Tuesday, 1 January 2013

New Year’s Promise

When the clock strikes midnight, all the baggage of the previous year is neatly folded away and new doors open. Doors that lead forward, that swing wide to new ideas and we step over the threshold to a new you and me.

This year is the year of self improvement and growth. What will I become when the clock once again strikes midnight in 365 days time? Well, I’m not really sure. All I can promise is that today, tomorrow and on Friday I will meditate. Three little seeds of calm mindful contemplation will be planted.

Beach sunset

Mindful contemplation

 

Will I continue after that? I sure hope so, but I will make that determination about the future when the future is here. All I can say is that today I have meditated on the path. Thought a little about developing ethical discipline, concentration and wisdom. That is a good start.

 

Addendum ** 2 January 2013

Day 2 and the journey continues. Another step in the right direction. Today’s meditation is about cultivating equal hearted openness to everyone. Equanimity. A word of five simple syllables, yet such depth of meaning – an evenness of heart and mind. Are we truly capable of equanimity? What differentiates people we love, from people we dislike or people whom we do not know, other than prejudices based on how that person treated ‘me’. If we cut through those prejudices, then a stranger is just a friend we haven’t yet met. Like and dislike are migratory and fleeting, leaving everyone naked, bare and true.

 

Addendum ** 3 January 2013

Day 3 and a meditation that contemplates all beings as having once been our parent. I will admit that it took a while to get into it, but my mind finally got there.

So many of our friends have recently become parents. A role that has no end, and knows no boundaries in love, kindness and patience. Today I heard a beautiful story of a father returning from work in the wee hours of the morning, on the day of his daughter’s birthday. Although he was exhausted after too long a day, he woke his sleeping daughter and sat in the garden with her. Silent, at 2 am in the morning which was the hour of her birth, and watched a meteor shower dance across a dark night’s sky.

So many magical moments we have received from our own parents, in countless ways that we will never be able to fully comprehend, yet are able to one day pay forward to our children. Imagine if we saw the world and others in it as our parent or as our child. Would we be more patient? Would we love unconditionally? Would we feel true concern and not apathy? Dear reader, I would very much hope so.