Posts Tagged ‘meditation’

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Meditations on Meditating

March 14, 2014

We are in the Christian season of Lent. As I’ve said previously, I grew up in a tradition where we did not really recognize Lent. As a kid, I knew that the Lutherans and Catholics chose something from which to abstain during Lent. I don’t even remember going to any special Ash Wednesday services.

I wonder if we practiced Advent mostly because of the commercial hype around gift giving. We had Advent calendars that marked off the days until Christmas. We had Christmas programs at church. We had Christmas programs at school (when approximately 100% of the school’s population is Christian, you could do that).

I’m meditating on Lent this year. Maybe because there is another movie out that, like the one by Mel Gibson several years ago, seems to focus on the death of Jesus. In some traditions, the “way of the Cross” is commemorated bringing to the front of mind the steps of Jesus from Pilate’s residence to the place of crucifixation.

We know the point of Christmas. It is that Jesus came into the world. For Lent, as it leads up to Good Friday and Easter there are two events. Death and resurrection. Tradition has us concentrating for 40 days (plus Sundays) on the death. We have one quick day celebrated by pastel colors and candy to remember the resurrection. And then it’s over.

Read Acts again. Read Paul’s letters. The first followers of Jesus did so because of the resurrection. That was the single most important event in our religious heritage.

Jesus said that he pointed the way to eternal life. John always uses the term in the present tense. Eternal life begins when you choose it. It also carries on to life with-God after we die–physically.

Those of us who meditate deeply understand the distinction of body and soul. We’ve experienced it.

We need a celebration to remember the resurrection all the time beginning with Easter and leading to Advent. It is our life now and our hope for the future.

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Leaders Take Care of Themselves First

March 12, 2014

The Bible tells the stories of many interesting and powerful people. Daniel has long stood out as one that I admire as much as any. He was a leader in two empires. He had to be good to survive the conquest of the Babylonians by the Persians and be a top leader and advisor to the kings of both.

One of the first things we learn about Daniel is that already as a young man he was focused and grounded. When he and his friends were chosen for the management intern program under the king of Babylon, he refused the diet of the royal household. They chose to eat a simple diet, low in fats and alcohol.

I have a friend who, the last time I saw him, was on the “Daniel diet.” We know even today that a diet filled with fruits and vegetables is healthy. Reduce the amount of fats and “bad carbs” in your diet and you will feel much better.

An acquaintance told me this week that she is practicing the Blood Type Diet to lose weight. I was curious, so I Googled it. Many years ago, a book became popular in Japan that did personality type by blood type. I am B+. Supposedly that’s one of the best (according to the secretary of the president of the company I worked at then, who told me to tell Alex right away to get on his good side). I’m not going to follow that diet necessarily. but it had interesting stuff. I’m not to eat corn and wheat and also avoid chicken. Whew, that’s a good thing. I haven’t eaten poultry since a bad experience around 60 years ago.

Daniel also took time out to pray three times a day. Some people today practice taking an afternoon nap. But I find, like Daniel, that taking regular times out to meditate helps both energy and focus.

Speaking of focus, I don’t think the ancient writers used that term, but I have to believe that Daniel was one focused individual. As Qui-gon said to Anakin Skywalker in Star Wars Episode I, “Remember, your focus determines your reality.”

When you choose to do something, give it the benefit of your focus. We cannot really multi-task, but we can practice like a microprocessor–time slicing. We can juggle many things, but we have to give focus to each in small bursts.

Focus, diet, quiet. Three keys to taking care of yourself.

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It’s Not Where We’re Going, It’s What We Do

February 19, 2014

My study is in a period of John. One of my small groups is reading the Gospel, another the Revelation. I’m more interested in the Gospel.

I’ve been reflecting on all my readings of the Gospels over the past 50 years or so. The thought popped up some time ago–the message of the Gospels and indeed the message of Jesus rarely had anything to do with heaven and hell.

Many of my friends devote many cycles of their brain functioning worrying about who is going to heaven and who is going to hell.

Mostly the message is all about our relationships. Primarily our relationship to God. That determines our relationships to money (often a topic) and to others. That may be why thinkers such as Richard Foster and Dallas Willard talk so much about the “with-God” life.

I started to meditate in my late teens. The theory was that you meditated to achieve “enlightenment” or a God experience. Many contemplatives have written about their revelations and experiences. I have also on occasion.

But this old Zen proverb just came to my attention again–“Before enlightenment, chop wood and carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood and carry water.”

