Avoiding meditation
Why do I love to meditate and also put off doing it?
I talk to my meditation friends about this and I know I’m not alone. So many of us experience this tension—we yearn for the peace but we also avoid it. Sometimes our to-do list seems too long, or “pulling in” feels too self-absorbed or indulgent, or we tell ourselves it’s better left to the yogis, monks, and introverts.
Let me tell you, I get this tension. It is scary to be still and sit with yourself and all of your wild thoughts. Goodness, I started a magazine for art and contemplation, and most days, I find it easier to tackle the inbox than to be still, physically or mentally. I find the thrill of problem-solving and checking items off my list more immediately satisfying than the awkward embracing of ambiguity. So I get it. But I’m starting to think these concerns and distractions that keep us from contemplation are really just fear in disguise.
Richard Rohr, scholar, Franciscan priest, and founder of the Center for Contemplation and Activism, writes in his book A Lever and a Place to Stand: “Contemplation waits for the moments, creates the moments, where all can be prayer. . . . Contemplation is essentially nondual consciousness that overcomes the gaps—gaps between me and God, outer and inner, either and or, me and you.”
This is scary stuff! Moving into the gaps, into the gray! And I know this phrase “nondual consciousness” is a mouthful, but stay with me. Rohr goes on to explain that he sees it as a compassionate posture of embracing mystery and paradox, the difficult and the unknown, and the realization that we don’t understand everything. Gulp. A mind open to contemplation is a mind open to possibility and to curiosity. Yes, this feels true to me.
I also love that Rohr invites us to integrate action and contemplation in our lives, recognizing that we all have both aspects, and we needn’t choose one or the other. I also suspect this welcoming of both action and contemplation would release us from some of that fearful tension we often feel. Rohr writes: [Action] is surely the first half of life for almost all of us . . . We learn, we experiment, we try, we do, we stumble, we fall, we break,and we find.” If we fearfully stay in this stage of action-only oriented living, “We will settle for being right instead of being holy and whole; for saying prayers instead of being one.”
So, yes, it’s scary, but it’s worth it to keep stepping into the gaps, to keep practicing a posture of compassion and yeses. I’ve also learned that simply being quiet and alone or avoiding people does not make me a contemplative. I can be alone with an inner war going on inside, or I can be quiet because I feel numb and shut down. And yes, I have definitely experienced this. Picture me trying to pray and meditate oh-so-peacefully in my favorite chair when I hear my kids bickering in the other room. I’m immediately annoyed, snapping at them to stop fighting! And then I’m annoyed with myself for snapping at the kids. Whew!
I’m learning that to be mindful and contemplative is to be compassionate toward others and myself. And one last beautiful thing . . . always we begin again in this contemplative posture.Thankfully, it is never simply a task to be mastered and forgotten.
First appeared in Issue 38: Ruminate