If you've started to meditate now,
You probably find that you're attracted to it.
There's something about meditation that makes you want to do it.
On the other hand,
You've probably also begun to realize there are some challenges and some resistance to meditation.
And perhaps the biggest challenge that we encounter right at the beginning is the level of distraction.
If meditation is about laying aside your thoughts,
Then during the meditation period all thoughts,
Even good thoughts or brilliant insights or solutions to your problems that may come to your mind,
All of these are distractions and so you lay them aside as well.
And that's why meditation is so simple.
It's radically simple,
But it isn't easy.
It's because our mind is naturally attracted to the thought process and the imaginative process that we are used to.
But in meditation then,
We let go of the thoughts by returning to the word,
By returning to our mantra.
As I said earlier,
The mantra I recommend is the word Maranatha.
It's a beautiful word because the sound of the word helps to calm the mind,
The open vowel sound,
Ma-ra-na-tha,
Which you repeat as four syllables of equal length.
And also the four syllables make it a little easier perhaps to say the mantra in a natural rhythm,
For example,
With the rhythm of your breath.
The meaning of the word in the tradition that I come from is come Lord.
It's an Aramaic word.
But the seed syllables,
The sounds themselves,
Are present in many mantras in other traditions,
For example,
The word for compassion in Tibetan.
The important thing is you're not thinking about the meaning of the word as you say it.
You're saying it as a sound,
Listening to it as a sound.
And the fact that it's not in your own language is,
Of course,
Very helpful because it doesn't stimulate your thought and imagination.
So the challenge of distraction.
Of course,
We discover how distracted we are as soon as we begin to meditate.
But even more important would be having a distracted life.
Distraction is the enemy of relationship.
It's the enemy of good work.
When we're in a distracted state,
We don't relate to people directly with attention,
With personal care and attention.
And we don't give attention to our work which produces good quality work.
It's not sustainable.
So distractedness is a really major problem of our culture.
We've created wonderful digital devices to help us to communicate,
Even though they often serve to isolate us,
To alienate us.
But then we become addicted to these devices.
We're constantly checking our phone,
And we feel that we are in need of distraction so that we become,
As the poet said,
Distracted from distraction by distraction.
In meditation,
We will find that the work of attention,
Saying the mantra faithfully,
Will bring about a greater level of attention and recollection and presentness and mindfulness in our daily life.
Of course,
During the meditation,
The distractions come from multiple levels.
They may come simply from your body as you get an ache or a pain or an itch.
And as far as possible,
Try to resist those physical distractions by not scratching an itch and by not becoming fidgety but remaining still.
The stillness of meditation is another aspect of the simplicity of it that I was talking about.
So your physical distractedness is something that you can work on.
But,
Of course,
We're very conscious of our mental level of distractedness.
The thoughts that come from our daily life,
The things we should have done today,
The things we're going to do tomorrow,
All of the things that are on our shopping list,
Our to-do list.
But there's also the deeper level of distractions that arise from our more serious,
More concerned problems,
Emotional problems.
And these may be very old forms of distraction coming from embedded aspects of our personality or our lifestyle.
And then there are emotional distractions in the sense that we suddenly get a wave of anger or a wave of sadness or a wave of happiness even as we think about something.
So in all of these levels,
The physical,
The mental,
The emotional,
We lay aside the stimulation.
We lay aside the thought,
The feeling,
Or the emotion.
And again,
We do that by simply returning to our word.
Returning to the mantra during the period of meditation is the art that we're learning.
Meditation,
Remember,
Is an art more than a technique.
And every time we return to the mantra,
We are developing this quality of attention,
The muscle of attention,
Which will reduce our level of distractedness,
Not only in the meditation periods,
But in our life as well.
That's one of the first ways in which we find ourselves becoming beneficiaries of the practice.
We really begin to see the fruits of meditation in the quality of attention and awareness that it brings into our life.
So let's prepare for our next period of meditation as we sit comfortably back straight,
Close our eyes lightly,
And gently,
Faithfully begin to repeat our word,
Our mantra,
And the word again I recommend,
Maranatha.
Maranatha.
Maranatha.
Maranatha.
Maranatha.
Maranatha.
Maranatha.
Maranatha.
Maranatha.
Maranatha.
Maranatha.
Maranatha.
Maranatha.
Maranatha.
Maranatha.
Maranatha.
Maranatha.
Maranatha.
Maranatha.
Maranatha.
Maranatha.
Maranatha.
Maranatha.
Maranatha.
Maranatha.
Maranatha.
Maranatha.
Maranatha.
Maranatha.
Maranatha.
Maranatha.
Maranatha.
Maranatha.
Maranatha.
Maranatha.
Maranatha.
Maranatha.
Maranatha.
Maranatha.
Maranatha.
Maranatha.
Maranatha.
Maranatha.
Maranatha.
Maranatha.
Maranatha.
Maranatha.
This is from the Sermon on the Mount.
Jesus says in very definite language,
I once met a banker who was a very committed meditator with a sense of humor and he told me that many years ago he had to choose between serving God and mammoth.
Many years ago he had to choose between serving God and mammon and he chose mammon.
Devoted his life to his career,
To the banking world.
But actually he did integrate spiritual dimension into his daily life and I'm sure that it influenced the ethical and human way in which he lived his professional life.
So what does this mean that we cannot serve two masters?
We cannot be divided in our fundamental priorities.
I think it means here something that we discover,
Jesus is pointing to something that we discover in ourselves,
Our need for simplicity,
Our need for a prioritization of value in our life.
And that isn't an abstract idea,
It's more of an experience and it comes through self-knowledge.
It comes through knowing who we are.
And when we know who we are,
When that self-knowledge has developed to a sufficient degree of clarity,
We are humble.
To be rooted in self-knowledge is to be humble,
Humility is another word really for self-knowledge,
For being grounded in the reality of ourselves.
And when we have that humility of self-knowledge,
We can serve.
We know how we should serve,
That our life,
Whether we are a banker,
Whether we are a doctor,
Whether we are a mother or father or a monk or an explorer of any kind,
We are serving others and we are grounded in that spirit of love that arises from knowing ourselves to be loved.
