The friction of daily life keeps me skimming at the surface, a skipping stone that can’t settle long enough to sink. Practice reminds me there is another way to be, a way that leads to peace.
I enjoy my practice. Usually. The days vary. Yesterday, my meditation found a corner of my mind where the noise filtered out and only the weight of quiet remained. This morning was like listening to the static of a broken radio: the residue of an argument, a lingering image from the news, a hovering dread I couldn’t name. These things put peace at a distance. But I continue to practice regardless of the day’s effect, drawn by the belief that there is gold in the mine.
I confess, I prefer the peace of the former. I want meditation to reduce my stress, but for me, meditation is more than a wellness practice, it is also a spiritual practice – it aims to connect with the sacred. And for that, it has to be honest, expanding my self-awareness into a deeper sense of this “self” that is seeking to connect. I am training my mind to observe itself, to uncover what is there, cracks and all, and slowly shed the layers of who I think I am. Which can be uncomfortable. So, I carry the internal tension of wanting both peace and growth.
It makes me wonder, what is the gold I am mining? It can’t be the direct pursuit of peaceful feelings, which would lead me to refine away the uncomfortable bits. Gold as it comes from the ground is not always pretty. It carries the residue of a million years of pressure, heat, and dirt. Spiritual practice works at the root, unsettling the layers above it. There’s another peace on the other side of honest examination, discarding what no longer serves me and integrating the lessons of what remains, until it can carry its own quiet weight.
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