Meditation

Took this photo at 8am this morning on my way back from the city. Overlooking False Bay from Silvermine. Enroute, I caught the tail end of the News - Ariel Sharon's tragic stroke. No direspect to the guy, but these reporters kept harping on about the "Middle East Peace Process". Fck me if I haven't heard that term bandied around for the past 20 years! What is this - a 100 year process or sumting? Hey guys, why don't you come on down south to sunny South Africa to see how peace and reconciliation are acheived.

And whilst on the subject of peace - I did my first meditation today. I'm talking real meditation - phones off, total silence, cross legged, deep breathing and focus. OK so it was only 12 minutes but I'll need to build up again to the full daily 20 minutes I used to put in. 20 minutes sounds like squat, but it's a LOOOONG time to keep your thoughts from straying.

Ah...meditation. To be at peace with All (including oneself). Actually that's a bit of a lame description. The best description for meditation which I have heard to date is: "Being aware of what you are doing, while you are doing it". Sounds like a piece of green herb cake, but once you've started practising a little and it spills out into your everday life, you'll be amazed at how much time us humankinds spend on automatic pilot. Bodies in one place, Mind in another. Eating the food, but not bothering about tasting it.

The real culprit is thinking of thoughts without been aware that you're thinking of thoughts. So the meditation process forces you to be aware - to observe the observer. And that's why the grand meditation masters attain an inkling of Nirvana. Because if you succeed in observing the observer, you are acting as both subject and object at the paradoxical same time. The wretched duality that is the human lot is finally transcended, and polarities melted into a borderless unity where infinity and nothingness are One.

Melting polarities. A noble BiPolar goal don't you think?

(more on meditation in the next cupple days)