Now About Meditation

Meditation is not only there to achieve altered states of consciousness or to send us into emotional highs, or raise our vibration.  Meditation is there to  produce awareness in us and it is much more than something you practice for yourself. It is something you do to benefit both yourself and others through by bringing awareness into your actions.  Because only through awareness of the consequences of our positive, neutral and negative actions and what gives rise to them can we end the cycle of violence in ourselves each other and the world as a whole. 

Now is the time to act with compassion, kindness and cooperation. For if we cooperate and act with an embodied compassionate-kindness towards each other, we will surely get through this and emerge stronger as a collective humanity. https://claytonmicallef.com/golden-rule-and-the-coronavirus-compassion-key/

When practising mindfulness , we cultivate and strengthen awareness enough to take a step back and not merely react. With  mindful awareness , we can insert a gap or a pause between us and what we experience so that we are no longer carried away by our reactive patterns. In that little gap, there exist the freedom to respond in a fresh and less predetermined way.

Mindfulness can be a lens into looking into the elements that fuel the judgemental self . Mindfulness can help us see that “I,” that “self” who desires and dislikes. How we attach to such desires wanting more and fearing their loss and how we are constantly trying to avoid our dislikes. Until we shine the light of awareness into the dynamics of such patters of behaviours we will keep experiencing the up-and-down states of the wheel of change.

Mindfulness is the first step the prerequisite and basis of meditation practice. Still, it's not sufficient on its own. When employed skillfully it helps us hold painful thoughts, feelings in an open balanced awareness without becoming fused with them.  Compassion than helps us soothe those feeling and go beyond such feelings.  Mindfulness is the doctor, compassion is the salve.

We meditate to cultivate mindfulness which is conducive to us being more aware of what we experience.  Still, it's not as straight forward as there are certain qualities which determine the depth of awareness .  So does mindfulness help with knowledge and intelligence?  Mindfulness goes a step further as it's the first step into the development of wisdom. 

Meditating on compassion made me realise that compassion is what unites us it's a dynamic flow reflected in actions of love and kindness towards each other. Compassion is our common humanity. An article on the practical application of compassion during meditation. Click the following link to read - Joining Hands: A Flow Of Compassion