May brings the full blossoming of spring. I am looking out the window, through fruit trees and oaks, up to the mountain above them, and above that mountain, the white clouds and blue sky. Yes, the full blossoming of spring. And we, the people of the Northern hemisphere, on some subtle level are in bloom as well. Even as conflict rages, and absurd events flaunt the news and social media, we humans are in the season for beauty to bloom through art, through discovery, through compassion and a heightened awareness of the natural world. Outwardly, Nature is vividly bursting free; inwardly, consider the possibility that subtle layers of awareness, long blocked by thought and the mind's incessant chatter, can also open and bloom. If, as Larry Morris said, "May is for manifestation," then we have the opportunity for clearer reception of inner spiritual direction, revelation, and demonstration.
May is a good time to revamp our meditation practice. Just like Nature with its seemingly infinite variety of life forms, there are abundant forms of meditation. I personally have woven through times of meditation in prayer form, or sat in simple silence, or entered into imagery, or sat with with mantra repetition, or let the mind lead through a mix, with stillness, or movement. But the last few days, I felt the pull to return to a mantra that was gifted to me almost 20 years ago. I felt the pull to focus my full attention in gentle repetition, not really expecting anything new. It just seemed like the thing to do that morning. I had always assumed mantra meditation was to calm the "monkey" mind, as thoughts fly around, jumping from one idea, memory, or concern to another, while the mind, occupied with a mantra, brought quiet awareness. During this meditation though, I watched my own mental processes pulling toward MY mental "agenda" in meditation: I had turned from my thoughts to give way to the mantra. But then it hit me; the mantra was only another mental activity. It just occupied the mind, while the "inner directive" the deeper connection, the movement of the Transcendent, came forth in the tiniest subtle direction, circumventing the mantra, the thinking, the pauses of silence--all of "meditation practice". What was most significant was Its subtlety. I realized how delicate this inner "communion/communication" is. So delicate and subtle, we very rarely become aware of It. Yet, something on an unconscious, or subconscious level, receives it anyway.
There is teaching story (often attributed to Buddha) that in various versions compares the practice of meditation to tuning an string instrument--a sitar, lyre, or in the West, a guitar: "Not too loose, not too tight." When the strings of an instrument are too tight, they break; if they are too loose, they produce no sound. This speaks to a balance point in our own practice of meditation. If you try to force your thoughts-- your worries, your fears, your pain-- into your sense of peaceful submission, your strings are too tight. If you just let your thoughts wander, and your attention wanders with them, you really aren't meditating. It's too loose, we loose subtle awareness. We all go through either process at times, and it's useful to recognize that. One way to restore balance is to remember the simple truth expressed by the Sufi poet Rumi, "What you seek, seeks you." Your mantra, or other meditation practice, is still the churning mind, with the volume turned down. Light can break through in unexpected flashes of wonder and insight, while you sit, or in extraordinary experiences that come while you are out and about in the world. But those are rare events. Consider this week, meditation as your acceptance of this subtle, subtle, movement, a daily opening of an inner door. Meditation is subtlety turning you to receive what is always freely given. (Susan Nettleton)
Why May come if not to release us to warm joy harmony and awaken us from lingering winter slumbers into God's Way for us Now.
(Larry Morris, Poems Hanging in Space)
For more poetry: https://www.poemi st.com/denise-levertov/aware#google_vignette https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43333/the-waking-56d2220f25315 https://www.poetry-chaikhana.com/Poets/B/BerryWendell/RealWork/index.html