Another blank-mind day. My mind isn’t really blank. I just don’t know that I want to put in my blog what it is entertaining.
________________________________
Someone told me recently that Buddha is the master of the mind and Jesus is the master of the heart. I liked that idea a lot. I have been drawn to Buddhism for what it does for the mind – clear it of the crap. Is that crass? Well, it is what it is. I don’t have a problem with using the mind. Thinking is good. But I have this sense that all of the really good ideas come from some place other than out of our own heads. I often feel like I catch them rather than create them. When I was a little girl, my dad would tell me that if I have my bait ready on the hook attached to the line hanging from my pole and I sit very quiet and still, I just might catch the fish passing by. I don’t have to think about it, I just have to be ready to pull it in when it takes the bait. Meditation, or sacred listening, is like that. If my brain is too busy with thoughts of my own, I won’t catch the divine thoughts swimming around.
I’ve heard people say that prayer is talking to God and meditation is listening. As I sit in meditation and I start to have some kind of inner conversation with myself, I remember my father’s admonition: sit very still, be quiet, and wait. I haven’t really had the experience some people tell me about which is that they hear God’s message as they meditate. The message of God usually comes later for me. It comes when I least expect it, most often in the words of a person I encounter or in those written in a book or sung in a song. It comes in the metaphors in nature and in the objects I handle throughout the day. It comes with the interruptions in my day, which I call surprises if my attitude is right. It comes when I set out to help someone and find that I am the one being helped. It only comes, though, if I have dropped my bait in the water and I am ready to pull it in when the fish bites.
So, meditation is beneficial to me, it seems. As for the other part, Jesus and the heart, that is still a mystery to me. But I suspect that it is mystery because I try to understand it with my mind which is the problem, of course…which is why I meditate.
Through an innocent conversation on Facebook that turned ugly because of religion, I was accused of being a Buddhist. I know it was intended as an insult but I took it as 100% positive.
For me, meditation takes lots of practice because I’m impatient trying to calm my mind.
One doesn’t have to be Buddhist to benefit from the spiritual practice of meditation. It is becoming widely used today by people of any religious faith. Each of the three major religions, Christian, Jewish, and Muslim have always had individuals and groups among them who meditate. Meditation is finding its way into the world of medicine as a benefit in healing. I think some people fear it. I am not sure exactly why.