Meditation


I do my best to be a meditator - I have my own reasonably regular practice at home (though I could do with a little more self-discipline!), I occasionally venture out to meditate with other communities and I teach my own meditation class, which I find enormously beneficial. I am absolutely not a meditation fascist - i.e. someone who says you need to sit for 3 hours a day in full lotus position following the Vipassana method in order to garner any benefits. The fact is that most of us are so disconnected from ourselves and from the present moment that even 3 minutes a day following any method would be of enormous benefit to the vast majority. Mine is a softly-softly approach, for which I don't apologise.
I took my friend to the Buddhist Library in Camperdown this week to attend the Lotus Buds Sangha meditation session. This is a group of people who follow the tradition of Thich Nhat Hanh, a man for whom I have enormous respect. It was a lovely night, though I found the singing unbearably daggy - an obvious attempt to ape Christian traditions which I think is completely unnecessary. The format is sufficiently varied so as not to cause discomfort, and there is a lovely, zen-like atmosphere of peace and calm. I'm not sure if my friend will go back, but I probably will. If only Camperdown weren't such an impossible place to get too...

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