The last several SMC articles have been covering the territory of obstacles to meditation and contemplation. Dr. Tom is on vacation this week. Please enjoy the reposted article below.
For over a quarter century of marriage and family life, I lived in a self-chosen, dog-free zone. Allergies and an on-the-go lifestyle have always led Lisa and me to keep a pretty tight leash on my kids’ aspirations for canine companionship. And then, along came COVID.
Just like everybody else in the world, our school and work moved home, and became virtual. Socializing with classmates evaporated, leaving in their place lame, Harry Potter-like talking portraits of classmates, boyfriends and girlfriends on Zoom. After four months of sharing a quarantine pod, it was time for my oldest two adult kids (and my future son-in-law) to break camp and get on back to their lives. Lizzie, our sixteen-year-old youngest, had been dreaming and scheming about a dog for over ten years. It took a pandemic to finally melt Lizzie’s parents’ stony hearts. We finally heard our little girl’s constant request for a pet that could “hug her back” (as opposed to goldfish or birds). And so, for the last five years, I’ve become a poop-bag carrying, Milk-bone-treats-in-the-suit-jacket toting, torn-up kitchen garbage cleaning, dog-Snapchat sharing parents of a full-grown hypo-allergenic standard poodle named, “Winnie” (as in “Winnie the Poodle”).
I haven’t loved cleaning up the processed gastro-intestinal after-effects of Winnie’s forbidden culinary adventures. I really, really haven’t loved the periodic, and unexpected beefs with other dogs in the neighborhood. But when I place Winnie on the Positives-Negatives scale, I have to admit, we probably should’ve listened to little girl wisdom ten years ago. Was it a blind spot? Or did I just fail to listen to my research subjects? How could I not know the resilience resource that a dog can provide? In this regard, I guess that Winnie has provided Dr. Tom a service dog.
Resilience Research
While dogs never showed up in my resilience research, meditation certainly has. Over the years, I’ve learned that the road to resilience is paved, in part, with meditation. Meditation has been found to reduce depression and anxiety, while boosting measures of happiness in its practitioners. Meditation has a way of sorting out and cleaning up our cognitive landscape by simply becoming more aware, and non-judgmentally curious about the thoughts, feelings, and bodily sensations that flow through us. An existential psychologist might say that mindfulness meditation brings an awareness of the inherent radical freedom of the human subject who is never reducible to a particular feeling or thought. To put it another way, meditation provides the lived experience that I am more than my feelings, more than my thoughts. In other words, it gives a solid way to have my thoughts and feelings, rather than letting them have me. For those with a spiritual interest, the practice of contemplation (e.g. Centering Prayer, Lectio Divina), which includes meditation, holds the potential of increasing intimacy with God, and enhancing a sense of Ultimate Meaning (see Paul Tillich).
In 1987 I took a two-week retreat with Basil Pennington, who along with Thomas Keating, and William Meninger created and promoted the practice of Centering Prayer. On-and-off since then, I have intermittently engaged in it. This approach is known as an “apophatic,” or “letting go” form of spirituality. It’s based on the insight that the presence of the Divine pulses at the deepest part of the human spirit below consciousness, below feelings. If you want to test drive it, you’d begin the way all prayer begins. Find a comfortable posture you can hold for a half an hour or so. Next, you’d close your eyes, and attend to your breathing. Simon Tugwell taught me to always begin prayer by acknowledging a radical dependence on God. So that’s what I do. Finally, you’d use a sacred word as a means to let go of each thought, each internal experience, one-at-a-time until the end of your twenty minutes or half-an-hour sit. Your word and breath are used as a means to surrender, as often as you are aware. . .of thoughts. . .pictures. . .or mental movies.
The goal? You simply want to rest wordlessly, thoughtlessly, and image-less-ly in that deep-down Presence within. During those stretches of time when I have practiced this methodology faithfully, I have found subtle changes occurring in my life. I tend to get more creative in loving the people in my environment. I find myself able to sooth my heart down better. I listen to my clients and family members in a deeper way. I am more available to the words of a sermon, a piece of poetry, or scripture. I am more easily moved to tears by generosity, kindness, or beauty. So why is it that over the course of my life, I have cycled in and out of this incredibly rewarding habit?
An Obstacle to Contemplation
After nine months of observing our puppy, I discovered the reason. When it comes to spirituality, my dog and I are littermates. In any given session of contemplative prayer, my mind wants to wander puppy-style, chasing the footsteps of any stray thought that crosses my pathway. When Winnie was a puppy, her internal thought process must sound like this: “Is that a squirrel in the distance? I gotta chase it! Right Now! Now! Now! Oops, is that a tug on my leash? Be good Winnie! Be good Winnie! But OMG…there’s a squirrel!….” My thought process in prayer and meditation are not a lot more sophisticated. Maybe it’s not a squirrel I’m chasing after, but under the right set of circumstances, it could be. In years past, my own frustration with my distractible mind has led to this conclusion: “I suck at this!” That’s when I break my leash, stray from the path, and leave my life-giving habit of meditation for those “other people” who are good at it.
A Hack to Overcome the Primary Obstacle to Contemplation
Over the years, I have known and counseled many people who regularly practice meditation and contemplative prayer. I have yet to meet one who has said that they don’t have to contend with a highly distractible mind. I have come to see that there’s one main difference between those who stick with a daily practice of spirituality, and those who abandon it. Those who stick with it have come to accept their distractible, puppy mind that comes hard-wired into human consciousness. To put it into the words of Thomas Keating, one of the founders of Centering Prayer, “If your mind wanders 1000 times in a twenty-minute session of meditation, what a lovely thing that you return to God 1000 times!” In other words, to succeed in the spiritual life, you must first come to accept, and finally come to love the puppy-like dimension of your mind and yourself.