My search for a spiritual life began with a simple meditation – they are all simple – in my soft chair in the living room in front of a window, looking outside in total silence. Thomas Merton, whose writings introduced me to the power of Meditation, was my guide. So was Henri Nouwen, a brilliant spiritual scholar.
Merton wrote that in a sitting Meditation, which I do, “the first thing is to be aware that you are sitting. Then, you can sit in a way that brings you calm and well-being.”
“It can be said,” wrote Merton, “without fear of error, that our Meditation is as good as our faith. It is often harder to manifest the good in us than the evil. True simplicity implies love and trust—it does not expect to be derided and rejected any more than it expects to be admired and praised.”
True Meditation differed from the turbulence surrounding me outside, in my life, and the news. I focused on love and trust. I saw right away that I had a lot of work to do. In meditation, I came to know myself and was startled and unsettled by what I saw. Meditation is simple, but it can be scary as well.
I was often too smart for my own good. I needed to know who I was and wanted to be.
I saw immediately that the person I was seeing had to change. I was a mess.
I’ve been sitting down all of my life, of course, but I don’t recall ever thinking about being aware that I was in a sitting position. This took me a while, but I gradually got the point. I became mindful of the position of my body at each moment. In a way, it was a distraction from distraction. It was something inside of me. It calmed me instantly, and I wanted more.
Merton helped me focus on the big picture: “Who Am I? Where do I come from? Was I loved? Did I love it? Who do I want to be? What is the meaning of my life? What do I believe in? What do I wish to change about myself?”
The first thing I did (I was in the first Bedlam Farm in Hebron, NY) was find a quiet time and place. No news, music, devices, or phone calls are allowed. I felt safe there and sat undisturbed. I sat upright in a comfortable chair. I meditate in the same chair on my new farm every day.
I was startled by the power of the silence around me; my mind was always racing and jumping around, and fear pursued me everywhere. And anger. I sat still and followed advice from Merton and Henri Nouwen; two trusted Meditation advocates.
I didn’t judge myself. I just went where my mind took me. In that way, I began to learn who I was. I had other ideas for me.
I learned to meditate through and around distraction, always coming back to my questions until I began to find answers. It took months before felt the difference. Meditation was no longer an idea, it became a practice. It changed the way I think.
I understand and teach my students that there is no wrong way to meditate: you sit in silence, breathe in and out deeply, focus on your breathing if you can, and follow your mind wherever it goes. It takes you inward to the truth.
Each time I meditate, I feel the silence and experience a rare sensation of calm and peace. I always want to go back; this was a silence and look inward that I think I had never experienced. It marked the beginning of my spiritual journey.
At the start, I took four or five deep breaths to the count of four and then exhaled to the count of four. I felt my breath reaching down into my lungs and stomach. I felt exhaling as a release and a relief.
In my meditation classes, I joke about exhalation as being “blowing out the bullshit.” People laugh at that, even at the Mansion. Meditation doesn’t have to be grim. It helps if you can laugh at yourself.
I often found myself stubborn, ridiculous and troubled. I learned I could change.
Lamenting my mistakes in the past accomplished nothing. Fear of the future was equally pointless. I don’t have a magic-looking glass; the future is unknown. The past is irrelevant. Only the now, I realized, mattered in Meditation. The rest, I thought in the silence, was BS, a waste of time.
Peace and fulfillment were what I wanted and needed to think about. Was I living the life I wanted? Had I become the man I was, or was I living with the false mask?
In the silence and peacefulness of Meditation, I began to see the power of now and was surprised at how I gradually stopped regretting the past or fretting about the future. More and more, I look around me at my life now. It is rarely frightening, and I have learned that changes and challenges are not crises; they are life.
I have learned to stop lying to myself and about myself and face the truth. I have learned to change what needs changing and embrace what needs celebrating. I have learned that the point of a spiritual life is to be happy; most of the time, I am so glad.
All of my life, I’ve fretted about the past and feared the future. I asked myself agonizing questions all of the time.
I followed the advice of my spiritual advisors. I decided to stop letting the troubles and mistakes of the past or the worries about the future shut me down or turn me upside down.
“They are just ghosts, ” wrote Thich Nhat Hanh. “That’s why we train ourselves to always be in the present moment. That’s our practice. That’s our path.”
It was, he said, the way to reconciliation and rebirth.
I meditate every day now, sometimes for 10 minutes or half an hour if I’m troubled or confused, for an hour. Sometimes I meditate to quiet music in the background, sometimes in sweet silence.
I started meditating in Hebron but brought the practice into my new life with Maria in the second Bedlam Farm. Usually, Zinnia is lying at my feet. Sometimes, Maria and I meditate together. Fear was in our DNA, not contemplation and awareness, and our lives right now are replacing fear.
Inside, the lights are brighter. I am becoming who I am, the true me.
When the ghosts appear, I thank them for their presence and ask them to go away.
To my surprise, they almost always do. I’ve woven meditation into my life. It has helped me immensely to understand myself, to change, and to find peace and contentment. I know the ghosts will always appear; they are part of my DNA. But I am ready for them now, and they no longer have a say in how I live or feel.
Ghosts, I think, are like garbage and waste to me. I throw them out or blow them away.
