Meditations on meditation

I'm told to meditate. The eastern idea, at least as I understand it, is to sit still and calmly, and see what comes to you. As something comes to you, deal with that and then you can set it aside and move on. As I'm slightly annoyed that the eastern religions have an apparent monopoly on meditation even though the word meditate comes up time and again in my very own bonded leather, binding-breaking, hi-lighted and written in, words-of-Christ-in-Red, stuffed with years-old church bulletins Bible, I shall endeavor to take it on myself.

Let's begin:

Deep Breath.
Ahhh.


This is nice.

What comes to me?
Hmmm.

A cookie!
Oh dear. A cookie? I don't think that's right. But there must not be a right and wrong. This is meditation. A cookie is what came to me and I must deal with the cookie. Well, there are a few ways to deal with a cookie. One is avoid it. But I'm fairly sure I'm not supposed to be avoiding things. No, the therapist would not be happy with that. The other is to eat the cookie. Well, there IS a cookie over there. One left from a few days ago and probably not that good anymore. But what can one do? In the name of expansion and clarity of mind and spirit....
Okay, yeah, that was good. Chocolate chip. Thanks, Safeway.

Indian position. I mean cross-legged. (Yipes, I'm not good at this. Do you have to be PC to meditate?)
I wonder if I should find a yoga mat. That seems appropriate. Hey my sister once had some comfy yoga pants she liked to wear on the airplane.
Okay, thinking.
Mmmm.
A Nap!
Well, there we go.
Okay, Go take a nap. I'll meet you back here in... wait, won't alarm clocks interrupt the nice calm setting we have going here?...


While you were napping I got a cat. I know. But a cat came next in my meditation, after I woke up from my nap. (Hm? Oh, it was lovely thanks, how was yours?) Perhaps it was "cat nap." Or maybe I just really like cats. She's a nice cat. Except sometimes I am sad and cats do not care.

Dinosaurs!
Uh oh. How shall I deal with dinosaurs? Perhaps there is a deeper psychological meaning behind the dinosaur. Something really big is bothering me? I feel old like a dinosaur? The Ray Bradbury story "A Sound of Thunder" has been haunting me since 8th grade? I felt abandoned when I sat at school watching "The Land Before Time" as a latch key kid? Oh look, a dinosaur transformer toy. Maybe that's why people often close their eyes while they're doing this stuff.

****

Shift. (Yes, that word has five letters, what have you been reading?!) Apparently, if you hold down the shift key for 8 seconds, you would like to turn on the filter function. In my little meditation world, however, holding down the shift key for 8 seconds means I am thinking. Thinking about writing down the things that came to me and how that was the only way to think about them at all. If I had been working with my actual stream-of-consciousness I would not be able to keep up and much more meaningful things would pop up, but I wouldn't be able to follow them at all. My mind is much to busy to even follow itself let alone with writing or speaking or even meditating-- calmly or otherwise. I suppose holding down that shift key was, in fact, turning on the filter function. I was filtering my stream of consciousness into something I could write about.
Well, that was fun or educational or something.

Now about that nap...