It’s not about enlightenment, God experiences or who’s going to heaven. It’s about what we do and how we do it and our motivations in the next minute. I often ask my students, “When you leave this room, what will you do? How will you act? What will be your attitude?”

Am I living with-God minute-by-minute? It’s the relationship.

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Release Hidden Tensions

February 7, 2014

Neighbors called the rescue squad. There was something unusually quiet about the apartment of the old woman. They entered, found her in distress, and took her to the hospital. She had one hand tightly clenched into a fist. They could not get her to release. Finally, a doctor in the emergency room pried open her hand. Inside was a quarter.

Henri Nouwen tells this story in the beginning of his book “With Open Hands.” It is an image that has stayed with me for many years. The image of someone desperately hanging on to something valuable. So incredibly tensed up. Hanging on.

Jesus told stories about people trying to hang on to things. And he taught about the futility of that. Today I’m told there is a TV series (maybe more than one) about “hoarders” who can’t bear to throw anything away.

I’d like to relate this to the mindfulness discussion I started with this week. And prayer–which is where Nouwen took the story.

Part of being mindful is to open up. Become open to the world around you. Become open to God. You cannot walk around and really be with people if you are tensed up with worry about things which are of no value to God and actually impede your relationship with God and people.

In Yoga, I put people into positions where they hold a pose designed to stretch and strengthen a  particular muscle or muscle group. Then I will suggest that they do a mental scan of their bodies at that time. If we are working the upper leg muscle (say in Warrior pose), we discover often that we are holding tension in our shoulders. We should not be holding tension there. We should only be working the leg muscle. We remind ourselves to relax.

While warming up, I will have the class in sitting position cross-legged on the mat. We sit erect, stretch our arms out straight, then bring the palms of the hands together in front. Breathing deeply, we bring our arms back until we are pinching the shoulder blades together. We put the thought in our minds that we are opening ourselves up to greet the day. Then we bring our arms forward on the exhale and put the thought in our minds that we are releasing all the tensions of the day. Repeat about 4-6 times.

We have our minds and bodies intentionally working together alert to the moment–and only the moment. Now we can pray.

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A Little Mindfulness Every Day

February 3, 2014

It is better to master your attention than to have a to-do list.

I try to practice the discipline of Getting Things Done (book by that name by David Allen). The practice is to write down everything on your mind so that it is free to concentrate on the task at hand. You write down ideas about tasks you need to do, projects to be completed, what you’d like to do this day/month/year. Then your mind is empty and you can turn your attention to the immediate task that needs to be done.

Being digital, I use an application called Nozbe (affiliate link) to keep track of and organize my list.

Michael Sliwinski created Nozbe and then started “Productive! Magazine” to write more about practices for Getting Things Done. You can download the magazine to your tablet via the App Store. In a recent issue, Augusto Pinaud discusses the importance of where you place your attention.

Do you focus your attention on the task at hand? Or does your attention drift? In her book “Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes,” Maria Konnikova begins with a discussion of the ability to be mindful–the ability to focus attention. Holmes was observant of the smallest detail because he was mindful–his attention was focused in the present and on what he was seeing.

I believe Jesus exhibited the same characteristic. He took time alone to be with God. When he was with people his attention was focused on people–so much so that he could see right through to their needs and motivations.

There are health benefits to slowing down for 15 minutes or so every day. Just practicing mindfulness, placing attention on the breath or a phrase or a single thought. The spiritual benefits are greater if you place your attention on spiritual things–a story from the Bible, for example.

I thought I’d start off the week suggesting we organize our week around mindfulness, attention, focusing on the right things. I do this to remind myself as much as to teach others.

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Experience God or Believe in God

January 14, 2014

Belief? Or experience?

I was brought up to believe in God. This word, belief, has long puzzled me. It means something like having confidence that something is true or something exists even though there is no empirical evidence that it is, indeed, true.

Faith also seems to me to be similar to belief.

I struggle with these words. They seem lacking. Not descriptive enough. What do you mean that you don’t know that God exists?

Do you ever wonder about this? Or wonder if God is real?

There is a group or community of people who have ecstatic experiences of the Spirit. We call them pentacostal or maybe other terms. I am not one, quite, but I know many. This is experiential worship. But many people are just not the right personality type for ecstatic worship.

I could say that I believe that people can experience God. But that sounds like a contradiction.

So, I’ve thought about all this for many years.

