I've been taking meditation classes on Thursday evenings, and so here I am fresh from my class, wanting a place to debrief..so here goes..
We pile into a small room that used to be somewhat of a library when I was a kid. But now it's filled with exercise balls, yoga mats, positive messages posted all over the walls, and a big open space to be filled with your pastime-du-jour. Our teacher is a round faced gentle speaking woman in her mid 30's. She's not what I typically thought of when I signed up for Meditation classes. I expected an asian monk in white robes guiding me towards a pure mind. Instead this kind woman sits at the head of the class, joking about scenarios we deal with in a day, but yet constantly driving home the message of obtaining a virtuous mind.
Last week was my first class, and we talked about 'watching your mind' and choosing your thoughts. And so that is exactly what I did, and something strange happened...I really started noticing how negative I actually am. And if what she says is true, this negativity is leaking into other aspects of my life; my health, my relationships etc. And for what? Why so angry at such meaningless situations? Last week she told us to choose a 'goal' to meditate on and mine was that I wanted to see more beauty in each day. Eventually, I'd like to go through each day with the attitude of awe and love, and not annoyance and sarcasm. Eventually I'd like to remove myself from situations that cause my mind to harm others with my thoughts and words. I'd like to see everyone for who they are and not just the person I perceive them to be by putting my negative characteristics on them.
Last Friday after I awoke from my meditative evening and deep sleep that allows follows those classes. I remembered my intent for each day. And as I was driving to work, the sun was just coming up, and as I stopped at the stop light I peered across the frozen lake and noticed a bear running from the lake into the woods. I couldn't believe my eyes! I'm so glad I chose to keep my mind alert to those types of things, otherwise I would've been busying myself at the stop light checkign my makeup in the rearview mirror, switching the radio etc. It truly was an amazing sight to see. As the week went on there were other things that caught my eye as well and so I'm glad that it's working so far. Our teacher was right, if you set an intent in your mind, and consciously be aware of it, it will happen.

Now onto tonight's discussion: Dealing with the Drama.

I was shocked to see the class size practically double from last week, but also slightly disapointed to see that they were mostly new people. Just a few of us returned from last week and I wondered why. Because the teacher is from out of town she didn't realise that the crowd was diffrerent, only that it had grown. But I noticed, and it bothered me which I guess is a lesson in itself. Why do I care what other people think of this class? Is it going to shape how I feel about it? I am on this journey because it's something I want to do for myself, so why should it matter if someone else didn't get anything out of it? But anyway..

Tonight's lesson was all about building drama's in our minds before anything ever happens in reality. We stew over things that are so miniscule 'what did she mean by that?' and create this huge drama inside our heads. Then when we see that person next time, we already have this preconceived notion about them that we've put on them. If you think about it, poor them! They can never win us over because we've already painted them as the 'bad guy'. She also gave the example of putting your hand inside the fire and getting burned. Well in reality, we all know that fire burns, and so we would never get mad at the fire. We might feel the pain and get iritated with ourselves for putting our hand too close, but it's not the fire's fault. That's what fire does; burns. So why get mad at a loved one for something that might have always been in their nature. For example, a husband that doesn't pick up his socks. Yes it's irritating, but when you first got together with him, it wasn't so bad...so why now is it the worst thing in the world! I can tell you from experience that nagging and yelling definitely doesn't rectify the situation. So why get mad? So this week I'm going to work on removing myself from situations before they turn into dramas, and also to continue to focus on virtuous objects throughout the day instead of focusing on negative thoughts.
Here goes!