By Louisa Rogers | Source
Long-term meditation can create subtle but lasting change. Discover how one woman’s decades of practice helped her become less reactive, communicate more wisely, and hold her feelings more lightly.
At 6:20 a.m. every weekday, I move my laptop into my kitchen, where I join a daily online meditation group called Morning Contemplation. We’re about 65 people from the U.S., Canada, and England. I’m Zooming in from Eureka, California. Our hour together is divided roughly into three parts: one-third silent meditation, one-third sharing a brief excerpt or quote provided by that morning’s facilitator, and one-third offering support to both one another as well as people outside the Zoom room—family members, friends, and strangers included.
I’m a loose, half-assed meditator. I go through periods when I meditate daily and other times when I skip it for months. Nonetheless, meditation has been part of the texture of my life for more than 30 years. Back in the early ’90s, my husband joined a Zen group, and a few months later he asked me if I would like to meditate with him at home three times a week. Early in the morning, we’d sit on big, black zafus (cushions) in our living room for 20 minutes, then walk very slowly on the brick path that circled our garden. We no longer live in that house, but I still remember the joy I felt as I passed the pink-tinted nandinas along the path.
Since then, I’ve lost my father and a sister, moved twice, and bought a home in Mexico. Throughout all the comings and goings of my life, the one constant has been my meditation practice. I often find myself sitting quietly on a cushion or a chair, doing whatever it is my mind does, experimenting with different forms: from Zen and Vipassana, a Westernized form of Buddhist meditation, to “centering prayer,” a Christian-flavored meditation. While each style is slightly different, they share a common goal of helping you avoid sleepwalking through your life.
Don’t Expect Dramatic Results, But …
I don’t ask a lot from meditation. I don’t expect spiritual epiphanies, enlightenment, a stress-free life, or even that meditation will improve the quality of a given day. Those rewards occasionally come about, but I haven’t found that expecting them to happen is helpful.
And yet … one morning, as I stared silently at the faces of my fellow meditators on my computer screen, I realized that years of meditation have changed me in several ways.
One way I’ve changed is that I’m less impulsive. A frequent thought I’ll have while meditating is, I must! There I am, sitting in silence, when a sudden sense of urgency races through me. Shoot! I don’t think I turned off the coffee pot and I’m afraid it’ll overheat. Or I forgot to pick up detergent. Now I sit with that familiar, uncomfortable, speedy anxiety and do nothing to make it go away. After some minutes, my mind wanders off in another direction. The shadows on the wall in front of me shift their patterns, and the bell rings, signifying the end of meditation and the return to the group. Time has passed. I may still feel it’s important to take a particular action. Or not. But I wouldn’t have felt the need to act on it immediately. What seemed so urgent wasn’t urgent after all.
Chronic urgency is not a healthy state. During meditation, I observe the intensity that arises in me and practice not acting on it. This discipline benefits me as I’m going about my life too.
Another way I’ve changed is in my communication style. I used to hold the strong belief that being direct and straightforward was the right way to be, superior to all other ways, and that I was the embodiment of this quality. I believed I was a better person because I had the courage to tell people things I decided they needed to hear. I shudder to think of the things I’ve said in the name of honesty.
I still value being straightforward. And I still speak up—except when I don’t. Sometimes I shut up and say nothing; other times I listen and draw someone out; still other times I mull more before voicing an opinion. Because I have become aware of my patterns through meditation, I have more options available now.
An Incremental Evolution
A third way I’ve changed relates to how I respond to my feelings. I came of age in the era of encounter groups and gestalt therapy. Feelings were my religion, and like any devout follower, I worshipped the god I had created. I was hurt! I was mistreated! You need to know this!
I honor my feelings. Like young children, they deserve attention and respect. If I ignore them, they may intensify in ways that aren’t helpful. They’re important. But they’re not that important. They’re just feelings. That’s all they are.
When I’m meditating, a feeling often shows up in the theater of my mind. For me, it’s frequently jealousy. Nothing I can do will make it go away. So I sit there and feel the jealousy coursing through my body in all its careening intensity, all its textures. I study it; I get up close and personal with it. What is this thing that is causing my heart to beat faster? As I investigate the jealousy—or whatever crowds my mind—an alchemy takes place: It shifts, changes form. Minutes later I’ll wonder, Where did it go? It’s not that the feeling has entirely vanished, leaving no trace, but it has a different quality.
Feelings transmute. They come, they go. I notice them, but I don’t take them so seriously anymore, and for that I thank meditation.
In my experience, meditation is an incremental process, slowly wearing away my crusty defenses and changing me, sometimes in spite of myself. Thirty years ago, when I was 44, I would never have guessed that these changes would have come about. I probably wouldn’t have even wanted them to, I was so attached to the persona I had back then. Now, seeing how I’ve evolved, I’m grateful. And I see no reason to stop meditating now. I can’t imagine what changes may be coming, but I’m eager to find out.