Under the Banyan Tree 26

Why Meditation?

Have you ever seen a Zamboni machine? A Zamboni machine is the big vehicle they use to clean the ice on a skating rink. After hours of skating, the ice gets all cut up and rough- so many grooves in it left from the skate blades. The zamboni machine comes in and smooths them out and restores the ice to a pristine condition.

From the POV of meditation- the mind is very similar to the ice of a ice rink. The various experiences we have- along with the thoughts we think and the words we hear and images we see- leave imprints on our consciousness.

Most of us live our lives with zillions of imprints- grooves there in our "ice". Then something happens- we experience a miracle or go through some kind of healing experience or go into some kind of theraputic work and the ice gets smoothed a little bit. Then we go back and refill our ice with grooves again.

Big things- violence, heartbreak, tragedy- religious experiences leave deeper grooves- like huge gashes in our ice. Some of them never go away. These deeper grooves in part make us who we are. Running the Zamboni machine over the big gashes doesn't erase them- but it does smooth their edges and make the surrounding area smooth again.

Meditation is like a Zamboni machine for our mind. Really simple exercises, done semi regularly can do for us what the deep therapy or healing experiences do. The good thing is- we can control it. We can do it whenever we want.

So now you go for it....find a spot, sit down and let the breath Zamboni ride! For more information about meditation training in New York visit our website.