****
Blog 253 finished with these words.
****
This was me on 11 November 2015. Back then, I had started to teach myself how to meditate but I had not yet started yoga. Meditation is not some crazy, religious cult practice. It is not even a religious practice. It is a tool that sits outside every religion and it does not contravene the beliefs of any religion at all.
****
This is a photo of Margaret from about 2010. She had regained much of her health after we married in 2009, but unfortunately this recovery was not permanent. There were few occasions after this photo when she ever looked so healthy.
****
****
This was sunset when Margaret and I visited the island of Santorini in Greece. If you look, you can see the golden pathway folding out from the Sun straight across the sea towards Santorini. Try and remember, there is always a pathway to climb out of the Pit of Depression.
****
I was as proud of every one of you as I am of my son Chris and my friends Alf and Mario.
You probably do not wear a uniform, but that does not matter. Heroes never actually look like heroes. They simply are heroes.
I am a hero too and I try to convince myself just how much I matter.
Like you, I have trouble realising that there is anything important or heroic about me. How can there be? I am just me.
I have always been wrong in my assessment of me just as you are probably wrong in your assessment of you.
****
I have always been a great reader. In my grade 1 class in 1955, there were 64 children. No, I am not exaggerating. The teacher was a Brigidine nun and the school was run by the nuns in Port Melbourne, Victoria. It no longer exists. The nun wrote the letters of the alphabet on the top of the blackboard – one line of lower case letters (little letters) and one line underneath of upper case letters (big letters). Somehow, in the chaos of this classroom filled with children, the num was supposed to teach us how to read and write. She couldn’t of course.
I used to read 3 or 4 books every week. I have now slowed my reading down.
In late 2013, most of the books I was reading (all non fiction) said that if I really wanted to become a better human being, I needed to start meditating. The books all said that once I made the decision to meditate, a meditation teacher would appear.
No meditation teacher ever popped up and I got tired of waiting to start doing what the books said was very important.
I did what would be done by anyone who had taught himself how to read and write in a class of 64 children. I decided to teach myself and got some books which supposedly would tell me how to meditate.
I got nowhere of course. I had no idea what I was supposed to be doing and the authors of the books I was using had no more idea what I did.
Eventually, I did teach myself how to meditate and what I say in this and future blogs about meditation is based on my own experience of teaching myself how to meditate.
****
I will start with trying to give you an idea of what meditation is.
It is not a fancy word for some idiotic religious “experience”. It is a purely physical exercise that you subject yourself to because it helps you to calm down in difficult situations. Because you are calmer, any decisions you make are likely to be far more effective in solving whatever problem you are faced with.
Try to stop, be calm for a moment and try to eliminate all thoughts from your head.
****
You cannot, because it is impossible. Not even the most holy Buddhist monk is unable to completely stop the massive river of thoughts that cascades through our brains every moment of the day.
The best that I can do is slow down the massive river of thought. When I do that, I am able to ignore most but not all of those other matters which always try and catch my attention.
My definition of meditation is slowing my thought processes down so that the rubbish can be ignored. When I am able to do this, I find my mind simply gives me the best solutions to the biggest problem that is bothering me. Sometimes the solution comes while I am meditating, sometimes later.
When Margaret was ill, meditation enabled me to accept that there was nothing I could do except always be there for her whenever she needed me. The best solution to Margaret’s illness was for me to accept that there was no solution. She was dying and I needed to ensure I did everything I could to ease her pain. And that is what I did.
****
Be like me and Margaret. Dig deep within yourself and find your commitment. Get your leg over the side of the bed and put one foot in front of the other. Just do it.
Left foot.
Right foot.
Left foot.
Right foot.
You can do this no matter how low you feel.
****
Tomorrow I will tell you more about meditation and how I managed to use it to help me.
No comments:
Post a Comment