When we start sitting or walking meditation, we're often fused with the contents of our discursive thoughts: plans, worries, to-do lists, regrets. The continuous agitation of obsessively juggling far too many balls can become claustrophobic.
Overly busy parents with small children often live this. Their perspective and behaviour, no matter how much they love their children, is heavily influenced by this harried busyness.
Overly busy parents with small children often live this. Their perspective and behaviour, no matter how much they love their children, is heavily influenced by this harried busyness.
As our meditation continues and deepens, the mental chatter gradually becomes peripheral, and the quality of our awareness changes, and we reside more and more in a central place of stillness, quiet, clarity, spaciousness, generosity.
Likewise, by the time we become grandparents, we're more likely to embody peace, stability, forbearance, kindness - "grandmotherly love." We see mainly the good in our grandchildren and do whatever we can to nurture their potential to bloom into wonderful adults.
Our world desperately needs lots of "grandmotherly love" and much less agitated busyness. Regularly practicing meditation helps us to make, and stabilize, this all-important shift in how we relate to each other and the world.
Jon Kabat-Zinn on Compassion
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