Dabbling in Meditation: Use Everything

I increased my meditation session in length by four minutes today, twenty-five minutes total of blowing thoughts away like leaves. A neighbor was using his leaf blow to pile leaves. Like other factors this morning, it posed a challenge to my practice, but I took all of these factors as opportunities for growth.

I studied Hatha yoga in India last February. One of the teachers, a charismatic, sixty-something practitioner and guest teacher from Greece liked to talk. It was worth listening to him. He told a story of sitting down to meditate while those around him were making a commotion. He became so frustrated with them for disturbing his practice. However, he decided to accept it and use it. “Use everything” he kept repeating to us throughout this, one of his innumerable spontaneous soliloquies.

So, that’s what I did; I used everything. I’d awakened this morning in a foul mood. My body had been aching throughout the night due to the workouts I’ve been putting it through the past couple days. I slept terribly, I was angry and pissy. I leaned on my morning routine. I made my coffee, drank half of it, turned on my Yoga video, reminded myself that I always feel better afterward, and went at it. I made it to my goal of twenty-five minutes into the session, then went into my meditation. Once again positioning myself in a modified child’s pose, stretching my backside.

The leaf blower blew, I could hear my parents downstairs and I became annoyed with them and how they’ve disappointed me at various points throughout my life. Then, I heard the Greek’s voice, “Use everything.” This was the exact reason I was meditating, to escape these thoughts, to be present to myself and my task in spite of leaf blowers and judgmental thoughts, so I can get underneath them, surround them, and use the spiritual leaf blower of my breath to rid my energy body of all of it- to be present to what is happening.

I had my usual missteps of thinking ahead and back, having more a-ha moments and wanting to stick with them, but I stuck to the practice, breathe, empty the mind, breathe, emptiness, breathe, breathe, breathe.