Many years ago I used to have a job in Central London. It was with an internet start-up at
the height of the dot.com boom just before the crash. I worked long exhausting hours as an
accountant. I’d spend all my days shovelling truck loads of cash into the raging furnace of
the runaway train we’d created, and it was extremely stressful, never knowing where the
next tranche of funding was coming from and how we’d make payroll at the end of the
month. I didn’t last long, but while I was there I self-medicated with food and booze and by
the time I finished I was a morbidly obese wreck. At one point I tried to break the cycle of
self-destruction by buying a small handbook to read on the commuter train. It was called
“The Little Book of Meditation”. The first page simply told me to really focus on my toes
and how they were feeling. On the page facing was a glossy photograph of a man focusing
on his toes. On page three it told me to move my focus from my toes to the whole of my
feet, to really concentrate on my feet. There was a glossy photograph of a woman
concentrating on her feet. This was on the packed 07.23 from Princes Risborough on a
freezing cold February morning with a stinking Monday hangover. I never made it to page
five.
The next job I had involved a lot of transatlantic flights. God those flights were boring, and
I don’t like watching in-flight movies, so I spent a lot of time just trawling through the
entertainment menu searching for something that might help me pass the time. Eventually I
found the “Well Being” section and that’s where I first discovered “Headspace”. I now
know that Headspace is a well-known and respected meditation app but to me at that time
it was a revelation. The clips were only five or six minutes long but that soft soothing tone,
the reassuring English accent. It felt good, perhaps worth investigating.
A few weeks later I was browsing through the local freebie newsletter when I saw an ad
for a meditation group that was looking for new members. Why the hell not? The
Wednesday evening of the following week found me in a stranger’s living room with five
or six late middle-aged ladies and one younger one. As soon as I’d sat down the younger
one broke down in floods of tears. Much fussing and comforting ensued. When things
settled down the hostess addressed me directly. She told me that they normally did a thirty
minute meditation but that as it was my first time they’d happily reduce it to fifteen or
twenty minutes if I thought thirty minutes was going to be too much. I had no idea whether
it would be too much for me or not but I didn’t want to spoil their fun or to look like a
cissy. I told her I’d go for it and closed my eyes.
And it was fine. There’s something about sitting in silence with a group of people, even
strangers, something to do with feeling part of a cohesive whole but not having to explain
how or why. It very much reminded me of a Quaker meeting I once attended. I really
concentrated on listening, the faint evening birdsong, the occasional distant passing car.
Now and then there’d be a groan from the old cottage woodwork. I tried to clear my mind.
A grid composed of green and black blocks appeared. I focused on this for several minutes
and as I did I could feel the muscles around my eyes relaxing. In time the grid was
replaced by a bright yellow globe against a pitch black background with a much smaller
globe circling it, like a single moon orbiting a single planet in a completely empty
universe, except that the axis of the moon’s orbit was continually changing. I remember
wondering when the thirty minutes would be over but at no time was I praying for it to
end. They were nice people and I enjoyed those sessions. I went along for several months.
I only stopped when one of older ones complained about me plugging my new novel
which did, I admit, contain some very adult scenes. I was just too embarrassed to go again.
So I carried on by myself, firstly with short guided meditations on YouTube. Just search
“Guided Meditations” and you’ll find hundreds of them. And they were fine, but it didn’t
take long before I had the confidence to drop the “guided” bit and go it alone. Nowadays I
just draw the curtains, turn off the TV and laptop, put my phone on silent and settle back in
a comfortable armchair. Directly in front of me is a dining chair on which is a lighted
candle and an old photograph of my long dead father. I don’t have a strict routine but I’ll
often start by concentrating on the ticking of the mantelpiece clock, then maybe I’ll
contemplate my position both in the room and relative to the various objects in the room
around me, and then my position in the building, in the street, the town, the county, the
country, the world….you get the picture. I think of favourite peaceful places, I recite a
couple of my favourite mantras. Before long I’m in a meditative trance. Sometimes I’ll go
through a gratitude list, or I might have a few words with my personal higher power, or
maybe I’ll open my eyes and gaze at the flame of the candle. I might do all of these things
or none, but what I do know is that in due course my alarm jolts me back to reality and I
don’t know where the past twenty minutes has gone.
So what does it do for me? What do I get out of meditation? Aye, there’s the rub I suppose.
Well to be honest if you were to push me for specifics I’d find it difficult to tell you. It’s a
bit like Swedish massage, I know it’s good for me, I’m just not quite sure why. I certainly
feel better for having done it. I’ve become a calmer and less reactive person since I started
meditating but I know that correlation is not causation. I just enjoy it. And I’m going to
keep doing it. That’s enough isn’t it?
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