My Meditation

Do you meditate?  Most of us tend to think of meditation in the “classic” sense–sitting in a particular position and staying silent while listening to our breathing or focusing on mental images that bring peace, good health, and clear skin–or whichever other benefits we believe meditation to bring.  There have been times when I’ve felt as if something were missing in my life because I never did this, because I never meditated at all.  I’ve come to realize, though, that I do meditate in my own way, on my own terms.

I meditate when I run, for example.  I can run for an hour and come back feeling completely refreshed mentally, even if I do feel a bit drained physically.  When I run, the rhythm of the steps and my breathing brings me to a clear place in my mind, a place at which I can ponder problems or situations in my life, or consider solutions to problems, or think of things I’d like to do and how I’d like to do them.  It’s the repetitiveness of the steps and breathing that brings me to such a place, and it’s a very nice place to be.

I also meditate when I do the dishes or sweep the floor or paint a room.  Again, during these activities the repetitive motions and the strong focus on the task allow me to reach places in my mind that I usually don’t reach.  I don’t find either task to be annoying or in any way awful; I do find these tasks to be thought-provoking and relaxing.

I don’t need a special pad to sit on and I don’t need to learn any special positions.  And while people who do meditate in the more classic way are obviously served well by their methods, I have to remember that not everything is for me.  I have my particular strengths and needs and weaknesses, and even if I am unable to sit in meditation as many people do, there’s nothing saying that I can’t run in meditation or do dishes in meditation.  Sometimes it’s important to define things in our own terms so that we can make them our own and let them affect our lives positively, rather than adopt other people’s paradigms in an effort to make them try to work in our lives.

Meditation is not a way of making  your mind quiet.  It's a way of
entering into the quiet that's  already there— buried under
the 50,000 thoughts the average  person thinks every day.

Deepak Chopra