Meditation Group Starting at Full Bloom

Last week the residents here decided to re-establish a weekly group meditation practice and I found myself reflecting on the why of it.  There’s a million things to do on this land, why would we all get together and just sit quietly together.  I like to ask these kinds of questions to myself and just write down the reflections that come to me.  When I first started a regular practice of meditation some years ago (To be specific it was in 2001 where I met my 3 other land partners at Green Gulch Zen Center) I thought it was mainly about calming the mind and eventually achieving some transcendental state of perfection where the the throws of human emotion and relational conflict cease to be an issue.

I’ve realized lately that the transformative power of meditation exists in the opportunity it provides to notice a pattern of thought or behavior and to choose something else, some other way of being.  If we stop on put our focus on our breath versus how much that person is wrong we can literally alter our brain chemistry and whole new options, choices present themselves that were preciously not there (given the brain state that goes with reactivity.  For more on this check out Dr. Dan Siegal’s work http://www.drdansiegel.com/)

We have this invaluable ability as humans to intentionally change our way of being in the world and in relationship.  Its up to us to employ this ability to say to ourselves “instead of lashing back at this person I’m going to pause and take a deep breath and consider some more constructive options”

I’m not saying there isn’t value to exploring the depths of human consciousness through the practice of mediation, what I am saying is that it can also be an incredibly powerful grassroots tool that has radical implications for how we pattern and re-pattern our lives both individually and collectively.  Its simple and I think simple can be quite powerful: pause, breath, and watch your perceptions change right before your very eyes.

I’m grateful to be living in a community of folks that value this practice.

Thanks for reading,

Ryan

“The most fundamental aggression to ourselves, the most fundamental harm we can do to ourselves, is to remain ignorant by not having the courage and the respect to look at ourselves honestly and gently.”
― Pema Chödrön, When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult