I went to a group meditation with a good friend this morning. Before the catastrophe that was 2009 I used to meditate alone several times a week. After 2009 I tried, but found I couldn't get back into it, apart from the fact that I find swimming very meditative. So this morning was a pleasure & a surprise.
Stilling the mind is very difficult. Our minds are dictators of mood & action. We have been programmed, hardwired, conditioned, from our earliest years, to be the people we are today. We think. We rewind. We imagine. We project. We don't question whether this is a good thing or not. We just accept it, because it has always been like that. We are intelligent. We think & therefore we try to control. Meditation practice teaches us how to stop the mind from fast forwarding us into actions which may be egocentric. It helps us reflect.
This morning I found myself meditating on the fact that everyone in that room had problems. Physical, emotional, practical problems, some quite serious. That is life. Then I had a very powerful image of a spiders web glistening with frost or dew & being suspended in it. The people meditating were the spokes of the web, giving it strength, cradling us. Each of us was supporting the others & strengthening the web.
We are all individuals, but we all need support. We all need to trust someone enough to let them in & give us the help we need. We also need different types of support at different times for different problems. The web of people available to us is invisible but our friendships make it strong & tangible.
Our friendship webs can help deliver us from the turbulent seas of life to the calm waters of the safe harbour if we let them. Our webs won't necessarily solve the problems, but they might help us to cope with them.
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