RITUALS: Meditation [07 January 2010]

Photo by Silvère Teutsch

“The first Noble Truth is of the truth of suffering and the injustice and oppression that causes greed and suffering in our world and internally within the individual. The Buddha and Buddhists take it to another level of really investigating, asking, “What’s the cause? What’s the solution to this injustice, greed, hatred and confusion?” Punks for the most part don’t get there. Maybe they start saying, “Here’s the cause. We’ll become activists externally in some way.” It seems pretty rare for punks to really take on an inner practice of ridding themselves from the judgments, greed and hatred that cause suffering.” ~Noah Levine (an excerpt from my book).

A not negotiable in my life is meditation. Whether it’s my morning meditations, writing meditations, walking meditation or even just being mindful and aware of what’s going on around me and how I’m contributing to that energy and situation. It helps to keep me balanced, centred and to not get too much into my own head. It helps me to get in touch with myself. It helps me to be present in the moment.
A wonderful friend Noah Levine author of the books Dharma Punx & Against The Stream and founder of the Against The Stream Meditation Society has some helpful meditation MP3s here which could help get you started. The simplest advice he could give me when I asked about meditation tips is:

Awareness of the breath. There is a pretty pervasive misunderstanding of meditation. Most people think that if you are meditating correctly you don’t have any thoughts in your mind at all, that meditation is turning your mind off. Really, the foundation of mindfulness of breath is that thoughts are still happening, you’re just not paying attention to them. You’re not putting all of your attention or awareness in the mind, you’re redirecting it to the body and the experience of the breath. If the attention gets drawn to the thoughts you bring the attention back to the breath over and over—that’s meditation practice. It really works, but it takes a bit of effort. Eventually it gets a bit easier.

Thanks must go to a dear new friend that inspired this post without even knowing it. Connecting with others always gives me things to think about in my life. Maybe when interacting with others throughout your day today ask yourself, what am I learning from this person? There’s a lesson in all situations be them good or bad, we just need to stop and listen.

Love & light,

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