Check Your Mind At The Door

Ok, well not exactly leave your mind behind, but give it a break. The value of this cannot be underestimated and twice in the past few weeks I've been given the opportunity. Not bad.

This morning I went to my first Buddhist mediation! It's been something I've wanted to try for a long time in fact, but tried once, failed to get the time right and then it just slipped off my radar. Being one of the "spiritual but not religious" folk, different religions and their foundations have always interested me. Buddhism is one of the religions that I sort of left in 6th grade Social Studies class with Ms. Harrison. I remember some dude named Siddhartha going off and finding nirvana, but that's about the extent of my grasp on the topic.

Thankfully, a local Buddhist center offers Intro to Meditation class every week, so I decided to give it a go. And I must say the take away was profound. Our instructor told us about the practices and the foundations of why one must meditate. Then after getting an overview of how to meditate and mastering the body posture, we gave it a try for several minutes. The basis of the practice entails letting all of your thoughts go and focus on your breathing. We were told that if a thought, bodily distraction or emotional state enters your meditation, you must recognize it and let it go. The important thing is not to dismiss the distraction completely, but to not get involved during mediation. See it clearly and let it go. I had the usual first-timer issues with having thoughts pop in and my foot falling asleep and so on, but overall it was pretty interesting to try.

In the teacher's follow up to our beginner fears of having too many thoughts and being uncomfortable, he revealed the big kicker for me. Meditation, he said, was not the eradication of all thought, but the clear observation of our mind and what it does all the time. He stressed that this is how our mind is always functioning; little randome thoughts popping in from all over the place, constantly stealing time with our brain. We are humans and thankfully we're intelligent. Minds think, that's what they do. The difference here is that you can take a step back and look at this happening. Yeah, cool.

In a less controlled experiment, I had the good fortune of taking a trip to St. Maarten in the Caribbean with a group of great friends two weeks ago. A week of good company, waking up to turquoise water and sunny skies and the 4 o'clock pina colada everyday would be enough to chill anyone out I would hope. And I couldn't help but take note by day 3 as I lay napping or watching the waves, how quiet my mind was! In a good way too. For the first time in who knows how long, my mind wasn't in a thousand places. I wasn't checking my phone or email or planning what I was going to do next. It provided amazing clarity...enough that after a day or so of nothing on the brain, my thoughts turned more toward a sense of positivity about things that I had previously been stressed or anxious about. A great state of mind indeed.

Not we can always just jet off to an island resort whenever we need to think, but it is good to remind yourself from time to time, that it IS possible to take a step back, and look at things without getting your mind, emotions and wellness all twisted up and tangled in the rush of everyday life. So go ahead and check your mind at the door every few days or weeks and just take a look at your mind for a bit. Peace of mind be with you :)