#74 Attitude

     “The attitude with which you undertake the practice of paying attention and being in the present is crucial. … if your energy and commitment to practice are low, it will be hard to develop calmness and relaxation with any consistency. … if you are trying to force yourself to feel relaxed and demand of yourself that ‘something happen,’ nothing will grow at all and you will quickly conclude that ‘meditation doesn’t work.’  
     To cultivate meditative awareness requires an entirely new way of looking at the process of learning. Since thinking that we know what we need and where we want to get are so ingrained in our minds, we can easily get caught up in trying to control things to make them turn out ‘our way,’ the way we want them to. But this attitude is antithetical to the work of awareness and healing. Awareness requires only that we pay attention and see things as they are. It doesn’t require that we change anything. And healing requires receptivity and acceptance, a turning to connectedness and wholeness. None of this can be forced, just as you cannot force yourself to go to sleep. You have to create the right conditions for falling asleep and then you have to let go. The same is true for relaxation. It cannot be achieved through force of will. That kind of effort will only produce tension and frustration.”

     Kabat-Zinn J. “Full catastrophe living. Using the wisdom of your body and mind to face stress, pain and illness”. Dell Publishing, NY, 1990.

Artist: Tom Forrestall   http://www.forrestallfineart.com/index.php