"Why Meditate" with Jane This Sunday at Minneapolis Insight

Dear Community,

Sunday 10am Community Practice & Discussion

Pema Chodron wrote an article a long time ago entitled “Why Do I Meditate or 5 Reasons to Meditate.” This article appears repeatedly on the internet, and it has remained one of my favorites. (I checked my computer and the first time I saved it was in July of 2019.) 

In the article she, in the wonderful Pema way, reminds us of why we would do this weird thing of sitting silently. Each time I go back to this article and contemplate what she is offering, I receive a new gift.  

She starts the article by saying: 

“The mind is very wild. The human experience is full of unpredictability and paradox, joys and sorrows, successes and failures. We can’t escape any of these experiences in the vast terrain of our existence. It is part of what makes life grand—and it is also why our minds take us on such a crazy ride. If we can train ourselves through meditation to be more open and more accepting toward the wild arc of our experience, if we can lean into the difficulties of life and the ride of our minds, we can become more settled and relaxed amid whatever life brings us.”

Pema then goes on to explain her five reasons for meditating: 

1. Develop a loyalty to yourself.  Meditation helps us develop a “quality of loyalty and steadfastness and perseverance toward yourself.” This helps us open to our experience by reducing our self-judgement. We then can carry this into our everyday lives. 
2. See clearly the habits that limit your life. Through meditation we get better at catching earlier the “neurotic chain reactions that limit our ability of experience joy and connection to others,” thus opening us to more joy and connection in life. 
3. True Courage. When we meditate, we develop the courage to experience our emotional discomfort and the trials of our life. Over time, that is transformative. As we do this, we start to experience insight, and we see things in fresh, new ways that allow “room for your own wisdom to manifest.” 
4. Attention. Meditation develops our “ability to become awake to our lives.”  We develop the ability to just be here, in each moment, just as it is, and we become more flexible, and tolerant.  This “is a very powerful place for those who wish to awaken and open their heart and mind.”
5. No Big Deal.  This expression, from Pema’s teacher Trungpa Rinpoche, is a reminder to not to get caught by our reactions, good or bad.  She says “meditation helps us cultivate this feeling of no big deal, not as a cynical statement, but as a statement of humor and flexibility. You've seen it all and seeing it all allows you to love it all.”

We hope that you will join us this Sunday to meditate together and explore these teachings! Registration and Zoom information available here.

With mettā,
Minneapolis Insight