I’m working harder and more thoughtfully on my Mansion Meditation Classes.

I realize they are important to many of the residents; I realize they love meditating, and also that it helps them to navigate a critical and challenging passage of their lives.

I’m a bit surprised but pleased.

Older people are thrown into assisted care; there is usually very little preparation or contemplation given to what is so profound a decision.

Today, seven residents came to my Meditation Class, and I thought it was an exceptionally successful session.  I wanted to share it. I am planning my lessons in more detail and thought. I feel it is making a real difference to some of the residents.

I started by doing breathing exercises with them, inhaling deeply in and then out for as long and deep as is comfortable for them.

I then brought a recording I made on my iPhone  of a train; I called it the “rhythm of a train.”

I asked each resident to think of a “bright spot” in their day, a friend, a memory, a meal, or a walk, whatever came to mind. Then I asked them to think of someone they love, alive or gone.

I asked them to think of happy and pleasant memories, as they breathed in, and as they breathed out. I saw them close their eyes (I asked them to do that) and was pleased to see the smiles come over their faces, one by one.

I then told them we were going to enter a silence for 15 minutes, and I turned on the train soundtrack. They all said they had good memories of riding on a train. I saw that everyone grasped the silence, and I felt them descending into it peacefully. They are getting the idea of meditation.

No right or wrong, just wherever you are at the moment. There are no mistakes in meditation, I said, you are who you are, and that is good enough. You can’t do it wrong if you follow your breath and soul, or even if you don’t.

I closed my eyes as well, and a the end of the train rhythms, I opened my eyes, and so did they. Everyone was awake and smiling; they thanked me again and again. “Thank you so much,” said Nancy, “you can’t imagine how good this makes me feel, and I can do it every day, whenever I want.”

Madeline was delighted, “when I start to get frightened, I can do this, I love the “bright spots,” I have so many in my life, I just can’t always remember to think of them.”

This session felt good. Zinnia has picked up our rhythms, she comes in greets everybody and then lies down and goes to sleep, the doesn’t move a muscle through our silent meditation. What a gift to me, as well.