To anyone first coming to meditation they can be met with a plethora of advice and techniques that is enough to baffle and confuse. Where to go? What to do? Which is best? How to start? How to chose between mindfulness, TM, mantra recitation, kundalini, vipassana, insight, witness, breath awareness, shamata, visualization, MBSR, metta, and more?

Part of the difficulty is that the word meditation means both the experience and the technique. This is important because the experience is spontaneous, natural, arising from within, while the technique is simply the learnt method that helps you have the experience. And it makes little difference which technique you use. When you drive to Rome you need a car but once you get there you don’t. The techniques are designed to help you calm the mind, to bring your attention inward, focused in just this present moment, so that the experience of meditation arises naturally.

We clarify this difference in our book, Be The Change, How Meditation Can Transform You and The World, as it is so easy to get caught up in the technique – mine is better than yours – and forget that it is only a way to something, it is not the something itself. We talked with over 100 meditation teachers and practitioners who all stressed that the experience is far more important than the technique used because what you are really doing is opening yourself to an inner stillness that grows each time you come to sit quietly with yourself. In other words, just shut up, sit still, and see what happens!

The experience of meditation is one of being completely and utterly present. That may sound so simple but it is rare – notice how your normal state of mind is distracted by issues from the past or dealing with issues in the future – anywhere but just right here! When we are fully present all those demanding thoughts begin to drop away, are seen as being far less important, even the anger, resentment, hurt and other negative emotions lose their power. Being fully present we experience the totality of our being and the richness found in stillness and silence.

So, when looking for a meditation technique, it may be worth trying them all. Each one will offer a slightly different take on the same thing, and we each need to find that one that suits us best. As one of Deb’s teachers said, there are as many forms of meditation as there are people who practice it.

Just watching the flow of the breath as it enters and leaves very naturally internalizes our attention and is more than enough for many people (mindfulness, breath awareness, shamata –see below). Others have the same affinity to repeating a mantra or sound as the repetition induces greater peace (TM, mantra meditation). We can also purposefully foster positive states of being, such as cultivating greater peace, kindness, and forgiveness, through the repetition of simple phrases or visualization.

However, meditation can appear very boring, especially to beginners. Just sitting and watching our mind can seem so absurd, especially when we are invariably confronted with an endlessly chattering mind: the dramas, fears and neurosis seem to have a picnic, pushing anything meaningful out of the way. It’s not that this chatter is new, just that we are now more aware of it, like an endless parade of senseless scenarios. When we were teaching meditation in England Ed was explaining how the mind can create havoc, and how some of the most inane thoughts can arise like: “I want to kill my mother!” The woman he was talking with blurted out, “How did you know?”

Practice

All you have to do is sit comfortably and watch your breathing. Just breathe naturally, in and out, no forced, short or long breathing. Simply watch each movement of breath. If this is hard, then you can also silently repeat, “breathing in, breathing out” with each breath.

Thoughts will come and go. You will probably find yourself getting distracted. The mind is very good at finding reasons not to be still, like a monkey bitten by a scorpion leaping from branch to branch it leaps from or drama to drama. When it does, just come back to watching your breath. The monkey will eventually get quiet and be still.

Make friends with meditation by not pushing yourself. Start with sitting for just 10 minutes a day until you naturally find yourself wanting and doing longer. That way you won’t resent it. Sit upright – a bent or slouchy back will bring your energy down.

And as the saying goes, practice makes perfect. Which means that meditation is accumulative – you may not experience anything the first time you do it, but keep at it and you will. And though it may appear as if nothing is happening, in the midst of it all you may have a breakthrough, a moment of insight, and that one moment can change your life.

Ed was raised in the Jewish faith (as he says, on his parents side!), Deb was raised a Quaker. We both began spiritually seeking at the same time in the late 1960′s. Ed was in his twenties living in New York City, hanging out Studio 54 and other discos; meanwhile Deb was an art student living in London. And when Ed was in India being ordained as a Swami — a monk in the Yoga tradition — Deb was being ordained as a Buddhist. We both became teachers in our respective traditions, but by the time we met in the 1980s we had each left being part of a traditional order and were on our own, having decided to explore what it is to live a spiritual life in the midst of a materialistic world. We were like foreigners, finding our way in a world that was not so inclined or sympathetic towards spiritual life.

