So Why Should I Meditate?

      Meditation offers a window into my everyday world to which I am otherwise oblivious. I realized after many hours on the cushion that all manner of insights are the direct result of those boring sessions when I didn't want to do it but did it anyway. The times when it seemed like all I could do is wonder why in the world I'm doing it became led to a flash of insight, or a brief but sudden moment of enlightenment on a problem that had previously baffled me. I was forced to admit that knowing ‘why’ is far less important than just being open and present to each moment with a spacious awareness. Exciting!
      I recognized at some point, that by repeating my Fear-Judgment-Anger mantra in meditation, I became more “spacious” in my thinking. I was then able to see the world differently when my mind was not cluttered with anger, fear, and judgment. It suddenly made sense that a spacious mind is one that has a wider vision because it is not crowded with imaginings, feelings, or judgments.
      I began to see that all things - everything - arises out of conditions and passes away. Wanting/grasping, fear/aversion, are all nothing but mental objects of awareness, so I should not make them personal. One day while meditating on a bench in the middle of the woods I experienced a revealing moment. I was sitting, eyes closed and following the breath when the wind came up with enough force to push my upper body back, and it made an ominous sound as it rushed through the trees. I was aware of the physical sensation of agitation that seemed to quiver through my body from the top of my head to my toes and recognized it as that of fear. But rather than enter into a dialogue with myself about this object of my awareness, I just recognized it as “fear”, as an object arising in my mind, and not my fear which, when named and experienced as such, requires me to react to it as a threat. I noted that the fear subsided almost immediately when I did not entertain it with thoughts of “what is it? “What should I do?” or open my eyes and try to see the nature of the threat.
      This experience translated nicely into the insight that when things come up like anger, fear, or any idea within the mind, I need only remind myself not to personalize it. They are just fleeting clouds which naturally arise from other causes and conditions, and I need to do no more than pay attention to them, and watch them recede into oblivion as easily, and as they arrived. I now also find that if I will just note it and return to the breath, I am able to work with physical pain in this manner as well.
      To quote again the words of Alexander Pope, “Presume not God to scan, the proper study of mankind is man.” It is through looking into ourselves rather than out into the world that we are able to grow. The job is never really completed because there is always more that the universe will teach us. And it seems a fact today that it will always give us exactly what we need to further our practice..…always! It also reinforces for me, the need to continue to meditate and to take my practice to the next level, whatever that may be. The path is always in front of me in this moment. And through my meditation practice I have come to believe that whatever arises in my awareness is exactly what I need at that moment. There really is never a moment when what I am experiencing is just some extraneous thing impinging on my real life. It is all my real life from moment to moment – just as it is. That has become such a liberating thought for me. It brings up tears, not of sadness or frustration, but of joy. Everything is as it should be……because it is so.