meditation

In deep dreamless sleep, consciousness is still there but is covered over by the darkness.
In that sleep we don't know what day it is or if we are men or women; we are only aware of consciousness. Imagine if we could go into deep sleep while we were awake. To enter a sphere of consciousness but consciousness of no particular thing, only a calm awareness of being.

In meditation we can step back from our lives that are seemingly "out there" and bring our focus within. With an internal focus, we can realize that all life goes on within us and everything "out there" is just an interpretation of what we think we perceive.

Sitting in silence, our minds turn inward. Aware of only our breathing, thoughts become whispers and our worldly worries give way to calm. In that calm, our egos are quieted and our fears are put to rest. We find within ourselves the harmonic peace of conscious energy that connects all things.

It's not always so easy and sometimes, no matter how hard we try, a flood of thoughts and "Monkey-Mind" come splashing down on our peace. Our focus lost and our calm is upset.

But with patience and practice we can learn to gently shift our focus away from the outward intruders and back to that one point within. With patience and practice our focus sharpens and our mind's eye begins to see clearly, the reality within.

Our clarity establishes or renews our faith that our existence is so much more than the handful of years we spend eating and breathing in this lifetime. That we are all connected in a universal consciousness and, being connected in that awareness, we are the One.

concentration

Under the deulge of all the thoughts and splashing tangents that rain down on our minds every second of every day of every year of our lives, it's not surprising that our attention is distracted from one thing to the next and the next in rapid-fire succession. It's that knee-jerk mental reaction to all those thoughts that a Zen-Master would call "Monkey-Mind".

Then sometimes something happens. Life throws us a curve-ball and our reaction to that unexpected situation (and the thoughts that come with it) is to focus. We really get in there to examine what's going on, with blinders on to everything else. Often we get in so close that the frenzy is, at first, a confusing blur.

So we step back a bit, change our perspective and hope for a more focused view from a different angle. Still very single minded, from our fresh perspective we may begin to understand the how and why mechanics of the situation that has suddenly demanded our undivided attention.

In our burgeoning understanding we can start to relax, take another step back and calmly begin to consider the "big picture". We can then, more clearly, weigh our attitudes against our previous thoughts and experiences and hopefully make an informed decision on how best to react.

introspection

Whether we realize it or not, most of us live through our day to day lives on auto-pilot. It's not a bad or good thing and, at the speed of life, it's easier keep up with whatever needs doing day to day guided by our habits and patterns than to re-think each of the thoughts that come cascading down on our minds every day.

Still, a few times a year (I do it at the turn of the seasons) it helps to make the time to step back, take a non-judgemental look at the big picture and gain some perspective on where we are in our lives and how we got there.