Essentially, religion is designed to be our spiritual source of comfort and advice, a structure to provide moral guidelines, a caring community, and help for those in need. And in many ways it is. But religion is also the cause of violence, wars, discrimination, bigotry, pain and suffering, all of which are a long way from kindness, compassion, comfort and spiritual reassurance.

Religious morality is also used to justify political reasoning and supremacy. In the U.S., the 1^st amendment draws a clear separation between church and state, between religion and politics. Yet every presidential candidate is judged by his or her religious beliefs, as seen in the attempt to prove that President Obama is a Muslim, more so because his name is Barack Hussein Obama, which generates fear.

Prospective Republican candidates use their Christian beliefs as a form of qualification and go to great lengths to show that a good Christian is a Republican, thereby implying that Democrats are not. We remember watching Bill Moyer (during George W. Bush’s era) interviewing a Kansas couple being evicted from their home due to spiraling mortgage costs. As the movers were carrying out their furniture around them, Moyer looked puzzled and asked why they had voted Republican. They replied: “Because we are Christians!”

We often hear somewhat extreme candidates constantly pushing their religious beliefs into the political arena with outrageous statements like: the hurricane and earthquake happened as God is punishing us, whether it’s because of gay marriage, abortion, or any number of reasons that support their ideology.

This is taking religion into realms that are not religious. When religion is used to validate killing because there is a difference of opinion, then it has gone beyond having a moral compass to imposing belief and power over another. We see this with the killing of abortion clinic staff, all in the name of saving a fetus, despite the pregnancy being caused by rape or incest, or threatening the mother’s life. Yet how many who are trying to stop abortion are also willing to adopt an unwanted baby?

At the same time, spirituality is a loaded word, often misunderstood, as its practices include meditation, contemplation, and direct communication with universal consciousness. The Pope has condemned meditation and yoga as immoral, deluding, and even sinful. Yet spirituality is simply the discovery of our authentic self without any trimmings or labels, which gives us a rich source of values and a deeper meaning to life, whatever our religion.

In the seeking of such meaning, religion and spirituality come together. Spirituality highlights qualities such as caring, kindness, compassion, tolerance, service, and community, and, in its truest sense, so does religion. But where religion is defined by its tradition and teachings, spirituality is defied by what is real in our own experience, arising from an inner search within ourselves, the finding of our own truth.

Where religion tends to breed separation: my religion verses your religion; my god is the only real god; my ethics are better than yours, etc., spirituality sees all people as equal: we are not an “ism” or a label, we are spiritual beings whose purpose is to awaken to our true nature.

Buddha wasn’t a Buddhist, Jesus wasn’t a Christian; the great ones did not create a religion, they just said to look within. They realized the truth that is always here, always present, but so easily forgotten. We are not able to see because of a mind that is veiled by ignorance, hate and greed: the ‘me-centeredness’ that rules and deludes.

When we were with the Dalai Lama at his residence in India we asked him what we could do to help humankind to awaken to caring and kindness. He said how people of different religions should come together in peace and respect and talk openly, honoring each other’s differences and similarities. This is a great example of religion and spirituality coming together.

Through many years of being involved with meditation we have seen how easily people miss the point, mainly because they take the practice and themselves too seriously. Many ‘try’ to meditate but their minds are so busy they get frustrated and quickly believe they are no good at it. Others turn into die-hard advocates of a particular method or technique and become like a salesperson trying to sell their produce.

Just like Yoga, people want to own meditation and to believe that their technique is the best one. They give it a name: TM or Vipassana or Mindfulness and sometimes make outrageous claims of what can be achieved, but that is not the point. Meditation is not a technique – being quiet happens by itself, not because of following the breath in and out, reciting a specific mantra or creating a visualization.

Teachers, through their compassion, created the many methods and techniques in order to help their students to concentrate and focus their minds, to be one-pointed. No one technique is better than another; they equally give our monkey minds something to do other than drive us bananas. Many of the practices known as meditation are actually concentration; they bring the mental energy together so the mind is less fragmented. But this is not meditation.

Meditation invites us to stop, just stop, breathe and be. Just as with a musician playing or an artist painting, when we stop trying to make it happen something occurs, like the radiant sun that suddenly emerges in a cloudy sky. But because we try so hard, we identify more with the technique instead of allowing the meditation to reveal itself.

The practice of meditation easily gets put in a box: “I will practice now, at this time, at this place and in this posture, and I will do this particular method.” But a method is simply an aide; it is not the experience itself. A hammer can help build a house but it is not the house. There is no doubt that through practice we can release stress and feel wonderfully peaceful, but genuine meditation is about waking up, where the mind is clear and free of obscuration.

This is not a mental process but an experiential one as meditation is an opening, a release of ego identity when all attempts to meditate, all striving, all doing stops, when there is no past or future, just radiant emptiness. It is being present – fully aware and present in every moment — and we can do that whatever we are doing and wherever we are. It is the freedom to be fully oneself without limitations or ideologies – there is just this.

Deb’s father, Richard, was on a Zen retreat where he was taught to temper his sensuality, not to give in to his senses or think of sensual things but to stay focused and single minded. While walking in the garden he then came across a pond laden with happily fornicating frogs. We think meditation has to be something special but true meditation is opening and expanding our perception, as if seeing with new eyes.

The technique becomes redundant when meditation becomes our natural state. It doesn’t matter what the technique is — when we drive to Rome the car is necessary but when we get there it is immaterial – what matters is the attitude and awareness that we bring to practice. The teacher is also more important than the technique. They must be skillful, peaceful and clear, regardless of the method or tradition they are teaching.

The moon trusts that the world will continue to go round on its axis, birds trust there will be berries and seeds to eat, trees trust the seasons will follow in the right order. Until we trust that things will unfold naturally then we are slaves to our doubts, fears and neurosis, to the constant chatter in our heads that says we are useless and don’t know anything. But we don’t make the sun to rise or set. The planet is in orbit and neither we nor Jesus or Buddha or any of the wise ones run the show. Our job is simply to surrender to the moment.

As actress Jane Fonda writes in our book, Be The Change: “There are practical reasons for dividing everything up. It makes things easier to manage and to solve, especially technical matters: the us and them, the either-or, the man versus nature, mine and yours. Life is simpler to deal with. But we have applied this fragmenting mindset to all of life so that it’s become our reality, which has led to further fragmentation and chaos and planetary destruction. The challenge is to figure out how to deal with our day-to-day life, while at the same time changing our mindset so that we see reality as the unbroken wholeness of the totality of existence, an undivided, flowing movement without borders.”

In the Buddhist teachings there is a description of a huge net reaching in all directions with a multifaceted mirror-like jewel at each of the many knots, every jewel reflecting all the other jewels. It is called the Jeweled Net of Indra and represents our interconnectedness: see one and you see all within it. Not one can be separated from or is independent of any other; take one away and the net becomes unusable. In other words, we are interrelated, interdependent, inseparable, and interconnected all at the same time, part of an integrated whole, not separate from the trees, elephants, owls, our neighbors, the people in South Africa or a river in India.

Zen teacher Bernie Glassman writes in Be The Change: “Imagine that each of my two hands has the notion that it is an individual object and not connected to anything else. Left hand calls itself Sally, and right hand calls itself Harry. Then Sally gets cut. Harry has read many things about the oneness of life, but he believes that Sally is separate and thinks, I can’t do anything about Sally being cut, I’m not a doctor, and I don’t have a first-aid kit. And anyway, I don’t want to get my new clothes stained. Harry walks away and Sally bleeds to death. But that means Harry also bleeds to death, as Harry and Sally happen to be very attached to each other. This is what happens when the experience of oneness is not there.

“Now imagine Sally and Harry both meditate and, while recognizing the separateness of Sally and Harry, they also recognize their oneness with Bernie. When Sally gets cut, Harry does the best thing possible to help her because he knows that to help her is also helping both him and Bernie. This is not a thinking process; it is the direct experience of the oneness of life. The appreciation of this is huge.”

On a relative level, of course, we have our own thoughts and feelings, but they cannot be separated from what we were taught by our parents or from experiences of pain and joy in our relationships—just as it is impossible to separate our body from the food we eat or the farmer who grew the food or the earth and the rain. There is actually no part of our being that is a separate or independent entity from everyone we have met and everything we have done or from every part of the world around us.

Author Tim Freke writes: “We think that we are separate from each other, and we are not. We think we are separate from the whole of life, and we are not. Tim is an integral part of the whole, and everyone and everything are also an integral part of the whole and, therefore, one with Tim. Separateness is the conceptual story we tell to make sense of life, the story of who we are, and when we get sucked into it we are not conscious of our deeper being. This is when we cause suffering to each other and our world. Waking up is the recognition that there is no other, that every person or situation is not separate from our essential nature.”

Where separation divides and causes conflict, awareness of our interconnectedness means we see all others as ourselves. The jewels in Indra’s net are independent jewels and each reflects a different aspect of the whole, while also reflecting each other. Each is so interrelated to all that they cannot exist without each other or without the entire net.

This can take us to the point where we most certainly don’t want to wish them well. But does harboring dislike, revenge, even hate, do us any favors? Does it really make us feel better in the long run or does it just get us more stressed?

It’s important that we acknowledge what we are feeling—all the anger, unfairness, and aversion—and really honor how hurt we are. Repressing our feelings means they’ll just come up again at some point, most likely when another situation triggers a similar response.

But negative emotions can sap our energy, especially when we hold on to them. And they spread like wildfire, soon affecting our behavior and attitudes towards other people, like a single match that can burn down an entire forest.

And they create an emotional bond with the abuser that keeps our feelings alive, so that we keep replaying the drama and conflict over in our heads, justifying our own behavior and disregarding theirs. In the process we become a not-very-nice person.

Anger, aggression and bitterness are like thieves in the night who steal our ability to love and care. Is it possible to turn that negativity around and chill out so we can wish our abuser well, without necessarily needing to know them as a friend again? This may sound challenging and absurd but it can make life’s difficulties far more tolerable. How can we do this?

1. Recognize no one harms another unless they are in pain themselves. Ever noticed how, when you’re in a good mood, it’s hard for you to harm or hurt anything? You may even take the time to get an insect out of the sink. But if you’re in a bad mood or are feeling very stressed, then how easy it is to wash it down the drain.

2. No one can hurt you unless you let them. Hard to believe, as no one actually wants to be hurt but it’s true. When someone hurts us, we are inadvertently letting them have an emotional hold over us. Instead, as spiritual teacher Byron Katie often says: If someone yells at you, let them yell, it makes them happy!

3. Respect yourself enough that you want to feel good. Deb did this with her father, an abusive and angry man. Deb made the decision that she wouldn’t respond to him with negativity, so she turned it around within herself and continued to wish him well. He died recently and Deb was able to feel total closure.

4. Consider how you may have contributed to the situation. It’s all too easy to point fingers and blame the perpetrator but no difficulty is entirely one-sided. So contemplate your piece in the dialogue or what you may have done to add fuel to the fire. Even when he feels he is 100% right, Ed always looks at a difficulty to see what was his part in it.

5. Extend kindness. That doesn’t mean you’re like a doormat that lets others trample all over you while you just lie there and take it. But it does mean letting go of negativity sooner than you might have done before, so that you can replace it with compassion. Like an oyster that may not like that irritating grain of sand in its shell but manages to transform the irritation into a beautiful and precious pearl.

6. Meditate. Meditation takes the heat out of things and helps you cool off, so you don’t over react. A daily practice we use is where we focus on a person we may be having difficulty with or is having a difficulty with us. We hold them in our hearts and say: “May you be well!  May you be happy!  May all things go well for you!”

Sarah Palin used the occasion to defend her own mistakes, such as targeting Congresswoman Gifford, in the process making herself appear to be both the injured party and the savior. She criticized those who ‘manufactured a blood libel’ against her without realizing what it meant, rather than accepting that she might be the one who had erred.

In contrast, at the memorial for the victims, President Obama urged us all to look at our own behavior: “At a time when our discourse has become so sharply polarized … it’s important for us to pause for a moment and make sure that we’re talking with each other in a way that heals, not in a way that wounds… We may ask ourselves if we’ve shown enough kindness and generosity and compassion to the people in our lives… what matters is not wealth, or status, or power, or fame — but rather, how well we have loved and what small part we have played in making the lives of other people better.”

The world is made up of endless difficulties and challenges. But blaming others or losing our cool does not resolve the conflict. Such self-centeredness is not kind or compassionate; rather it breeds greed, hatred and further delusion. When we are self-centered we think of ourselves first; when we are kind we think of both ourselves and others.

Wikipedia describes a revolution as a “fundamental change in power or organizational structures that takes place in a relatively short period of time.” Normally applied to politics, we believe this can also be applied to our own inner structures: how we think, talk and behave with each other.

