ALLOWING...

"The Warrior of Light needs time to himself. And he uses that time for rest, contemplation, and contact with the Soul of the World. Even in the middle of a battle, he manages to meditate. Occasionally, the Warrior sits down, relaxes, and lets everything that is happening around him continue to happen. He looks at the world as a spectator, he does not try to add to it or take away from it, he merely surrenders unresistingly to the movement of life. Little by little, everything that seemed complicated begins to become simple. And the Warrior is glad."

- Paulo Coelho, Warrior Of The Light

I've been meditating on and off since my mid 20's. Mostly off. Started out going to a Transcendental Meditation (TM) class with some friends, got my mantra, and started TRYING to meditate. Always somehow felt like an effort, I could rarely "transcend", get myself to a place where my mind felt still, where I would come out of the sitting and feel refreshed, still. No matter how many times I would hear that it was OK to have thoughts come up, I could so rarely ever be in that place where the chatter while I was meditating was any less than it was at any other point in the day. I'd start reading more and more books, some even called "Quiet Your Mind," or some such thing, and it seemed to create more THINKING, more TRYING. More internal clutter. Reminded me of something that used to challenge me when I was married to X. She was, pretty much, a slob. A pack rat, nothing really ever got put away, so that all that clutter around, just would plug into the clutter in my own head. I would suggest ( I am sure each time with less patience than before) new ways of her dealing with it, my ideas generally being met with digging-in, and the purchase of a new book on dealing with clutter. One day I looked up, and there were 10 unread, certainly under-utilized books about clutter, cluttering around our house. Not sure I actually laughed at the time. But the lesson, the mirror, is clear. Other's teachings, or suggestions, are helpful to get started...ultimately, one doesn't need all that stuff, all that external info, the real answers are within us...if we stay open to feeling and seeing what works.

A few months ago, I started taking a Tuesday 5:30PM meditation class with Cyndi Lee at Om Yoga (http://www.omyoga.com/). A half hour of group meditation, which really amounts to about 20-25 minutes of actual meditation, because Cyndi starts this class with a personal story that always resonates for me in a profound way. Takes the pressure off, allows me to simply to connect with whatever is up at the moment. Cyndi's amazing gifts, as a teacher, is her humanness, her unholier than thou approach, to yoga, meditation, spirituality. And, her style of meditation, and her approach - to life, not just meditation - has helped me enormously. I have learned to "accept" my mind, how it works, how it is firing all the time, unless it's not...instead of having eyes firmly closed, TRYING to get to someplace else, this form of meditation, has eyes mostly closed, partially open....focusing on a space let's say 10 feet in front...looking, as Cyndi says, from "the back of your eyes"...it has been transformative. I could rarely sit for even 10 minutes, eyes closed, fighting with whatever came up...now, 25 minutes flies by, often twice a day, mind wandering constantly, I just come back to the breath...it is a way that allows me to have meditation be part of my life, not separate from it. A real life experience, not something to fully step into or away from. Like when I meditate in motion when running, somehow I have found a way(s) to be quieter than when I am efforting to make that happen. As someone who has so often carried those metaphorical boulders uphill or swam against the current, it feels so much better to find what actually works, for me, and simply flow downhill, more so than ever.