The power of meditation.

For the past few weeks, life had not being treating me well. Putting it in another more “encouraging” way, I felt the fellow upstairs is up to his trick of training and testing me again. Not sure when will he be satisfied and starts focusing on others who equally needed his attention.  ;-P

Individually, none of those problems were as difficult as those I had encountered. However, collectively with multiple problems in various areas of my life happening at the same time, it is overwhelming. There is just no place in my life then for me to rest and recharge. Getting down meditating is equally challenging as I would rather use the time to work on the problems or rest. Moreover, when attempting to meditate, my mind was constantly disturbed with the thoughts of those outstanding issues. What an irony.

The article by Cheryl Clemens (Baltimore Sun) on “The power of meditation: How a quiet mind can unlock wonders” (Source: http://goo.gl/mag/2yLDB via Google Currents) teaches me the power of meditation, and the importance of mindfulness when I am doing my tai chi meditation this morning. Going back to the basic, focusing on my breathing and feeling every single moment of my body, my mind stops pondering on those issues.

I had all along allowed myself to be bothered by those problems. The equivalent of constantly stirring a glass of muddy water and allowing it to stays cloudy. Mindfulness in meditation is about not stirring the glass of water and letting the dirt slowly settles at the bottom of the glass. The problems, like the dirt in the glass will not go away with meditation. Being mindful about those problems and yet not get affected by them helps me to have a peaceful mind to look at the problems individually. With the water beginning to clear, I am able to see better, prioritize and tackle the problems one at a time. It is like picking up the stones to prevent further scratches to the glass surface, then separating the water from the dirt at the bottom.

I was told that practicing mindfulness comes in various forms and it is not limited to just Tai Chi, Yoga or other traditional meditation. Action such as drinking a cup of tea, painting a picture or even mopping our floor can equally helps us in achieving mindfulness. The problem is that many of us, me included, think about painting when drinking our tea, think about mopping when painting and think about having tea when mopping. If we simply focus on the task and enjoy the process, our mind will be able to get their much needed rest.

Try it!