I Wonder Where This Journey Will Take Me
The first time we take the subway or bus it can be intimidating. Trying to decipher the map, wondering if we’re getting on the right one, figuring out how to pay the fare…. Sometimes thoughts tend toward poor outcomes, with a sense that if we don’t get it “right” the consequences will be dire. Curiosity and a sense of adventure can help us in these moments. “If this isn’t the right bus, I wonder what I will see that I wouldn’t have found otherwise.” Taking the “scenic route” can yield unexpected delights in life. What we’re doing when we shift to this mindset is over-writing the mind’s over-protectiveness, and allowing ourselves to see a fuller picture, creating some space for growth and learning, and giving our nervous system a rest. Taking that bus or subway never feels as daunting as it did the very first time. We become more familiar with it.
The same can be true when we guide ourselves in meditation. We might wonder at the outset if it will take us somewhere we don’t want to go (into a busy mind, or a worried mind, or a fidgety body, for example). Writer Anne Lamott famously wrote, “My mind remains a bad neighborhood that I try not to go into alone.” Yet when we let go of expectations (that we will err somehow, that there will be a problem), and instead we leave the outcome open-ended (“I wonder…”), we allow ourselves access to bigger possibilities.
The point is that discomfort is often born of newness, and as such is temporary, fleeting. Curiosity and exploration can be doorways into new experiences and new worlds, even when those worlds are found right here, in our present moment, in the neighborhoods of our own minds.
Pragmatically, we can start out by sitting for just a few minutes, and we can set an intention at the beginning of our practice. That intention could be, “I will let go of expectations for what the next few minutes will be like. I will be open and curious, and will notice and let go of self-judgement. I know that the mind wanders by nature, and that each time I redirect it to the present moment I’m rewiring my brain to be more focused and peaceful.” And then we can smile gently, feel our body and its connection with the chair, cushion or floor, and place our attention on our breath, on sounds, or on sensations in the body, observing whatever arises from moment to moment. Letting it all be just as it is.
We hope you can join us this week. Our Thursday morning meditations are self-guided after a short moment of “seed planting” (sometimes an inspirational quote or poem, or perhaps a suggested phrase to invite into the meditation). Our other sessions offer guided meditations with periods of silence.
May all beings delight in their journeys,
Your CMP family
PS: I adore Anne Lamott’s writing. It amazes me. And this Salon essay from 1997 about Jack Kornfield’s affect on her is a keeper. Let’s all be sea anemone’s together! (You’ll understand after you read the essay.)
