Do not disturb yourself by musing on the whole of your life. Do not let thoughts play havoc by worrying about what may happen, and what may not happen, but instead, ask yourself the question, what is there in this that I cannot endure? You will then discover there is no situation which may arise that you cannot deal with effectively.
Probably the most important meditation we can do is to spend time with ourselves in a state of passion and forgiveness. It sounds easy, it even sounds simplistic, but it works! Until we can forgive and feel compassion for ourselves, we can't truly offer it to anyone else.
Recommended Reading
The Power of Breathing
From
The New Three-Minute Meditator
by David Hart
Often, we are not even completely aware of all of our thoughts. Many of us suffer from an internal monologue that runs intermittently, a critical, judgmental, internal voice that seems to love to offer gratuitous and usually negative comments. These comments slink through our mind half-noticed and, like many other leaks in the bottom of a large boat, often have a long-term or cumulative effect which is not a pleasant one.
I used to use the first line or two of the Beatles' song, "I'm a Loser" to berate myself with. Anytime I did anything that didn't work out perfectly, I would subconsciously croon, "I'm a looooooser ... " thus reinforcing my negative feelings.
After I began to clear and watch my mind through meditation, I was able to see what I was doing (at least sometimes) and begin to let go of this self-hating habit. Before I started meditating, I couldn't see it happening. I couldn't catch myself in the act, so I wasn't able to deal with this behavior.
I feel a lot better now that my mind is no longer singing that darned tune! You will feel happier and more positive when you begin to quiet the chatter of your mind, too.
Compassion
Probably the most important meditation we can do is to spend time with ourselves in a state of passion and forgiveness. It sounds easy — it even sounds simplistic — but it works! Until we can forgive and feel compassion for ourselves, we can't truly offer it to anyone else.
In this high-pressure, performance oriented society, we often judge ourselves and find ourselves lacking. We're not as beautiful as the movie stars, as rich as the stock circulators, as wise as the scientists that we are constantly seeing in the news.
We monitor, we judge, we boss ourselves mercilessly — as though our mind were an administrator, seeking constantly to improve some personal bottom line. But when compassion becomes our guideline, even for a moment, we learn instead to investigate ourselves, as an anthropologist studies a foreign culture. Alert curiosity replaces disdain or denial, the usual attempt to avoid pain by closing off the heart.
Stepping away from a place of critical judgment, we can seek to find out what is true, even if it is not flattering. Then we can bring compassion to those "rough spots." It is easier to love our finer points and nobler qualities, but the unflattering aspects of ourselves — our fears, greeds, stupidities — are exactly those parts that we need to be compassionate toward.
Thus, the art of compassion will aid us also in those meditations involving both judgment and investigation of the truth. As I said before, an awareness of compassion will prevent us from letting meditation become just another race to lose, just another way to be hard on ourselves.
