Many people want to learn meditation or deepen their practice but are uncertain where to turn. There are so many different styles, teachers, techniques. What to do? It is the doing which can be the problem in the first place. Meditation is undoing and coming back to the simplicity of being, the simplicity of enjoying this moment. The more complex our practice, the more we are on the periphery of the heart of meditation. Every time we practice meditation we are making a mini retreat from the world around us to realize another world within. We don't want to fill up our meditation, our retreat, with too many things to do. We don't want to be busy. This is our time to let go, let be, and receive.
Letting Go is the first step in every meditation.
Letting go is very difficult in modern life. We are great at carrying our problems and everyone else's problems all day and into our sleep at night. Letting go of everything we are carrying is a practice. In the silence of our meditation, in the peace and quiet, we practice letting go, offering the busy-ness, the pile of so many thoughts, fears, and desires. The silence around us supports us to let go, unwind, disentangle from our complicated life. In the peace and quiet, we feel our anxiousness lifting. We feel the peace and quiet of the moment. Like taking a bath, we want to soak in the peace and quiet. We are letting go.
Letting Be is the second step in every meditation.
As we let go of the details of our daily story and come to this moment, we begin discovering the heart of meditation. We are being here and letting be with all that is present. Yes, there maybe persistent thoughts, distractions pulling our awareness elsewhere. But our practice is to be in this moment and discover the deliciousness of simply being. In our get up and do something culture, it is a challenge to just sit and be in the simple beauty of this moment. Letting be and we find our mind calming, our thoughts slowing. We breathe and find a path within. There is a road traveled, found by the more and more pilgrims in the contemplative life.
Receiving is the third step in every meditation. We can be busy in letting be, observing the moment. We can be occupied thinking about not thinking. Meditation can be much more then observing our experience. Now is our opportunity to get out of the busy mind and discover the great treasure, the richness of the heart. We want to receive our essence, heart essence. We want to receive, absorb this moment of awareness, awareness without the clutter of so much thought.
The lack of having enough in many people's lives is the lack of knowing the bounty within. The intense longing to extend life can be not knowing the eternity inside. Every time we meditate we are disengaging from the constriction of our personality. We are engaging the infinite space of the heart.
The heart of meditation is receiving and enjoying the vastness within. There is a gift in emptiness. Here is a presence, a peace without border or boundary. Becoming free of separateness, fear and doubt is no further than receiving the finest qualities of love within our heart. Every meditation is a pilgrimage into this sacred space. We want to keep the journey as simple as possible. We are letting go, letting be, and receiving the depths within. This is the inner child, our original awareness in wonder of life itself.
So why is meditation so complicated? Why does meditation not work for so many? Our meditation is as complicated as our lives. Silence, nature, heartfulness meditation brings us home. "Yes, but"... is what many say. Our excuses, sophistication, so much self keeps us away from the nakedness of letting go, letting be, and receiving the gentle power of now, the now of the many gardens of the heart. For many, their thoughts keep them separate from feelings. The heart becomes a distant world, more of an idea then an experience. For others, the heart is a land of challenging and unruly emotions. As we practice letting go, letting be, and receiving we find underneath our thoughts, underneath our feelings, there is an ocean of simple being. Our awareness finds itself. This is the heart of meditation. Here is border-less awareness spreading seemingly forever in peace, innocence, love. The heart of meditation is discovering this inner vastness again and again. In every meditation, slowly, slowly our identity is changing as we receive the purity of this inner presence. We are going deeper into our interior life, into the immense silence of the heart.
The silence of our heart is the balance to the busy demanding world we live in. This is why so many people are hungry for and enjoying the heart of meditation. The unending presence we find within is very healing for all our limits physically, emotionally, and in the world. This is why so many studies are finding meditation is changing so many people's lives. The unending presence within us is calming our mind, giving us clarity for true solutions to a needy world.
The heart of meditation is a journey. We are brought through doorways beyond our imagination. Our imagination is no more or less then a product of thought. Awareness is something else! It is a connectedness, a universe, a belonging. It is finding what we seek in the world waiting within us and much more. It is letting go, letting be, and receiving the magnificence of the heart of meditation.
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