Meditation is Portable
It’s easy to think of meditation as a special ritual that requires a time, place, and equipment such as a bell, pad, incense, silence, and even a guru to lead us through the process. It’s nice to have all those things, but not necessary.
When we have a regular meditation ritual of only five minutes a day, we open that space that Viktor Frankl described when he said, “Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space lies our freedom to choose our response.”
But, I’m too busy to meditate, you say. Are you too busy to brush your teeth? Of course not, We’ve established a habit of brushing our teeth. We were taught at an early age that brushing our teeth was an important activity of personal maintenance. We also learned the consequences of not brushing our teeth. My dentist has a sign in his office that says, “Only floss the teeth you want to keep.”
Meditation is a habit of mental maintenance that keeps our minds healthy and calm in the midst of the chaos of our lives. We know the consequences of a cluttered and stressed mind. We might put a sign in our room that says, “Only meditate with the mind you want to keep.”
Once we discover that space between stimulus and response and get acquainted with it, we realize that it is always with us, and we can access it at any time, even in the midst of chaos.
Too busy to meditate? I would suggest that we’re always meditating. If we’re fixated on a thought such as fear, anxiety, resentment, revenge, envy, unworthiness, lack of purpose, or any of the other afflictive emotions that take us over, we’re meditating, but on the wrong things. We get what we think about whether we want it or not.
Ours is not the work of
seeking You here or there
Where we think You might be
but of opening the heart’s door,
and when we do this
You cannot resist coming in.
since our opening and You’re
entering are one: You
knock and wait, and
when we open we
find that
You were there all along
and will not leave us.
— Meister Eckhart
As you read this meditation by Meister Eckhart, you can interpret the capitalized “You” any way you want depending on your beliefs. It can be God, the Source, the Universe, or anything else. It doesn’t matter what it’s called.
What matters is knowing that we carry a quiet place within us that holds the answers to many of our life’s challenges, and we can access that place even in the midst of chaos.