Since the publishing of my book, Choose Peace: A Practical Guide into Consciousness, I have noticed a funny trend in how people react to it. Although there may be a handful of people who are all about it and dive in, a majority prefer to just look at it from a distance, almost afraid to open it just in case some of the words filter into their brains through osmosis. It’s as if their monkey mind* is saying, “Are you sure you want this? Aren’t you nice and comfy in your life right now?”
Then they respond, “Yes, mostly… But, I know there’s something more that I could be doing to find peace, but I don’t know what. Maybe this book will help.”
Then the monkey mind luringly says, “Ahh, you don’t need more peace. You’re fine just the way you are. It would take so much effort to change and you’d have to move so many different things around in your life that would be so painful and cumbersome. Don’t you prefer the hell that you know versus the heaven that you don’t, I mean, the hell that you don’t?” Then they reply, deluding themselves, “yes, I guess you are right. I’m fine. All is fine. I live in a heaven,” since ‘heaven’ was the only word they filtered from their monkey mind’s power. I know this sounds crazy, and it is! We are all crazy, especially when we are ignorant of our craziness. And, I am not an exception to this rule.
Most people are choosing to be stressed! They choose drama, stress, pain, suffering, chaos, conflict… But why do we as humans repeat this kind of behavior? Because, I have learned, we are comfortable. We understand this comfort and have learned how to function in it by thinking we control it. Or at least we feel we can be in control while in this state because it’s so familiar even if it’s painful. If we were to choose to change and try something new, we wouldn’t know what lies ahead so this “monkey mind” would freak out. And, until we start to control this monkey mind, it controls us!
As I said before, I am not an exception to this rule. For many years I have battled with sitting in meditation on a regular basis. I have made excuse after excuse. “I don’t have enough space in my one-bedroom apartment.” “I need my own meditation corner.” “I don’t have time.” “I can’t just use a couch pillow; I need to buy a special pillow just for meditation so that I can accumulate positive energy on it.” The excuses get more and more creative. And let’s just say that my dog, Dino, has used my meditation cushion more times than I have so now it has his sleepy energy on it.
When I went back and reflected on the reason I didn’t want to meditate, it was because of the same reason above. I didn’t want to commit to whatever would be revealed to me in these deeper states of consciousness. I have always felt a bit scared of what I would find. Not because it would be ugly and dark, but because of a fear of receiving a certain calling while in meditation. This is, of course, another excuse, but it was deluding and powerful enough to be able to keep me off my sleepy cushion for a while.
Self-transformation is not easy and I have never made it seem that way, but for me, it is necessary. I feel this world is spinning out of control at times, especially with events like the tsunami in Japan where one feels a huge sense of loss and despair. And, although there is nothing I can do to prevent a tsunami from hurting other people, I can at least try to prevent the tsunami of thoughts in my mind from harming me.
I will say that now I am meditating every morning on my couch cushion in a meditation corner I created in my small apartment and I just make the time. I am not letting stress choose me, I’m choosing peace. What are you going to choose?
*Monkey Mind: Describes a mind that jumps from thought to thought like a monkey jumps from tree to tree. The monkey mind is not content with existing in the present moment, but rather engages in the thoughts that pass through.
