IN TIME, EDUCATION AND MEDITATION WILL RHYME

For most people, when it comes to understanding the benefits of meditation and the inclusion of the practice as a prominent component of wellbeing, we’re talking about tomorrow-- not today. That’s unfortunate, because the benefits are so obvious but the reality on the ground doesn’t reflect that. Human nature strikes again!

I’ve written a good bit about meditation lately, in an effort to educate people, but the response has been muted. I guess self-awareness and improved regulation of thought, feeling, mood or emotion aren’t yet recognized for the importance they play in the lives of people with whom we live and work. Either that, or people just don’t care.

Sociologically, mothers have been talking to their children for hundreds of years about the importance of eating their vegetables, and even though there has never been an immediately observable relationship between vegetables and one’s strength or health, kids have been dutifully eating their veggies (as well as passing the same advice along to their children).

Why isn’t there an equivalent implicit trust in accepting the benefits of meditation? Maybe meditation needs a mother, or a similar archetypal somebody, to step up and begin rallyingenthusiasm around the practice? I mean, meditation (like vegetables) has a lot going for it-- starting with the simple fact that it’s good for us.

Putting all that aside, the next best thing to the advice of a mother is education, and starting the meditation journey with a bit of knowledge about it, would be a great way to start. After all, most people are not familiar with many aspects of the practice of meditation and beyond the stereotypical images that many of us conjure up, very little information is available.

What the heck is meditation? Why would we do it? How would we do it? Where, and when? How often, and how long? And what’s supposed to happen after we assume a posture, and close our eyes? For that matter, is there a recommended posture, and why are we prompted to close our eyes? And what’s with the breath? So many questions (and I’m sure there are more), but so little information.

Before they’re going to invest their time and energy in something new, most people want to know more. Quite honestly, I wish I’d known more about meditation when I first became curious about it-- even the slightest amount of information would have saved me a lot of time, and answered questions.

Sink or swim is generally not regarded as a great learning strategy, but that’s what many who are interested in meditation are required to put up with. That should stop-- especially considering what’s at stake.

Our mother’s encouragement won’t help us (in most cases), so we need to devise other means of educating people about what meditation really is-- and how to “do it”.