Widening the Path to Resilience

“I’m no good at meditation.  I can’t stop thinking.”  People often feel that they have “failed” at meditation when they notice how active their minds are.  There is a misperception that mindfulness meditation means sitting still and shutting all thoughts out of the mind.  Rather, mindfulness meditation is the practice of bringing your attention to your experience in the present moment, and when it wanders…. Bringing it back again…. And again…. And again.

The brain is like a dense forest, and the mind will follow the mostly clearly cut paths.  Each time we try to do something new with the mind, we are clearing a small path in the forest.  The next time we want to travel through that bit of forest, we’ll look for a path that has already been cleared.  By directing our minds over and over to be aware of the present moment we are widening the path to present moment awareness so that it becomes easier and easier to find and take that path.  Eventually, that path leads to a sense of stillness, and resilience and happiness.

Moreover, each time we choose not to take the path that leads to worrying about the future, or to replaying scenes from the past, or to fantasizing about what may or may not happen, we allow those paths to become overgrown, harder to find and harder to travel.

So, in meditation, when you find that your mind has strayed from the present moment and you redirect it back to the sensations of breathing, the sounds of the birds, or the feeling of the feet on the floor you have just made the path toward stillness, resilience and happiness a bit wider. 

We hope that you'll join us this week as widen the path to resilience!

May all beings everywhere, without exception, find their way home to strength and stillness,
Your CMP family