in the future, we stop the natural flow of life. We stop the aliveness.
Meditation can help us give up our attachment to endings. Letting go of outcomes, letting go of having certain experiences and not having others, letting go of the attempt to make it "turn out right", allows us to experience the aliveness that is present moment to moment.
Finding love in surrender to death -- the ultimate meditation on YouTube
The YouTube video of Father Bede Griffiths speaking of his surrender in the process of almost dying created a profound state of meditation for me. There's really nothing I can say but watch it! Note: Father Bede Griffiths, Swami Dayananda, was a Benedictine monk who became a sannyasi in India. You can read his inspiring biography here.
Relaxation as the ultimate spiritual state
I used to feel that relaxation was a somewhat insignificant by-product of meditation. Although I desperately needed to learn to relax when I started meditation, I needed to see myself as a seeker of enlightenment rather than the stressed out person that I was. For years I thought of meditation in very "lofty" terms. It wasn't until I was recording our Pure Relaxation CD that it began to dawn on me that to be able to be totally relaxed is the ultimate sign of spiritual maturity. Being able to relax is a reflection of everything that we seek spiritually. Think about what you are seeking on your spiritual path. How would relaxation fit into that picture? When I reflect on what I've longing for over the years, they are all the same as the ability to be totally relaxed. I've wanted to feel a sense of trust. How can you relax without trust? I've wanted to feel peace. If you are at peace, you are relaxed. I wanted spontaneity and freedom -- can these occur without relaxation?
Relaxation happens when there is an absence of tension and holding. It happens in surrender. It happens when we let go. The sense that we have to defend ourselves or be guarded in any way is gone. When we are really relaxed, we are open and intimate with everything. There is no more self and other, there is only one.
Can you remember a time when you were totally relaxed? Would you see that as a spiritual experience?