Then about 30 years ago, when I discovered that people really exist (as a science/engineering personality type, I was lost in a world of ideas for most of my early life), I started reading psychology. A lot. Freud. James, John Climacus. Jung.

Finally, an observation that seemed to fit my thinking as well as my experiences. Carl Jung, toward the end of his life of deep exploration of the psyche, was asked if he believed in God. “Believe?” he answered, “no, I don’t believe. I know.”

Pondering visionary experiences of God while contemplating John’s Revelation, brought back memories of my experiences. Yes, I know. God’s beyond belief. God is real.

Modern psychologists or English professors or the like would say that I am merely delusional. But they say that because they do not know! It’s not belief. I know God is with me.

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Spiritual and Emotional Maturity

December 23, 2013

I was taught a management study early in my career that has always stuck with me. Let’s say there are two types of bosses and two other types. These fit in a 2×2 matrix (in management circles, everything fits in a 2×2 matrix). That yields a box composed of four squares. On one side you measure either good feel for people or poor feel for people. On the other you measure good intellectual control over emotions and poor intellectual control over emotions.

Best boss

There are four possible combinations of the two sets. When people were surveyed, which do you think came out as the best boss?

Turns out that feel for people did not matter. What mattered was intellectual control over emotions. People wanted a stable boss, not one whose emotions controlled her/him.

That one lesson led to a lifetime of learning about the topic.

Once again, early in my education I was studying meditation. What better place to study how meditation helps you see God than to study the early Christian “desert Fathers.” I found the book “The Ladder of Divine Ascent” by John Climacus.

Wonder what that book is about? Getting control over your emotions. You could read that instead of Freud and be much the wiser.

Today’s lesson

Last week I listened to a TED Talk by Sally Kohn. She is the “gay, lesbian Talking Head” on Fox. The point was about emotionally connecting to people even if you disagree with them on politics versus letting pure emotion drive combativeness, hate and anger. She called it being emotionally correct (riffing off politically correct). I call it emotional maturity (or you can take it as Emotional Intelligence after the title of a book).

Then I heard about some sort of scuffle about some guy who looks like an aging ZZ Top singer–I guess some sort of reality TV guy from Louisiana (I have no idea what Duck Dynasty is, and I don’t really care to learn) who spouted off with a bunch of emotionally charged opinions.

So, everyone goes off on their opinions. I finally decided to read what the guy said. It’s the same stuff I grew up with. Every white male (and most females) held the same opinions and considered themselves the model of Christianity. In fact, about half of the people I’m connected with on Facebook are still at that level.

What comes to mind in both cases is emotional maturity. Or lack thereof.

There are ways to say things that just stir up people. Or, there are ways to emotionally connect with people to show a more mature nature. People in general respond to the emotionally mature person, even if they don’t agree with everything.

I am trying to learn that sort of maturity. Sometimes I slip. Then I am convicted of my failure.

One last thought–don’t get all worked up about TV and terms like freedom of speech. TV is all about money. And people who are concerned first and foremost with money do not want to offend groups of people with money who might part with it to them. Ask a friend who similarly lost a job.

There is freedom of speech. Then there is the freedom to speak wisely.

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The Still Point

November 14, 2013

Someone once asked how I come up with these thoughts. Some are derived from reading or listening to teachers. Some from news or observations. And then I think about the idea and try to relate it to a deeper teaching.

Focus is the  hard part. Last week I traveled three days beginning with a 6 am flight which meant rising at 3:45 in order to shower, pack my laptop bag (aka briefcase in the old days) and drive to the airport. On that trip I arrived at the destination, met my colleagues, made some sales calls, had a business discussion over a long dinner, and then get to my room after 10 pm. Up early for meetings, driving around, another business dinner.

It’s about the same this week. Now, it’s four days in Houston rather than three in Philadelphia.

I’m not looking for sympathy. I chose to do these trips. When I’m home, I have a normal routine which includes 15-30 minutes of quiet time to read and contemplate. Sometimes on business trips, I don’t carve out the time. It is a failure of focus.

This morning I decided to carve out some quiet time. When I do that, my body slows down, my thinking slows down, and I can focus on a topic. It’s all about focus and attention.

T.S. Eliot, a quite misunderstood poet, wrote in Burnt Norton (one of the Four Quartets) about the still point–at the still point of the turning earth, there is the dance, and there is only the dance. Eliot was a contemplative and understood the value of slowing down, focusing, achieving that still point.

