Shavout 5781 Mediation Talk

 

Good morning and welcome to our first session on Shavout 5781.  I am James and I will be talking some this morning about mindfulness and leading you in a couple of mindfulness meditations.

First of all, I want to talk about what mindfulness is. Said rather simply, mindfulness is being aware of what is happening inside you and in the world around you. The Mayo clinic says that “mindfulness is a type of meditation in which you focus on being intensely aware of what you’re sensing and feeling in the moment, without interpretation or judgement.”

I have a friend who very clearly got the message about the importance of mindfulness, although most of us do to experience such extreme examples.  She received a phone call at work from a client.  The phone call was upsetting because the client was ready to pull their business from her. This was a big account and were it pulled it would be a major setback.

My friend locked up the office as she always does, around 5 pm and headed home which is maybe five miles away. On her way home all she could think about was what happened at the office with the client and she could not keep her mind on her driving.  In about a half mile from her office she rear-ended another car.  Of course the police were called and information given and exchanged, etc. One that ordeal was over she got back in her car to drive the rest of the way home.  About a mile from home, her thoughts were on the client that called the office and the accident she had earlier and so, she rear-ended another car. This time her car was badly damaged but the other one didn’t seem to be. The police were not happy and wrote her a ticket for following too close and for wreckless driving.

My friend called and of course she was upset about the events of the day. I let her in a quick meditation and instructed her to do them as many times a day as she could find the time, for only five minutes.  I am not sure she did that, but I haven’t heard anything from her again.  With COVID and all the isolation she has also worked mostly at home. I hope she is continuing to do the practices.

That is just an example of how our minds can cloud our thinking and obscure the clearness and clarity that we need to function in a mindful way.    

Clear and focused thinking  that happens as a result of practicing meditation is called clarity.  When you gain clarity in your way of thinking then you begin to understand that some things that we have always done, thinking  they were wise and clever, might not be as wise as we once thought. For example, my mother, of blessed memory, once told me that always be a person who says what I think.  I remember talking about some people and she would say that what she liked about them is that they “say what they think and let the chips fall where they may.”  But I have learned that saying what you think is not always a good idea and that the best thing to do in many situations to say nothing at all. But I think that one has to have practiced and has to have become committed to allowing themselves an inward look in order to really change within themselves.

I just used two words that might sound foreign to some of us. The words, “looking inward.” As we live our lives we observe what is happening around us. All of the activity, the weather, the situations that happen on a moment to moment basis all of the stuff that presents itself to us all the time happens around us, and how we respond to it inside ourselves can make the difference in how we end our day.  But, it is true, I think that looking inward is more difficult and is something we are not particularly trained to do. 

Mindfulness is also an exercise in looking inward, in coming to know oneself. So, we are going to do some practices this morning that will show us how to begin the journey toward self-knowledge and mindfulness.

In the practices that I am going to share with you, please do your best to follow, but don’t allow yourself to become stressed that you are not doing the practice correctly or that you are somehow doing it wrong.  Many people begin meditation and they stop because they say they cannot do it, but anyone can do it.