Why do it?

As I sat to meditate with a group of seasoned meditators –and not being one of them- I was able to really pay attention to my breathing. Previously, I had only been able to do this for short periods of time, say 10 to 15 seconds…but this time, anchored in my breath, my attention stayed put for a period that seemed to go on forever.

When you meditate time can feel elastic and spacious, infusing you with a sense of lightness, or it can seem tight and constrictive like a corset that binds your insides and squashes your chest. Surprisingly, my attention was flowing in what seemed like a crisp stream of awareness, with the occasional distracting thought popping in and then floating by. I had no need to follow it, because here I was, breathing in and out. There was nothing easier and effortless to attend to. Just my breath.

This awareness of the present moment provided me with a safe and cool refuge, some shade from the bright and terrifying fear of having to lead a group meditation later that day. This brief respite from my habit of anticipating the ‘next thing’ and all the planning that goes with it, left me energized and hopeful. My turn would eventually come to lead the group and when that moment came, I would be present, doing my best, because that is all I had do. All I could do. What. A. Discovery.

Later that day, I joked around with my fellow teachers in training for the Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) 8 week course that I felt like it had been the mileage that allowed me to experience what being present, without all my hoopla, really was. This moment of not being a prisoner of my own thoughts, but rather the observer, felt like I was finally able to redeem miles and miles of lonely flight hours of sitting with myself.

There is actually a scientific reason why meditators encounter this experience. Using fMRI, researchers at the University of Toronto found that people who had completed the MBSR program showed increases in the neuronal network associated with embodied present-moment experience, and decreases in the network associated with the “narrative network”, the one that experiences self through time. The latter network is most involved with rumination and the attachment to ‘my story’.

In his book Full Catastrophe Living, Jon Kabbat Zinn states that this study “further suggests that non-judgmental awareness of our wandering mind may actually be the gateway to a greater happiness and well-being, right in the present moment, without anything at all having to change”.

So here I was, discovering what thousands before me had already found out: There is a way for you to be happy regardless of exterior circumstances. Now, if freedom from my inner Judge Judy is not a good enough reason to put in miles and miles of sitting meditation time, I don’t know what is.

https://www.axeospi.com/2015/09/24/why-do-it/