Meditation

I’ve been thinking about meditation again. Not actually doing it, just contemplating it.

Ever since I started doing yoga twelve years ago there have been periods when I’ve felt I should be meditating or trying to develop a regular meditation practice.

I’ve tried. I have tapes, now podcasts, books, cushions. But I’ve never gotten much past the squinted-eyed peek at the clock around twelve minutes in. In a group setting I fare better. And it’s the calm, hyper-aware feeling I’ve gotten from those experiences that makes me think about giving it another shot.

This time it’s come up because I’m reading “Less: Accomplishing More By Doing Less” by Marc Lesser, who is a Zen teacher and MBA – a combination right up my alley. I was amused to find a self-help book that encourages me to do what I am already doing. But now, in Chapter 4, he is making a big pitch for a half hour daily meditation practice. Just reading about it makes me tired.

But the idea continues to bob up in my mind (I imagine a Zen teacher would find that ironic). Won’t it help my writing? Won’t it improve my overall outlook if I just push through for a while and establish a habit? Probably. When I read the instructions for developing a mindfulness practice though, they emphasize the objective of becoming adept at pushing random thoughts to the side and returning again and again to the breath. I worry that that’s the opposite of what I’m trying to do with my writing and other parts of my life.

I’m trying to actively listen to those thoughts, those little voices that I became so good at pushing away when I was working so hard as a lawyer. Now that my schedule and my mind are no longer for rent I find that I sometimes don’t know how to make a decision as straightforward as what to have for lunch.

For example -- It’s noon. I just finished exercising, so of course I’ll get a salad on my way home. Right? But I’m not hungry. And the salads near the gym are a rip off and I end up eating scary creamy dressing I don’t even like that much. But, I tell myself, that would be most efficient, would fit into a perfect little gap in the day and accomplish a meal. I ask myself what I am hungry for. Nothing occurs to me. The choices scan through my brain – soft tacos, leftover chicken at home, a yogurt smoothie, a frittata with those cherry tomatoes that are getting puckered. I sit in my car, paralyzed, unsure of what to do. How can I not even know what I want to eat for lunch?

But on good days, I sit at my computer and look up when my son comes home from school, and am not able to believe it’s 4:30. Where was I all day? Part of the time I was in New York in 1978, then in St. Petersburg in 1917, and then in the restaurant where my characters were meeting for dinner after a long absence. I look at my history in iTunes and I don’t remember hearing most of the music that was playing all day. This is confusing and exhilarating for someone accustomed to accounting for my time in six minute increments. I get up from the desk and wander to the kitchen. I feel the same satisfaction I did when I won a tough motion for summary judgment. I’m surprised. I’m tired, ready to move on to another activity – making dinner or returning phone calls.

But the idea of sitting down and trying to empty my mind for a half hour is completely unappealing. I’m just figuring out how active and alive my imagination is. I’m afraid to tell it to shut up, even for just a half hour a day.