By Linda Modaro and Nelly Kaufer

 

Why Linda loves Reflective Meditation

Love: 1) an intense feeling of deep affection. 2) a great interest and pleasure in something.

It was love at first sight. Love that has lasted through decades. Yet, I know Reflective Meditation and all the other people, places and things that I love will crumble and fall apart. This love is not unconditional. It will encounter dukkha. None of this has corrupted my love for Reflective Meditation. In fact it has made loving more unshakable.

Sitting in my room, a quiet place with my desire for a quiet life, a safe environment. Not just externally but internally. The stillness has been created, cultivated, and entered. A metaphorical sign on the door – meditation in session. Life happens so fast. I love being able to meet “everything that I am living” in this space. It’s a need that I have. More than a need, it’s a wholesome desire. Meeting life in an organic way. Letting life ripen from there.

With Reflective Meditation, I pay attention to what really matters to me.

One of the biggest surprises is that self-interest leads to a more genuine selflessness. By paying attention to what I am feeling and thinking. Paying attention to how things affect me. Paying attention to the stories I am living. It is mysterious how things change and fade away but exciting, interesting, riveting. Not always though and not without fail.

Paying attention can be such a tender endeavor.

 

Why Nelly loves Reflective Meditation

I love the mystery. Not knowing what will happen when I meditate. What will happen minute to minute. What will develop from the meditation? Some meditations like yesterday’s disappoint, but I know that will shift and I am not stuck forever. That’s because there is a flow. Taking me somewhere. Not always and certainly not to only one place.

Some people consider the mystery to be a Something, a True Self. I don’t see it that way. More like there are more possibilities than I could ever conceptualize. Reflective Meditation takes me out of the usual into the “who knows what”. It opens up the lens of how I view my life and life itself, out of default mode, the usual set patterns and ways of thinking. But I know I need to be in default mode for some of the time. Until good fortune pops me into something new.

There is a surge when a new idea or perspective pops up. Lifting, stimulating and spreading. So much so that sometimes it’s hard to hold my seat. I bet there is some physiological explanation like a surge of something… serotonin and dopamine and endorphins. That’s a materialistic explanation but I want to get under that. What about a spiritual source? Do I believe that’s where it comes from? I suppose so if I don’t conceptualize it as a place or an entity. More an amorphous sense of mystery.

Not just pleasure for its own sake. Though I am glad that my mood is boosted. But to what end? I meditate for a minute or so and perceive the image of a blob of something spreading out. Kind of like applying watercolor to wet paper. I believe this is the nature of moods. They spread and impact others.

Why does creativity matter so much to me? It’s onward leading. I begin a project. Be it writing or pottery or watercolor or creating a new continuing education training for psychotherapists. It seems to have a life of its own. Drawing me in. Drawing me onward. Drawing me somewhere. Slowly defining itself. I follow.

 

Photo credit: Bill Wellhouse

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