Meditator Question

One of the meditators who participates in my weekly meditation sessions asked me last week, “Siri, I am finding it very hard to practice. My mind is all over the place, and it is difficult to sit for practice. What practices do you suggest for me?”

The meditator is recovering from prolonged physical pain and limited mobility after sustaining an accident three years ago. My suggestion to her was to park the “mind practices” for a little while.

Focusing on breath and developing concentration can be difficult when the mind is very active and the body is in pain.

Progressive Muscle Relaxation and Yoga Nidra are great ways to help relax the body. A body racked by pain over a long period is always tense. It needs intentional relaxation, and it is helpful when the body knows how to relax.

Mind and heart practices can be much easier when the body knows how to relax. (This is a note to myself, too. I am incorporating relaxation practices far more frequently than I used to.)

I also use guided meditations when I have resistance to practice but would like to do so anyway. Here are some of my favourite tracks on Insight Timer for these two practices.

These tracks are available with the free membership on the Insight Timer app, which is the most popular app for meditators and can be downloaded on the App Store and Play Store.

https://insig.ht/6NDS8RMvTHb - 22 mins

https://insig.ht/6NDS8RMvTHb - 29 mins

https://insig.ht/PdZOZbTvTHb - 22 mins

If you have any questions you’d like me to answer, please do write back to me with your question and I will answer your question in one of the editions.

Readers have commented that they like the short stories that conclude every edition. So, I thought it would be nice to have a separate edition with just a selection of really short stories. I hope you enjoy these stories.

3 Tiny Stories

The Sun and the Cave

One day, the sun and a cave struck up a conversation. The sun had trouble understanding what “dark” and “dank” meant, and the cave didn’t quite get the hang of “light and clear”, so they decided to change places.

The cave went up to the sun and said, “Ah, I see, this is beyond wonderful. Now come down and see where I have been living.” The sun went down to the cave and said, “Gee, I don’t see any difference.”

Working Very Hard

A martial arts student earnestly told his teacher, “I am devoted to studying your martial system. How long will it take me to master it?”

The teacher’s reply was casual, “Ten years.”

Impatiently, the student answered, “But I want to master it faster than that. I will work very hard. I will practice every day, ten or more hours a day if I have to. How long will it take then?”

The teacher thought for a moment, “20 years.”

Heaven and Hell

One day, a man said to God, “God, I would like to know what Heaven and Hell are like.”

God showed the man two doors. Inside the first one, in the middle of the room, was a large round table with a large pot of vegetable stew. It smelled delicious and made the man’s mouth water, but the people sitting around the table were thin and sickly. They appeared to be famished. They were holding spoons with very long handles and each found it possible to reach into the pot of stew and take a spoonful, but because the handle was longer than their arms, they could not get the spoons back into their mouths.

The man shuddered at the sight of their misery and suffering. God said, “You have seen Hell.”

Behind the second door, the room appeared exactly the same. There was the large round table with the large pot of wonderful vegetable stew that made the man’s mouth water. The people had the same long-handled spoons, but they were well-nourished and plump, laughing and talking.

The man said, “I don’t understand.”

God smiled. “It is simple,” he said. Love only requires one skill. These people learned early on to share and feed one another, while the greedy only think of themselves…”

Paid Subscriber Bonus

I conduct a small weekly meditation group that meets every Thursday for 30 minutes at 2:00 PM IST (9:30 AM UTC).

If you’d like to participate, please reply to this email so I can add you to the group. We explore different kinds of meditation practice, and reflection and sharing are at the end of the practice. This is a group I have been leading for 3 years and I’d like to open it up to my paid subscribers now.

This is a small and safe group to practice in. If you’d like to join the weekly sessions, please write back to me, and I will add you to the invite list.

Write to Me!

I’d love to hear from you - and I really mean it. Suggestions for books, your favourite stories that you would be happy for me to share in this newsletter or your favourite meditation practices.

Or just click the heart symbol! That always makes my day. 💖

Sources

1. This is a Sufi Story, and the source is unknown.

2. This is a Zen story from the collection “Zen Flesh Zen Bones: A Collection of Zen and Pre-Zen Writings” compiled by Paul Reps and Nyogen Senzaki

3. This story of Heaven and Hell is attributed to Rabbi Haim of Romshishok.