I have a degree in educational research, measurement and experimental design. That means I am interested in the improvement of education. I finished that degree nearly 50 years ago, way before I learned that what might be the biggest omission from the school curriculum for most American children is the technique and rationale of meditation. The evidence of the benefit psychologically, physically and in general for meditation is already overwhelming and gets more so every year.
As I explained to a friend the other day, there are two basic problems with meditation of the type useable and acceptable to everyone. One is that practicing it will increase anyone's familiarity with their own mind and feelings but practice can be a little disconcerting at first. The meditator just needs to sit still, focus on something to look at (any spot or corner or one's own breathing) and gently dismiss thoughts that come up. The trouble sometimes is that a novice may find that keeping the focus is more difficult than expected, often to the point that the novice decides his or her mind is especially unsuited to meditation and stops trying.
The other difficulty with meditation is just that it seems so simple that it is easy to doubt the activity has any real worth.
I began this blog in 2008 with the idea of spending some time writing and explaining what meditation is, how to do it without interfering with any religion or other conviction or creed, and why it pays. But it soon became clear that I was reaching a point where I wanted to write about and think about other things. I realized that every moment of my life is actually a miracle. It doesn't always feel like that or look like that but it is. I began to see that I could stay in touch with myself and write about experiences, feelings, events, insights. I might be able to make such writings interesting or amusing but even if I couldn't, I myself would enjoy the reflections and the activity of finding words that described and related parts of my life.
Somewhere along the line, I came across Sarah Bakewell, a London librarian and writer. She is a scholar in the writings of Michel de Montaigne. You only have to Google his last name and you immediately come on tons of information about this Frenchman who lived from 1533 to 1592. His writings, even when translated into English, are clearly different from the way we think and write today. But Bakewell, in her book on the man, "How to Live", makes clear that he was one of the first essayists in any language. His interests and his time in history was in some ways just like ours and, of course, in many other ways, very different. He didn't have electricity or aviation and we do. He didn't have antibiotics and we do. But he and his family and friends got sick, aged and died, just as we do. There are a very large number of editions of his essays on Amazon and most libraries have copies, too.
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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety
