Emptying My Mind…

When I meditate I am instructed to empty my mind.

As soon as I do all kinds of things pop up to distract me from mindful prayer.

A nun once suggested I meditate with a pad of paper and a pencil next to me,

“When you begin your session, jot down all the important things that spring to mind and draw your attention away from spending time with God and move on…” she said, “afterwards you can look at your list and address those tasks.”

Good idea.  Funnily enough each ‘must-do-now-or-else’ item on my list turned out to be nothing urgent.

Put the rubbish out tonight…what can I cook with the fish?…pick up my shoes from the cobbler…tea would make a nice change in the morning…I really like the smell of that new detergent I’m using…explore the concept of surrender in class today…I must take a flower picture for my blog…

See what I mean?

When I meditate, my mind grows cluttered.

When I’m not meditating, which is most of the time, my mind empties out.

I draw a blank when I am asked how my week’s been going?

I draw a blank on names.

I draw a blank on dates and days of the week.

Don’t we all?

Sometimes this lack of memory, or the emptying of my mind as I prefer to call it, has its advantages.

We have a wooden tub in the loo where magazines collect.

Mind

Some of them have been there since we moved in four months ago…

I keep meaning to sort through them and throw the older ones away, only when I flip the pages I become engrossed all over again,

By the book reviews…

By the recipes I must have tried already…

With the clever ideas for decorating that are already around the house…

In another of Oprah’s interviews…

Our large collection of bathroom reading continues to grow…

Mind3

It’s a never ending cycle,

That continues each time I pick up a magazine, leaf through it,

And find it’s completely new again!

In the long run this clearing of the mind could save us a lot of money!

Share this:

No comments so far!

Leave a Comment