Welcome back to my mini-series on the beautiful art of meditation.
In the first instalment, I described in detail what I believe meditation is.
Here, I will discuss some of the reasons why I have been practicing meditation for over a decade, and why I will continue to for as long as I live.
I was first introduced to meditation whilst going through cancer treatment.
The psychiatrist I was working with recommended I try it as a way to support myself mentally and emotionally during this challenging period.
So my initial interaction with meditation was as a means of managing stress, anxiety, and physical pain.
It helped me to deal with these symptoms to varying degrees of efficacy.
And in many ways, meditation still supports me in this way.
Though this is no longer the reason why I continue to practice today.
Just as I have evolved through the years — much of which can be attributed to my devotion to meditative practice — so too has my reason for meditating.
As I mentioned, I began my meditative journey to help me through a tough time in my life.
I will also admit that, at the time, it wasn’t always as effective as I would have wanted.
But, for reasons I am still unable to clearly articulate, I continued to practice daily and I have not missed a days practice since.
Call it intuition, a hunch, an internal yearning — there was something occurring within me as I was exploring the meditative art that compelled me to keep going.
I have shared many times what meditation means to me.
It was the very catalyst that allowed me to live my life the way that I do now.
If I were to attempt to describe how, I would say that it has completely altered the way in which I see.
Before meditation, I thought I had a complete picture of life — where I stood and how I should operate within it.
But as I progressed with my practice through the years, I came to realise that what I saw was merely a single puzzle piece.
As the days, weeks, months, and years went on, I would catch a glimpse of another piece of the puzzle here and there.
Just as holding a handful of nails would not help to visualise a completed house, these pieces to the puzzle seemed to result in more questions than towards a clearer picture.
In the previous instalment, I wrote that “meditation is the practice of a richer life.”
What I saw, from a literal sense, did not change.
The flower continued to be a flower, the tree, a tree.
But instead of seeing it as just a flower or just a tree, in an almost dismissive, wholly-knowing way, meditation gave me some space between my interaction with all aspects of life and the judgement of it.
Instead of immediately concluding what something was, I was afforded a sliver of attention to wonder.
Instead of reflexively disregarding everything that occurred around me, I developed a degree of awareness to ask, “what else?”
It was as if I were riding in a shinkansen (bullet train) along the Japanese countryside, watching through the window as the outside world would quickly pass me by, and I had suddenly come to realise that I could actually hop off.
This is why I continue to meditate today.
So that I can hop off from the speeding bullet train of life and see the tree up close.
To smell it, to touch it, to examine its intricate patterns, to simply listen.
To ponder what else it could be, just for the sake of pondering.
To experience it to a greater depth and nuance than simply a smudge of green and brown in my periphery, blurred into an indeterminable mass that I once called ‘life.’
In the next instalment of this series, I will address the question of “how do I meditate?” and perhaps also touch on “when do I meditate?” as well.
Until next time, peace.
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