A revolution also means a turning around, so a kindness revolution means turning ourselves away from hate, self-centeredness and derision, toward caring, kindness and compassion. And a revolution is a re-evolution, an opportunity to transcend differences so we can offer genuine respect to one another. Kindness is completely revolutionary: it will change each one of us, it will change others, and it will definitely change the world.

How different our world could be if we were all required to be compassionate and kind! So what is it that stops us? Kindness is free, it never goes bad, it has no sell-by date, we can never get enough of it, and we can never give enough of it. As the Dalai Lama says, kindness is his religion.

However, kindness is often overlooked or undervalued. Which is a pity as it takes only a very small amount of it to turn someone’s day from bad to wonderful. Discover kindness. Practice being kind to others for the whole day and see how good you feel. Then try doing it for a week, or even a lifetime!

“As a cancer patient, I can honestly say that cancer is definitely a drag. However, it has also brought many blessings. Instantly I had to start listening to my world, I discovered a sense of space and newness, and LOVE—so much love. Trungpa Rinpoche said that you just have to lean into whatever is happening. He called the experience of living with illness one taste; that whether you get well or not, all conditions have the same one taste.”

Liz also had what she called her three R’s: Release, Restore, Radiate.

Release

Release whatever is holding you back, whether fear, doubt, anger, frustration, irritation, all the dramas and memories that cause pain and suffering, anything that is getting in the way of having a clear mind and an open heart. Normally, we tend to deny, ignore or repress such unwanted feelings and bury them inside where they fester and damage us further. Liz saw the need to recognize and own these feelings so they could be named, known and released. This is fully acknowledging the depth of the pain, loss and fear, and letting it go, letting it heal, letting it be. “We can only release something when we know it—we cannot let go of something that is hidden away, lurking in the darkness. It has to first come into the light.”

Restore

Restore your inner self by filling up with confidence, trust, acceptance, and awareness. Illness can easily take us away from our true or Buddha nature or what is sacred; we lose touch with the spiritual and heart-felt, blaming the world for our pain or getting angry at loved ones. Liz instinctively knew that it was essential to stay connected, to strengthen her trust in the unknown, and in the stillness within, to listen to silence.

Radiate

Radiate by sending love out into the world so others may benefit. This is so important as illness makes us focus on our issues, leaving little space to accommodate anyone else’s difficulties. When we give to others it takes us beyond ourselves into a bigger, more altruistic space. Liz was the most giving person we have known. Even in the later stages of her illness she would arrive at our house with a bag of goodies—oddments she had seen that she knew we would love. And she did this for many others too. She radiated generosity. Kindness is free to give and it leaves the giver the richest of all.

Liz tried everything to stay alive, but when the time came to accept that she was dying she did it gracefully and peacefully.

We treasure her three R’s and hope that, in sharing them, they can help you too, so that the New Year is a glorious, joyful and radiant one for you!

How are you able to deal with the madness and chaos that occurs daily? How do you deal with the challenges of life? Meditation is highly misunderstood and often under-rated yet is perhaps what it takes to be a truly sane person. How does meditation affect us? How does it shift our priorities, enable us to make friends with ourselves, to find answers to our questions?

Here are eight ways meditation can make your life more meaningful and enjoyable!

1. Living With Kindness

No one deserves your kindness and compassion more than yourself. Every time you see or feel suffering, every time you make a mistake or say something stupid and are just about to put yourself down, every time you think of someone you are having a hard time with, every time you encounter the confusion and difficulty of being human, every time you see someone else struggling, upset, or irritated, you can stop and bring loving kindness and compassion. Breathing gently, silently repeat: May I be well, may I be happy, May I be filled with loving kindness.

2. Lightening the Load

In a stressed state, it is easy to lose touch with inner peace, compassion and kindness; in a relaxed state, your mind is clear and you can connect with a deeper sense of purpose and altruism. Meditation and medication are derived from the Latin word medicus, to care or to cure. A time of quiet calmness is, therefore, the most effective remedy for a busy and overworked mind. Anytime you feel stress rising, heart closing, mind going into overwhelm, just bring your focus to your breathing and quietly repeat with each in- and out-breath: Breathing in, I calm the body and mind; breathing out, I smile.

