Monday, March 6, 2017

Day 5: mandatory meditation

The practice of mediation is to create quiet space to focus your mind and let go other worries.

Being sick is a form of mandatory meditation.  Typically, when I feel really sick my mind hyper focuses on the symptoms. The fever. The sore throat.  The upset stomach.  As I settle into bed and begin to rest,  the magnitude of my headache starts to go down.  When I stand up,  it comes back strong.

It dawned on me that my ability to focus on my body and my breath is much higher when I am sick due to this natural interest in monitoring my symptoms?  I wondered then,  if it were an ideal opportunity to pray.

Prayer is meditation where the focus is on God,  rather than self.  Could I take my meditative focus and lift it from myself to heaven. There was a deep quiet,  the rest of my mind was already clear. To turn to prayer in a meditative state was to approach God without a laundry list of concerns. It was simply to search the quiet for God the way you search your body for symptoms when you are sick.

I have not much prayed like this before.  Often my prayers revolve around words and thoughts.  A conversation with God, rather than a still silent moment to focus beyond myself to the mystery of the divine. 

Peace be with you. 

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