Prayer & Meditation, but How?

We get lots of advice on how to work the Eleventh Step. 

Those of us who grew up in a faith tradition had the preliminaries of prayer. Maybe we knew how to say grace at dinner, or a bedtime prayer from childhood, or if we had religious training we knew about the Christian prayer formula: ACTS: Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving and Supplication. Something like, “I love you God, and I did some bad stuff, but I’m also grateful for a lot of stuff, and here’s what I need today.” Friends who grew up in Muslim or Jewish families learned lots of prayers as well.

But meditation? Not so much. We were told to be quiet in church or temple, and maybe we were shown icons or religious symbols to focus on, but did anyone actually teach meditation?

Then we join a Twelve Step program and doing meditation is strongly encouraged. So we try. We sit down and think about nothing. Ha! Most of us are off that chair or pillow in less than a minute. How, exactly how, is this medication thing supposed to work?

Yes you can get an ap for your phone. But still…it’s the being still that is the hard part.

But this week I read a new book that breaks down the entire why and how and when. The book is called “The Mind Illuminated” By Culadasa (also known as John Yates, PhD.) The unique aspect of this treatise on meditation is that it brings Buddhist meditation and neuroscience together—so its got the best of the ancient and the most modern thinking and concepts. 

This is a book to read from front-to-back if you are that kind of learner, or one to scan for the parts you need: where to meditate and what is a mantra? Etc.

If you want to have a very direct experience of these principles and this teacher, Dr Yates will be doing a workshop at the NYC Insight Meditation Center on January 20 to 22nd. 28 West 27th Street.  It’s a weekend workshop, so contact them to sign up. He will also be speaking/signing in Beacon, NY on Sunday January 29th 2:30 pm at BeBhakti Yoga, 89 DeWindt Street.

Meditation and Fear

Again and again I take baby steps toward meditation. Years ago--30 years ago--I did TM Transcendental Meditation. Yes, the whole thing. $300 which was a fortune and the arm full of fruit and flowers for the Guru. Looking back I think it was one of my first gestures toward sanity...I was still drinking and in the throes of food addiction, swirling in the madness of untreated ACOA survival...but some part of me wanted what the TM people promised. I wanted freedom from fear and all the pain I was carrying around and trying to medicate.

Yesterday I read about a study reported in Hospital Psychiatry Magazine describing participants who meditated for 20 minutes a day for eight weeks. They showed a 38% reduction in psychological distress and a 44% decrease in anxiety. That in itself, is impressive. And what I want.

Here is a quote from the article:

"Fear, like pain, is a messenger. Pain tells us that something physical needs attention; fear tells us that something emotional needs attention. If we can honor fears by feeling them--we can heal and release them. Fear is not the enemy. Pushing it down or denying it is what causes problems."

Now I think about that quote and I think about the idea that Faith and Fear can't occupy the same space. Wrong. They have to occupy the same space. Feel the fear in--and with--the faith that it can resolve; that it can teach me; that I can be healed by feeling it.

And sit quietly.

That's the hard part still.

Be Still: A Practice

I’m making a commitment to daily meditation, and I’ve begun to go through the resources I’ve saved for years. Here is a meditation practice that I learned years ago on a Matt Talbot retreat in Massachusetts. I like this one because it has a beginning, middle and an end, and I can make it short or long by adjusting the intervals.

It works like this: Read or say each line and pause for a brief interval allowing those words to sink in. (You can sit with each line for 30 seconds, or one minute, or three minutes depending on the time you have.) Here are the lines:

Be still and know that I am God.

(pause and sit)

Be still and know that I am.

(pause and sit)

Be still and know.

(pause and sit)

Be Still.

(pause and sit)

Be.

Meditation

In a recent meeting we talked about “Half measures availed us nothing” and I remember, with gratitude, my willingness and desperation to do what I was told in early recovery. Ninety meetings in 90 days; a sponsor, step meetings, a food plan, calling a sponsor every day, service work, changing people, places and things. I didn’t question, I acted. And 25 years later those are habits.

But I have my current version of half measures. Meditation. I have books, videos and CD’s. I have been on meditation retreats and taken workshops and I know the brain chemistry of meditation practice. But I don’t meditate on a daily basis. And I want to.

I still have the faulty belief—not conscious maybe but still…that I can substitute knowledge for experience, knowing for doing. Not.

Yesterday reading some materials to prepare for a spirituality workshop that I am leading I saw this over and over: every religion has a recommended practice that basically says, “Sit down. Shut up.”

Meditation.

Be Still and Know

A few years ago on a retreat for women in recovery a spiritual director gave me this meditation practice to use to quiet my ever spinning mind. When I remember to do it my heart and head do settle. I find this also works to quiet my fears in difficult meetings at work.

Sit quietly and say each line yourself:


Be still and know that I am God.

Be still and know that I am.

Be still and know.

Be still.

Be.