Sitting in a snow globe
As I took to my seat yesterday to take a meditation practice an image immediately sprang to mind of a snow globe. It struck me how meditation often feels like being in a snow globe. Within the snow globe is a center piece that sits perfectly still, unflustered by the snow storm that is buffeting around them. As the snow globe maintains stillness the snow slowly settles. Through it all, the blizzard and the calm, the center piece remains still.
It may not sound like the most peaceful image to be sat within a snow storm, but sometimes this is what meditation can feel like. It felt really comforting to me yesterday. The peace doesn't come from trying to make the sun come out, or from despairing that there is a snow storm, but from learning to sit calmly while the landscape shifts around us. Some days the snow storm continues through the practice, other times the snow settles - through it all the intensity of the storm tends to shift. the snow slows, and we can see more clearly than before. We realise that we can be the still center piece rather than the raging snow, and from that we can hold our experience with greater perspective and kindness which brings with it greater calmness and clarity.
It reminds me of people's common misconceptions with meditation that we are trying to clear our mind of thoughts, or trying to create some blissful state of transcendental peace. These common myths often lead people to feeling like they are failing at meditation when they first try which is such a shame.
Modern lives are often busy. We live in a world of constant stimulation. It is understandable that we can feel more like the snow than the centre piece of a snow globe. It is understandable that when we first sit to meditate this is what we notice. The 'peace' in our meditation practice doesn't come from lack of thoughts or blissful states but from our increasing ability to find a calm presence as life flows through us; a witness presence that can observe our thoughts coming and going without needing to act on them; that can watch our breath flow as a reminder to be present; that can enable us to be open to the changing nature of life - the the good, the bad, the joys, the sorrows - without being buffeted or broken by them. That is where the peace comes.
I love teaching the 8-week Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction course and watching people's perceptions of what meditation is change over the course of the 8 weeks. I love watching participants journeys as they realise that the purpose of the practices is not to be 'good meditators' but rather to bring these tools we practice in meditation into our lives. Life too can feel like being in the middle of a snow globe and it's wonderful to see them becoming more the center piece rather than the snow by the end of the course.