I have been so immersed in my studies I haven’t taken the time to do any blogging of late. The courses seem to have more homework this time round and I’m loving it all. I am especially enjoying the Contemplative Practices exploration we are doing. I have already changed the way I meditate and am feeling very blessed by all that I am discovering anew. I say anew because some of the ideas are quite familiar, but I am seeing them in such a different, deeper way.
That’s the beauty of approaching anything we do with a beginner’s mind; everything is fresh and exciting and amazing somehow! That’s also a benefit of really being present in a contemplative, open, welcoming way. It’s so easy for me to slip into old patterns of being lost in my own head that I need a lot of awareness and dedicated practice in order to truly be present in the moment without all the commentary that usually goes on.
I also find it interesting that in the west we use the words contemplation and meditation in the exact opposite way from how they are used in the east (the way I learned them). In the Christian traditions, contemplation is where we clear our mind and are present to what is whereas meditation is where we think about ideas. As I said the opposite of the way these terms are generally used in traditions such as Buddhism and Hinduism.
Wherever we are and whatever tradition we are following or involved with, the bottom line is how important it is to have practices that are about letting go and surrendering whether we say to the Divine or to what is or to the moment, it’s all just semantics in the end. It’s about moving from believing everything the false self wants us to think and shifting to True Self. What a wonderful gift that is!
Namaste
