Subrat Ratho offers a gently humorous reminder that meditation is not about emptying the mind, but about noticing, returning and becoming a little less anxious.
Meditation is not prayer. Neither is it a competitive sport with Nirvana as the winner’s trophy.
No one is keeping score. There are no medals for sitting absolutely still, nor certificates for producing the fewest thoughts per minute.
Tell the mind to be quiet and it will suddenly remember a school friend, an unpaid electricity bill, and the tune of a song you thought had disappeared forever.
This is perfectly normal.
Many beginners assume they are failing because they keep thinking. That is rather like assuming you are failing at swimming because you keep getting wet.
Meditation is not about becoming a different person. It is about becoming slightly better acquainted with the one who has been occupying your head all these years.
Some days the mind behaves like a well-trained Labrador. On other days it resembles an overexcited monkey that has just discovered espresso.
You sit anyway.
If enlightenment arrives, offer it a chair. If it doesn’t, that is no cause for alarm. A little less irritation in traffic, a little more patience with difficult people, and the occasional ability to laugh at yourself are respectable achievements.
In the end, meditation is a remarkably undramatic affair.
You sit. You breathe. Your mind wanders. You notice. You begin again.
And, strangely, that is often enough.
If you are mindful — and not anxious.
