This meditation thing

Random moment: it's raining, with thunder. It's a beautiful sound. Kind of makes up for the 100-degree-plus heat index we've been enjoying this week. And yes, it's October.

Which brings me to my point. Sitting in meditation tonight, I would just begin to relax into the moment, appreciating the music, slowing my breath and my thoughts, and...boom. No, not the thunder. The mental chatter. Random thoughts with less than no meaning. Even though I know this is what it's about, it ticks me off. Years of meditation practice, and I can't sit through a 45-minute meditation with a quiet mind. Never mind that most of the time, I do. Most of the time, I use the time to explore what needs exploring, without covering it up. I breathe, or I delve--whatever is needed. Tonight, my anxiety level is higher than it should be--backlash from the good space I've been standing in while everything is shifting.

I'm not perfect. I guess I needed the reminder.

Coincidentally, our pre-meditation circle question from Karen was--how do you deal with the monkey mind? I breathe, I said. Or I focus on how quiet it is in the space around my body. And that's what I did tonight. Kept coming back to it, to the conscious breath, to the quiet, away from the "what if" and "what's next" flooding my mind. In a sense, this was monkey mind at its finest--not so much random (like the "did I turn off the stove" questions) as it was a parade of things that I'm anxious about. There's a lot going on, and I've been spending enough time worrying in waking life that you'd think I could give it up for an hour.

And I'm reminded again of Pema Chodron's remark that we do not meditate in order to be good at meditating. We meditate to become more aware in our lives.

“There’s nowhere to go on this path. There’s nothing to accomplish. The moment you move into your heart of compassion, you are there. And you don’t have to be a perfect person to do that. You can simply be present to whatever you are, moment by moment by moment. You don’t have to understand, you don’t have to be bright or clever, you don’t have to know a single thing about Buddhism. Whatever happens, embrace it in compassion, and let go of everything else.” Cheri Huber, in Sara Jenkins' "This Side of Nirvana."

This is the 'greater vehicle' of Buddhist tradition--the realization that meditation, daily life....it's all one thing. We don't have to move into a monastery to meditate. It's right in front of us--everything in life is better for being brought up into the meditation room, even the worries. Even the chatter.

Sometimes, it's good to get a reminder of that.