Meditation Update

I have read and thought about all the comments on meditating left after my Monday post. I am touched by the effort people have put into this. Many of the comments are lengthy and some, like those of Nollyposh, have spilled over into discussions on other blogs.

The comments reveal the vast range of meditative techniques, some of the comments refine the suggestions made in the video, some are more deeply religious than others, Reya was concerned about my starting a meditative practice during times of high stress.

"Based on three decades of practice," she writes, "I believe that right now it might be hard to begin what I think of (still) as a very rigorous practice."

Hen suggested I set more modest goals for myself. She suggested I try meditating for only 5 minutes in the beginning.

Two Flights Down echos the comments of many when she writes-- "What method you use...is up to you. There's really no wrong way--it's that objective of 'being' that, really, you need to aim for. Some methods may work for you, others may not. You may even find your own method--you may already have."

Most seriously urge me not to try this on my own but to seek out a teacher instead. I would like to, but the erratic scheduling of medical appointments at distant Princess Margaret Hospital make it impossible for me to keep to any schedule. Plus, I have no idea how physically able I will be to commit to anything once I begin chemo and radiation.

Maybe later I will seek out more formal instruction.

Some get the feeling from my posts that I have already been informally meditating all my life. They get a meditative feel from the posts about my taking Lindsay for a run along the top of the bluffs.

To support my sister-in-law who has MS, Linda and I did take yoga classes for over ten years and they did have a ten minute guided meditation at the end. But that was over a quarter of a century ago. And, in truth, I was not a very good yoga student, as stiff and awkward after a decade as I was in the beginning. But I totally got that meditation part at the end.

One woman, with years of meditative practice behind her, wrote privately, "Think of meditating in the morning like a composer setting the key for a piece of music. The notes may rise and fall, but they do that within the key the composer has set at the beginning of the music. With meditation your day will have all the ups and downs it always had, but meditating will set it in a more peaceful key right from the very beginning."

So on Wednesday morning I sat here in the quiet of my living room, eyes closed, and noticed my breath, my stomach rising and falling. I named my distractions as they came, until they faded. I worried about the passage of time and named it until it faded.

Until I became as quiet as the room and almost as peaceful.

I opened my eyes at the end of an eternity, to find that only four minutes had passed. But I had touched the outer edges of a deeper peace and found a new beginning.

I was encouraged.

That night I sat again, watching my stomach rising and falling and awoke a hour later. I'd fallen asleep. On Thursday, the morning meditation lasted the full five minutes; but during the evening one, I fell asleep again.

Yesterday I moved the time of the evening meditation up to six o'clock. No sooner had I begun than the phone rang. I tried again and Lindsay wanted out. I tried again and my brother John and his wife arrived, unexpectedly, to see how I was doing.

Not well, in the evening, I thought. I'm finding an 8 to 10 minute meditation in the morning, is no problem. But meditating at night will require a whole new strategy.

Meditation For The Non-Meditative Guy

"Have you considered meditation?"

"You know, I hear meditation helps."

"And doing a little meditation can't hurt."

Among the many pieces of advice I've received recently there has been a frequent theme. All of a sudden, vast numbers of friends and family are urging me to meditate.

Not that many of them have ever tried it for themselves. No. But, for me, they think it would be a very good thing indeed.

My cancer, it seems, has stirred vast numbers of personal acquaintances to read. They are finding articles on cancer all over the place; articles that would have slid past beneath their notice now leap off the page at them. And all of these articles recommend meditation.

Indeed, many of these articles are written by people who credit meditation with curing them of cancer. Or, at least, giving them comfort and shelter as they descend toward the ending of their lives.

"It will help give you a better attitude."

"Has my attitude been bad?"

"No, no, your attitude's been great. But that's just the shock of all this and your attitude's going to get bad as you go along and you owe it to Linda to learn how to keep this great attitude going."

Well, okay, you've hit a sore spot there. Even though this cancer was my body's idea, not mine, I do feel some guilt for this radical downward turn in Linda's life and for the evident pain this has been causing my family and friends. If I can avoid causing them any more discomfort, I will. "So how do I go about meditating?"

"Darned if I know."

So I went in search of meditation. I found classes that would gladly take my money, but my up-coming and utterly unpredictable hospital schedule wouldn't permit me to register. I found books, but in leafing through them, they all seemed to be offering different descriptions of meditative practice. Meditation, I discovered, isn't one thing, its a whole bunch of things. Many of them contradictory. Many of them being hawked by evident snake-oil salesmen.

I found on-line courses that would also delight in taking my money.

And then I found this guy, on YouTube. He has a six video series on How To Meditate that seems straight forward. He is formerly from Toronto so I find him easy to understand. The video series is well made and the steps to practice are clear.

But is this meditation? Is this the meditation people are urging me to undertake?

I know I have many commenters who have practiced meditation and benefited from it. I would certainly appreciate you're giving this a listen and letting me know if I'm on the right track. And if I'm not, could you let me know where to go to learn this seemingly simple, but evidently elusive art?

And what are your experiences with meditation? Has it benefited you in any way? If you meditate how did you learn to do it? Would putting some time into meditation benefit me, do you think? Or would I just feel an irresistible urge to dress in orange?

Let me know, people!