Meditation: Beyond Om

The history of my meditation practice begins in the early 1970’s when my husband and I scraped together the money to pay for Transcendental Meditation training. We met with a trainer several evenings and learned about how to meditate. In great secrecy, we were each given a special mantra…a nonsense word…that we would repeat during meditation. Trainers instructed us to never tell anyone about our mantra, and to this day, I have never told anyone. For all I know, we might have all received the same word.

So I began my meditation practice….twenty minutes every morning and evening…eyes closed, no movement, just silently repeating my secret mantra. I immediately began to feel the benefits of this practice. At the time, I had two children under six, so finding quiet time every day was a challenge. Sometimes I would just sit in my car before heading back home. I loved the sense of calm that I could usually achieve by the end of the meditation, even if it meant that dinner was served later each night.

However, after several years, I began to drift away from the daily practice…pulled away by my responsibilities to my children, the huge garden, the wood stove and the 2 goats that needed to be milked twice a day. But I never forgot my mantra.

Throughout the years, I would occasionally sit and meditate, but it was not a regular practice. I moved to Boston in 1993 and a few years later, I heard about a meditation class in Cambridge at the Harvard Divinity School. So once a week, I drove across the river, and I began to study and practice. Our wonderful teacher, George Kinder, had been a student of meditation for many years. He would teach for 20 minutes and then we would meditate as a group of 10-15 people. Sometimes I used my mantra and sometimes I just listened to my breath. At first, it was so hard to tame my “monkey mind” as we call it…a scattered, anxious mind that jumps from this thought to that thought. But slowly, as I continued to practice at home, again I began to feel the benefits that I remembered. I had more patience, more calm, more ability to let go of repetitive thoughts, less stress and more energy.

Over the last decade, I have had several medical procedures: knee replacements, hip replacements, and breast cancer. In each situation, whether waiting in a doctor’s office, anticipating test results, lying in pre-op or post-op, sliding into an MRI tube or other stressful situations out of my control, I would just start bringing my focus to my in-breath and my out-breath. I would be relieved to have some time away from thinking about possible outcomes and I was comforted by the sense of calm throughout my body.

Today, because I am retired, I make the time to meditate on a daily basis. Usually I meditate by sitting on my couch, but I am realizing that I can meditate in other places as well. When I feel myself being completely in the present moment, not thinking of anything except this step, this musical note, this warm water on my hands….for me, this is a form of meditation as well, being mindful of each moment.

Through social media, I have started a meditation group in my home with several of my neighbors. We meet each week, share stories, and meditate for 15 minutes. Last Tuesday, I had the window open while we meditated, and we all commented on how we noticed the crickets outside, bringing our minds back to the present moment.

If you are thinking about starting a meditation practice or getting back to a former practice, the easiest way is to go on-line and download a free meditation app. I use Insight Timer, and there are many other good ones. Starting out, you may want a guided meditation, or calming music. Soon your body will welcome the time you sit in meditation.