Interest in Mindfulness and other types of meditation has grown significantly, and for good reason.  With so many people entering into meditation practices, one of the common struggles is balancing being and doing.   People notice that if you quiet your mind and don’t do anything, you can quickly begin to experience a sense of blissfulness, or at least contentment.  If you stay in this line of thought it leads to diminishing the real value of a meditation practice.  A meditation practice was meant to create some distance between the real you and the biological computer in your brain that constantly generates thoughts that disturb you.  The end game is to be able to quiet your mind, and observe your thoughts without immediately reacting, and adding more thoughts to them.  

Have you ever had one of those days, where it felt like you were really busy all day, but you didn’t feel like you got much done?  Better yet, you can’t recall what all you got done.  Usually that sense of busyness is as much a result of the busyness in your mind as it is the actual doing of whatever you were doing.  A meditation practice will help you to stay in the moment even when you have a lot to do.  You get a sense of calm in the storm, and won’t tend to overreact the events that happen that would have upset you before.  If you work with your mind fully in the present, you can learn to be while you do.  One of my favorite meditation practices is making the bed in the morning.  I purposely start the day by quieting my mind and focusing only on making my bed without any other thoughts present.  

There is an idea from Buddhism that often gets brought into meditation practices.  I am paraphrasing from one of the four noble truths, but it basically says that the root of suffering is desire.  People then quit desiring.  This is a complete misunderstanding of this noble truth.  Jesus taught something similar in the bible, when he instructs us not to chase after wealth as the heathen do.  This was also widely misunderstood. You are always going to have desires, and you will always have things happen in life you don’t like.  A meditation practice will help you to examine your motives and thoughts so you can make decisions and act based on your values, not in reaction to autonomous thoughts.  

A long time ago success guru Tony Robbins put it this way.  Again I am paraphrasing, but he said, “if you sit around all day and bliss out, they will eventually come and take your furniture.”  True enough, and they will eventually throw you out of your home as well.  As you go into your week, work on noticing your arising thoughts and practice not automatically adding more thoughts to them.  Just observe your thoughts and don’t react.  This is “being”, it has little to do with whether you proceed in “doing” a lot or a little.  That choice is truly yours if you can learn to be, even when you are doing.

“When we try to make ourselves bigger in the eyes of the world, we shrink the size of our world. When we expand our knowledge of the world around us, we make the world bigger.“

Something occurred to me as I was doing my weekly reflection and planning this morning. When we try to make ourselves bigger in the eyes of world, we shrink the size of our world. When we expand our knowledge of the world around us, we make the world bigger. We as humans can be so arrogant to believe we know much of what there is to know. When we are confronted with the accusation of being a “know it all”, we logically know that our knowledge is limited. On the other hand, the inside of our own mind often reflects the idea that we may not know it all, but we know most of it.

We do this, because it gives us comfort to believe that we are in control. We have to make our world smaller in order to feel comfortable in the world. Comfort is a natural desire. This is one of the greatest limits we place on ourselves. If we realized how little control we have in our universe, and how vulnerable we are are we would be much more humble and respectful. We would also be forced to put our faith in something bigger than ourselves.

The only way we learn and grow is to expand our awareness beyond what we know. The more I learn the more I realize how little I really know. It is growing comfortable with this fact that will allow us to get comfortable with a much larger world. Most Christians will be familiar with Jesus guidance to die to self. Realizing how little we know and getting ourselves outside of our comfort zone causes us to die a little to ourselves. Realizing how small we are in the grand scheme of things. It also allows us to expand our horizons and do more with our lives.

This week maybe we can take a little time to think about the unimaginable quantity of knowledge that can be known. Maybe we can get out of our comfort zones and grow our circle of influence. There is something much bigger at play than just our small world. Let’s see if we can make a difference without having to boost our own ego.

When I was in my mid-thirties I remember a trip to the grocery store with my wife Diane, who would occasionally read the fine print on the labels.  I noticed that she was holding the labels further from her eyes in order to see them clearly.  I teasingly asked if she needed gadget arms to read the labels.  She appropriately shot me back a look and said, “you wait  your time is coming.” From time to time I would playfully tease her about holding things out so she could see them.    

Several years later I was reading a book, and Diane was sitting next to me.  She said “you are holding that book a little far away, aren’t you?”  I said “no, that is just how I read”.  I began to pull the book closer to my eyes, just to show her I could see close up.  I suddenly realized that the text was really blurry.  The joke was on me, I was about to begin payment for all the teasing I had done, along with a new pair of eyeglasses.

In the same way that eyeglasses allow us to see text more clearly, curiosity can help us to see our knowledge more clearly.  We often believe that just because we understand the basics behind something, that we understand it fully.  I believed that just because I could read the words on the page, that I could see the text clearly from close up. I was wrong.

Often in books or movies, a writer will make us aware of circumstances that the main character isn’t aware of.  We find ourselves really wanting the character to realize that they aren’t seeing things clearly.  Ironically we rarely stop to question whether we are seeing things clearly.  Isn’t it likely that we, like the character in the story, can’t see all the things that have happened beyond our own vision.  Something happens to us and we often react as if we fully understand what has happened.  

This is one of those ideas that can completely change our lives for the better.  It is humbling to realize that we only see and understand a small part of what is.  It is empowering to acknowledge that deficit, and to use curiosity to see some of the things we can’t. Learning to be curious about the things that you experience in life is one of the best ways to grow as a person. If we only look at the surface of things, we are sure to miss important details. 

As a people, we nearly missed the immense benefit of discovering Germ Theory.  In the 1840s Ignaz Semmelweis observed that mortality rates in childbirth were reduced greatly, by simple hand washing by doctors and midwives.  He attempted to publish his work, and it was largely rejected. It wasn’t until the 1880s that Germ theory was developed and gained any traction.  We have also discovered that in the 14th century ceremonial hand washing was likely responsible for a much lower death rate from the Black Plague among European Jews. 

There is always more going on than we realize. While we shouldn’t get caught up in endless details, we should keep an open mind about what is possible.  Who knows what great things you might accomplish, by just getting curious.