Category: meditation

Know Yourself To Grow Yourself

Know Yourself To Grow Yourself

All I heard was nothing.

Recently I discovered a rather interesting piece of music which contained absolutely zero music.

None.

It was composed by an American avant-garde composer John Cage, it’s initial performance in 1952. The title of this work is “4:33” as in 4 minutes and 33 seconds. Of silence. Of musicians seated and poised on stage simply silent and still for the next four and a half minutes.

The true music of this piece, according to Cage, is in the ambient noises found in the silence. Primarily noises from an uneasy audience not knowing what to do in the unconventional absence of sound.

An imaginative use of silence.

Silence can be uncomfortable, often labeled as awkward. And while silence has at times been both uncomfortable and awkward for me, silence has also been a transformative portal for my own inner growth and understanding.

Sitting in my own silence, I get to hear the not-so-ambient noises within me. I get to hear the Continue reading “Know Yourself To Grow Yourself” →

Controlling The Uncontrollable Mind

Controlling The Uncontrollable Mind

Perhaps your mind is like my mind?

My ever-distracted and noisy mind. Like an ultra-hyper new puppy. Like a sleep-deprived kid on a sugar high the day after Halloween bouncing off the walls.

And I’m supposed to be able to control that?

No wonder I sucked at meditation.

Maybe what sucked was my understanding of meditation.

I’d gotten quite consistent with my meditation practice. Showing up daily is kind of important if we hope to get better at doing just about anything. I’d set my timer, sit on my meditation bench, close my eyes, focus on my breath, and waited in silence for my own version of enlightenment to overtake me and bring me peace.

Instead my peace was consistently interrupted as those random thoughts relentlessly popped into my mind. “Did I pay the insurance?” “Why does my knee hurt?” “Why do these thoughts keep showing up?” As one would fade away another showed up close behind. Like a parade, a seemingly never-ending parade of thoughts doing all they could do to prevent peace from finding me.

I was wrong about meditation. I thought it was supposed to help me control my mind. I thought it was about creating the mental and emotional toughness to suppress and silence the noise in my head.

Sitting on my meditation bench each morning, I now fully expect my mind to be anything but quiet, especially initially.

But the important lesson is in the noise itself.

As I observe the active patterns of my thoughts, I am reminded of their impermanence. No matter how loudly they may scream, no Continue reading “Controlling The Uncontrollable Mind” →