Today, I switched my focus to, well, focus itself. I became close to the still point. The day will go much better because of that.

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Meditation Is Neither Complicated Nor Exotic

October 22, 2013

Ah, those New Age people. Always trying to make things complicated or exotic. Bookstore shelves are no longer filled with computer and business books. Now they are filled with New Age books.

If you are around my age, you may remember that the Beatles traveled to India, met the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (making him famous along the way), and popularized meditation. Allen Ginsberg, the Beat poet, was interviewed in a magazine in the mid-60s and talked about meditation as if it were some exotic being that only the adept could gain access to.

Let me debunk that idea.

You, too, can begin meditating today. Right now. It’s healthy. It will clear your mind. It will help you focus. And, yes, it may help you experience God. I have studied Transcendental Meditation and Zen. But did you know that there is a rich Christian tradition of meditation? Well, there is.

I like to begin every day with silence and meditation. I’ve been meditating for at least 45 years. I know how it changes your personality. And, yes, I’ve had God experiences. That’s the bonus, not the everyday experience.

The real benefit is to slow your thought processes and your body rhythms. This latter point is actually beneficial for such things as high blood pressure and mild anxiety. As you practice over time, you’ll notice that you become less anxious and agitated. Your focus increases. You can approach situations calmly. As you center, you will be more aware of your body–where you hold tension, where you feel relaxed.

As you become still and slow your mind, then you are able to receive those whispers, nudgings, shouts from God. Ancient wisdom traditions teach the value of becoming empty in order to be able to filled with the right stuff.

You don’t have to sit cross-legged on a prayer pillow with your forefinger and thumb connected in a circle such as you see in pictures. Although you can. Or, you can sit in your favorite chair, preferably not a soft one. After all, the goal is not to go to sleep! You can actually lie on your back on a firm surface such as the floor (called corpse pose in Yoga).

Close your eyes. Check your body to release any tension you may be holding especially in your shoulders, the back of your neck, or other places. Then just focus on your breathing. There are “chants” or “mantras” you can say. These are merely designed to help you focus. I like the sound of God. Some Christian meditators use love, spirit, Jesus. You get the picture. Or you can simply say a vowel such as o, or ah, or a, or oooh (u).

Just do it 10-15 minutes. After a while you may want to mediate longer. But just a few minutes a couple of times a day will work.

Then just be open to the Spirit.

 

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Seeing Without Observing

October 10, 2013

Most people seem to go through life seeing, but not really “seeing” or observing at a deeper level. Normal human condition is one of near total self-absorption. People see others mainly in relation to what their impact is on them.

I have seen parents who see their children, not for what they are as unique individuals, but more as an extension of themselves. 30 years of refereeing and coaching soccer (plus living through being the parent of an athlete and not always being the perfect example of the right way to be) has given me perspective on the whole “living life through your kids” syndrome. The same works for the famous “stage mother” type.

Seeing without observing causes one to miss opportunities to serve and to miss nudgings of the Holy Spirit. You don’t really see the person who needs help with a load. Or the person with troubles. Or the person who is rejoicing and appreciates when someone notices and rejoices with them. Or when the Spirit nudges you toward saying something meaningful to another.

Jesus seemed always to be aware of everything going on around him. This doesn’t mean that he didn’t pray for his own situation–obviously he did. But look at the number of times he was aware of what the Pharisees were saying about him. About the time the woman knew she would be healed if she but touched Jesus’ robe–and he felt the energy. He didn’t wander around absorbed in his own thoughts. He was always watching people.

We must also be careful about looking to Jesus as an example. John Ortberg taught last Sunday on the book, “Zealot.” I had not heard of the book, but it’s another in a long line of books saying basically that Jesus was not who we think he is. Rather, he was just another man in a long line of failed Zealots. Ortberg takes the author to task much better than could ever do. Click the link and find the sermon podcast. Well worth a listen.

During the talk, Ortberg mentioned that often when someone writes about Jesus, they are really describing themselves. That is, the don’t really look at Jesus, but at what they like and make Jesus fit the mold. I realized that years ago, and try hard to discern the real Jesus–as well as the real Paul. We all confuse them so much with what we’d really like for them to be and say.

But that’s part of observing. Sometimes it takes a long time to finally figure it out. A long time to realize your own prejudices in how you observe.

A daily discipline is to clear your head every morning through silent meditation for even just a few minutes and ask God to help you focus on others, not yourself.

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Posted in Christianity, Listening, Relationship | 2 Comments »

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