Two Teachers

The Art of Meditation

When I was nine and curious to know what books adults read, I came upon a book about yoga.

I jumped straight to the illustrations of various postures.

Through practice, I discovered it was deeply satisfying to feel my body's movement, how each part is connected, and how my body expanded and lengthened in response to my breath.

I practiced in secret, believing the book was for adults only, given there were only pictures of adults and there was no mention of children. I knew no one doing yoga in those days.

Yoga became a way for me to self-soothe instead of self-harming.

After my initial exploration of the postures, I took a greater interest in learning what else was contained in the pages.

It talked of the practice of meditation. Focusing your attention on your breath and becoming an observer to what arises without attaching to it, like watching clouds pass by in the sky.

I practiced this as well in secret.

Coming home after school, and unlike other children, instead of turning on the television, I took refuge in a closet to sit in the darkness and silence to meditate.

My body was noisy to me – like having too many pots on the stove boiling over all at once.

Meditation was a method of taking refuge in my mind and detaching from my body. Through this practice, I found my mind could be fairly quiet.

It took years of practice.

As I grew in skill, I found it was something I could do without others knowing. I could practice anytime, anywhere, with my eyes open.

I got so good at it that I could detach from my senses. I wouldn’t even hear my name being called out. Someone would have to nudge me to break my concentration.

Living in a body that’s easily overstimulated meant my forms of escape were different from most of the population.

If I wasn’t taking refuge in meditation, then I was escaping into my intellect by reading, learning, and studying. But it wasn’t always books that I studied. I spent as much time observing the world around me.

I do credit my meditation practice as having saved my life during my childhood in an abusive and dysfunctional household, without canine companionship.

I was unaware at the time that I was practicing meditation incorrectly.

I had conditioned myself to ignore my body’s intelligence; To turn off pain and suffering, I also shut myself down from life’s joys and pleasures. The consequence of this was, I didn’t learn how to process my emotions, and my health suffered.

A word of caution: if your mind is your nemesis and you try to distance yourself from your mind by stimulating your body to ride an emotional high, this too is not sustainable. You will not learn how to control your thoughts for which only you can take responsibility. You also impede your body’s intelligence.

We could learn much from observing our beloved canines. They embody the true essence of meditation. A happy, healthy dog is in balance with their body and mind.

I can’t say ALL dogs are so because a dog’s well-being is impacted by those it lives with. But that’s a topic for another time.

The art of meditation is to learn awareness – to hold presence – not only when you’ve set aside some quiet time, undisturbed, but to experience stillness within regardless of what is going on around you.

Dogs embody “mindfulness” as a relaxed state of alertness.

There are different stages of meditation.

The first is concentration. Meditation trains us to focus our minds.

Dogs are already gifted with concentration; in that they live in the present moment.

We may make fun of how easily a dog can become distracted, the proverbial squirrel. When in truth they are responding to a stimulus in the moment.

And yet, not all dogs chase after the squirrel, demonstrating another level of discipline.

Concentration is the ability to be fully absorbed as an observer, free from the impulse to change anything that is arising in the present moment.

Dogs are unpreoccupied with thoughts about what happened yesterday or what will happen tomorrow. They don’t have concerns about having to pay bills or what their legacy will be.

Dogs simply follow their body’s needs. When they’re thirsty, they seek water. If they’re hot, they seek shade and so on. They don’t suffer from the trappings of the mind.

Meditation books suggest using your breath or a candle as a focal point to train your mind to concentrate. But there’s no rule against using your dog as your focal point.

I recommend watching a dog “BE” in the present moment. When they sleep, they sleep peacefully. When they eat, they eat like it’s a feast.

Dogs respect their bodies’ needs and know how to live in the flow of life, letting each moment come and go, free of the concept of time.

When I discovered meditation at that young age, I’d taken it up without the guidance of a mentor. I did not know I was not fully practicing it correctly. Aspects, yes, but not fully.

As a child, I could not have achieved this deep union with myself on my own. My intention behind my practice was misguided.

Meditation allowed me to emotionally detach from the ugliness in my world. I’d take refuge in meditation to experience a sort of nothingness. I perceived this state of nothingness to be peaceful because it was void of emotion. I was mistaken.

Even though my technique was flawed, I gained experience in concentration.

I credit my practice of meditation as having saved my life. I attempted suicide in my youth because of my inability to process my emotions. I stopped myself because meditation gave me another way to carry on without causing immediate harm to myself.

I, like most Western culture, valued intelligence, our minds’ supremacy, above everything else.

I had ignored my intuition. I ignored physiological symptoms until they became chronic. I lived from my mind, giving orders to my body to comply. I made decisions from a mental perspective. I gathered information, statistics, and numbers, and made pro-con lists.

I’d been taught, conditioned, that our emotions, especially if you’re a woman, cloud your “better judgment”. So, I ignored my emotional needs too. After all, I’d had a lifetime of denying myself my most basic likes and dislikes and been conditioned to accept whatever was given to me or asked of me.

After more than 30 years’ experience of practicing meditation, with the onset of PTSD, I could not tolerate sitting for a minute, to try to still my mind and body. I became a beginner again.

I learned how to meditate again through the grace and presence of my two teachers.

I have never been able to meditate by focusing on a flame.

At first, I had tried to be like the child I used to be, but the past is the past, and what was cannot be repeated.

There’s an old expression about “never being able to step in the river in the same place twice”. That’s what I was trying to do and only caused myself more frustration and suffering.

However, there is a phenomenon that occurs between things within proximity to each other called synchronicity. A simple example is how women’s menstrual cycles synchronize when multiple women live in the same household.

My meditation practice lengthened and deepened when I started to use my dogs as my point of focus. I intentionally sat with them to synchronize my bio-rhythms with theirs.

We are all energy after all, and we can choose to influence our frequency or allow all the other frequencies around us to act on us and determine our being.

Let that also be a gentle reminder for you to consider the friends you keep.

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