It’s not that bad…
Why is it that the most important practice for good (even great!) mental health is the first to be left behind when my routine is changed? And worse, why is it something that most westerners will never be directly encouraged to do while growing up?
[side note: I'm talking about meditation here. I've been on vacation in Boulder, Colorado for several days visiting S.O.'s family. Yesterday I realized I was getting kind of whacky in the head. Subsequent and much slower realization was that I hadn't done my sitting practice since the day we left, last Wednesday. end side note]
You really have to be really sick of mental chatter to seek it out and stick with it long enough to get past the somewhat painful, foreign discipline and discouragingly slow progress.
Maybe because it isn’t a quick and easy fix — do people still really think those will last? Maybe it isn’t that exactly… maybe there just isn’t enough motivation to do something about the endless internal dialogue blabbering over the same stuff over and over…
in fact… the justification that “it’s not that bad” seems to have replaced convenience and complacency as the modern day evil du jour.
Stating that something in my life is there just because “it’s not that bad” (and thus doesn’t justify making the effort to change) may well be the easiest sellout of my quality of life**–and therefore the quality of everyone’s life around me. Oh wait, there’s also all the people affected through this blog, my work, writings, and the people who those people affect. In other words, it has reach.
[** my perception of quality of life is entirely contingent on my internal experience, no matter where or in what situation I'm in]
If I’m going to take the time to help other people, and I have the attitude of “it’s not that bad”, am I really helping them?
I mean, if I’m just going for a minor better fix because it’s too much effort to go for good, then I’ll end up patching over symptoms rather than rooting out the cause (which in some cases is worse because there’s been the illusion of improvement plus the energy wasted for naught).
Which brings me back to the meditation practice, i.e. calibrator of acceptance to a level of good…
How does this all play into the current experiment of letting it be easy? (Living in a culture of being, rather than driven by doing.) Well, doing is usually characterized by a thought filled head while being is usually characterized by an open, free mind. The way to an open, free mind is the meditation practice.
And finally, let’s tie it all together with the connection between good and being.
IF
good in my life is determined by quality of life, and
quality of life is contingent on my internal experience, and
my internal experience is in direct correlation with the quality and quantity of thoughts in my head, and
the quality and quantity of the thoughts in my head are directly affected by meditation,
THEN
good in my life is directly affected by meditation.
(I knew 9th grade Geometry theorems would come in handy some day!)