3. Letting Go of Me

Stillness is always there between the thoughts, behind the story, beneath the noise. What keeps us from experiencing our natural state of being is the habitual and ego-dominated monkey mind. Meditation enables us to see clearly, to witness our thoughts and behavior and reduce self-involvement. Without such a practice of self-reflection there is no way of putting a brake on the ego’s demands. From being self-centered, we can become other-centered, concerned about the welfare of all.

4. Dissolving Anger and Fear

We do not accept or release our negative feelings so easily, we are more likely to repress or disown them. But when denied they cause shame, depression, anger, and anxiety. Meditation invites you to openly meet these places, and to see how selfishness, aversion and ignorance create endless dramas and fears. Beneath these is a quiet stillness where you can get to know yourself; this is a wondrous and beautiful experience. Whether you practice for just ten minutes a day or longer does not matter. You are releasing your limitations, while opening to self-acceptance and awareness.

5. Awakening Forgiveness

Forgiveness is the greatest gift you can give yourself and others. As you sit in meditation and watch your thoughts and feelings moving through you, so you can observe that who you are now is not who you were just a moment ago, let alone a day, a week, or a month ago. Who you, or someone else, was when pain was caused is not who you are now. When you experience your essential interconnectedness you see how the ignorance of this creates separation and suffering, so that forgiveness for such ignorance arises spontaneously.

6. Generating Harmlessness

Simply through the intent to cause less pain you can bring greater dignity to your world, so that harm is replaced with harmlessness and disrespect with respect. Harm is usually caused unintentionally, whether by ignoring someone’s feelings, putting yourself down, reaffirming your hopelessness, disliking your appearance, or seeing yourself as incompetent or unworthy. How much resentment, guilt, or shame are you holding on to, thus perpetuating harmfulness? Meditation enables you transform this through recognizing your essential goodness and the preciousness of all life.

7. Appreciating Appreciation

Take a moment to appreciate the chair you are sitting on. Consider how the chair was made: the wood, cotton, wool, or other fibers, the trees and plants that were used, the earth that grew the trees, the sun and rain, the animals that maybe gave their lives, the people who prepared the materials, the factory where the chair was made, the designer and carpenter and seamstress, the shop that sold it—all this just so you could be sitting here, now. Then extend that deep appreciation to everything and everyone in your life.

8. Being Aware

Awareness is the key to awakening. Through awareness you can see your monkey mind and all it’s mischief. Almost everything we do is to achieve something: if we do this, then we will get that; if we do that, then this will happen. But in meditation you do it just to do it. There is no ulterior purpose other than to be here, in the present moment, without trying to get anywhere or achieve anything. You are just aware of whatever is happening, whether pleasant or unpleasant. No judgment, no right or wrong. Simply being aware. Enjoy!

Everyone knows fear. It can come in an instant and throw us into chaos, yet it can also save our life. Fear is a natural response to physical danger, but it can also be self-created, such as the fear of failure, of being out of control, of being different, or of being lonely. There is a fear of the future and of death. We fear loving because we fear being rejected, fear being generous because we fear that we will not have enough; we fear sharing our thoughts or feelings in case we appear wrong, and we cannot trust because we are dominated by self-doubt and insecurity.

This self-generated fear is found in its acronym: F.E.A.R., or False Evidence Appearing Real. It appears real even though it is a fear of the future and is not happening now. Therefore, it has no real substance, arising when the ego-self is threatened, which makes us cling to the known and familiar. Such fear creates untold worry, apprehension, nervous disorders, and even paranoia.

The immediate effect of fear is to shut us down, and, in particular, to shut off the heart. Just for a moment, let your body take the stance of feeling fearful. What is your posture? Most people hunch their shoulders forward, fold their arms across their chests, or assume a similarly contracted position to shield the heart, fear having triggered the need to be on the defensive. In this self-protective place, the heart goes out of reach and we cannot feel love or even friendliness. Try saying “I love you” with real meaning while your arms are firmly folded across your heart. Hard to do!

As long as we push away, deny, or ignore fear, it will hold us captive and keep us emotionally frozen and captive, unable to move forward. In that place, we become untrusting of love, of spontaneity; we get angry or hide. But where fear contacts and closes the heart, resisting love, love expands and opens the heart, embracing fear.

