(TXT) View source
       
       # 2020-08-24 - On Meditation by Morrie Schwartz
       
 (IMG) Painting of meditator by sunlit waterfall
       
       Find what is divine, holy, or sacred for you.  Attend to it, worship
       it, in your own way.
       
       About ten years ago I became dissatisfied with agnosticism.  I wanted
       spirituality in my life, and I decided meditation sounded like a
       spiritual practice that suited my principles.
       
       I've gotten a lot out of meditation, even though I'm not great at it
       and I don't do it every day.  I meditate by sitting and watching my
       breath and watching from moment to moment what goes on.  It's a form
       of meditation that has been a wonderful reinforcement for my
       psychological and sociological approaches to dealing with being
       physically ill.
       
       My predisposition to the principles of meditation goes back many
       years to Krishnamurti, an Indian philosopher I met in 1949 or the
       early 1950s.  My analyst was interested in him, and when he came to
       Washington, D.C., I went to hear him and was very impressed.
       
       He was probably in his fifties.  He looked very thin, quite
       dignified, with gray hair and stern visage.
       
       His view was that you have to question all your presuppositions about
       life and living--about the nature of your relationships, your
       society, yourself, and what you expect and accept.  The world is not
       a given.  What we think and do are not the same as what people
       thought and did a hundred years ago.
       
       Even our sense of what reality is changes over time.  For example,
       the car as an essential private property is a concept we developed.
       There's no law of nature that says we have to get around in cars, or
       that individuals should have their own cars.  If everyone agrees that
       cars are no longer wanted, soon no one will have, make, or use a car.
       The automobile will be gone.
       
       Look at how quickly and completely our concept of the world became
       altered when we dropped the atom bomb.  Suddenly, we realized that
       all humanity can be wiped out in an instant if a few hundred people
       decide that's what they want to do with the bombs they have
       available.  We created a different sense of the solidness of the
       world.  When you put it that way, you can understand what
       Krishnamurti was driving at.  He was asking us to look at the wicked
       ways we deal with each other, though he did not use those words.
       Look how cruel we are.  Look how murderous you are.  Look at how
       inhumane we are to each other.  Why do we behave this way?  And he
       was saying that each individual has to come to this realization for
       herself or himself--that's what the path of enlightenment is all
       about.
       
       There is no one way that works for everyone.  Keep looking around
       until you find the path that's right for you.
       
       ...
       
       When you meditate, you note the feelings, thoughts, and sensations
       that go through your mind, then let them go and notice the next ones.
       ... That's what meditation does--it gets your mind into another
       space or an alternative reality.  I want to make it clear that I
       don't suggest that you try to avoid experiencing whatever you're
       experiencing.  ... whatever it is, let yourself feel it--but also
       know that you can detach from it.  If you don't let yourself really
       experience what's going on, it won't be clear what you're detaching
       from.
       
       From: Morrie: In His Own Words
       
       tags: book,inspiration,spirit
       
       # Tags
       
 (DIR) book
 (DIR) inspiration
 (DIR) spirit