“There’s a world of love and there’s a world of fear, and it’s standing right in front of you,” said Bruce Springsteen in David Hepworth’s The “Q” Interview. “And very often that fear feels a lot realer and certainly more urgent than the feeling of love. The night my son was born, I got close to a feeling of real, pure, unconditional love with all the walls down. All of a sudden, what was happening was so immense that it just stomped all the fear away. But I also understood why you are so frightened. When that world of love comes rushing in, a world of fear comes in with it. To open yourself up to one thing, you’ve got to embrace the other as well.”

So now try taking the posture of love. Watch how your body responds, your arms reaching outward, accepting and inviting. Fear may still be there, but love can welcome fear—it can embrace any negativity. Watch how your breathing gets deeper, fuller. Where fear shuts out love, love holds fear tenderly. It is like the sky that contains everything, the stars, the moon, the wind. With your arms stretched wide, try saying, “I’m frightened” and really mean it. Hard to do

Remember times you have met fear and moved through it, so many times when fear arose but you kept going? Those are moments of fearlessness. Fear may close the heart, but courage comes out of heartfulness, out of releasing resistance. Fear will stop us from facing our shadow and participating fully in life, but fearlessness will give us the courage to dive into the unknown.

In other words, being fearless does not mean we deny fear, it is not a state of being without fear. Rather, it is fully experiencing the fear, naming it, getting to know it, and taking it by the hand so that it can become our friend and ally.

Being With Fear

Allowing fear in and making friends with it is no small feat; fear is a powerful emotion that demands understanding and patience. But trying to block it will simply create further anxiety.

Fear comes—we breathe and let go.

Fear comes—we see how the mind needs reassurance and tenderness.

Fear comes—we replace it with love.

When we do this, we are inviting the fearful and anxious parts of ourselves to get to know each other, even to sit down for a cup of tea together.

Meditation enables us to be with fear. As we do this, then we begin to see the benefits of fear, the unexpected insights and flashes of understanding that move us into courage and a deeper awareness. In this way, fear becomes our ally.

Meditation: The Way It Is

Sit comfortably with an upright spine, take a deep breath and let it go.

Focus your attention on your breathing, just watching the natural flow of your breath.

Staying aware and open, allow whatever feelings are present to arise.

Have no judgment, rejection or aversion. Accept whatever you are experiencing as simply a part of what is.

You do not need to change anything.

Just be with whatever the feeling may bring up in you.

Be kind and caring to yourself.

Keep breathing and accepting, breathing and being with what is.

The word stress is a derivation of the Latin word meaning to be drawn tight, which is pretty much how most of us feel. The words meditation and medication have the same prefix derived from the Latin word medicus, meaning to care or to cure, indicating that meditation is likely to be the most effective and efficient remedy for a busy and overworked mind. Which is why meditation is the greatest gift you could give your self.

In essence, meditation is simply about calming our chattering monkey-like mind and being aware and present in this very moment. This is easier than we may think, yet so many people say to us: My mind is too busy; I can’t sit still; I can’t possibly meditate; I just fall asleep. This is because our mind tends to be all over the place chasing different scenarios, so that our ability to be completely here and now is challenged. Although being aware of the present moment is simple, we have spent so many years covering it up with all sorts of distractions that now we have to practice being still in order to reconnect with it.

During meditation we gently let go of distractions so we can genuinely be present. Like a child watching an ant walking down the sidewalk carrying a crumb, that is all that exists in their world at that moment. They are not thinking about what they had for breakfast, or what they will do with their best friend at their next playdate. They are only watching the ant.

Meditation enables us to stop trying, to let go of the story, the dramas, our stressed mind, and to discover an inner easefulness. Some people describe this as a sense of coming home, as if they had been away or out of touch with themselves without having realized it; others experience it as a huge relief as there is a release of anxiety and self-centeredness and they enter into a more peaceful state of being. The inner joy and happiness is incomparable. Personally, we don’t know how we would function in this mad, mad world without it!

Here is a simple and effective practice that can be done anywhere and at anytime of day. Practice for 5 minutes, 10 minutes, or longer:

Sit comfortably with your back straight. Take a deep breath and let it go. Eyes are closed, breathe normally. Begin to silently count at the end of each out breath: Inhale… exhale… count one; inhale… exhale… two; inhale… exhale… three. Count to five, then start at one again. Just five breaths and back to one. Simply following each breath and silently counting. So simple!