Meditation as Counsellor.

To continue the story of my journey I'll talk a bit about the 2 and a bit years of counselling I attended before finding the Dharma.

Having studied a little bit of psychology myself and relationship counselling, I was actually able to follow the structure of the sessions  I was attending.  They were very, how do you feel?, what created that do you think? etc. After going to see one particular counsellor for about 12 months and not really seeing or feeling any difference, I did what most people would do and blamed him. He was obviously not a very good counsellor, I needed to find a new one - and that is what I did.

The second counsellor was a little different and talked about lots of different things. But what he did do for me is made me realise that the only person who could help me, was me!  So what I did was join the local Buddhist group.

I had always had an interest in Buddhism, ever since doing some comparative studies of religion at uni. I continued to see my 'professional' counsellor while attending the free Sunday Dharma group at this local Gumpa. Here I learnt some basic meditation and started to understand the Dharma as Buddha had explained it. Wanting to know more, I soon enrolled in an 8 week meditation course run by this same group. This provided me the solid foundation I needed to start me off on the daily practice, and ever since I have been attending the Sunday sessions for a little 'top-up' and some insightful teachings from some of the most wonderful people I have ever met. I have tried very hard to maintain my daily meditation sessions - if only for 10 minutes.

For a long while nothing was happening, I knew I needed to have a little bit of faith at first as it does take a little while for the meditation to start to work (bit by bit), changing the structure of the brain and the emotional highways throughout your body, but more importantly, how you see yourself and others. Once this starts to happen then you will no longer need faith as you will be able to see for yourself, first hand, that the meditation is working.

So for weeks I just sat there, holding into this faith as so many who have gone before me have done. Going through the motions, bringing my mind back to my breathing, again, and again, and again. Noticing my Monkey mind running, and then bringing it back over and over. But, between each Monkey jump or Elephant rant, I saw a little glimpse of calm.

Then one day, during a light breathing meditation where you breath in a bright white light full of love and joy and hope, my entire body started to glow a bright red. I was not visualising it glowing - it was glowing. I felt lighter than air, I felt like I was floating off the cushion. This only lasted a few short breaths and has never happened again, but at the end of that session, I felt so much love in me for all living beings that I sat there and cried.

This has never happened to me since and I dare say it may never happen again, but it gave me a small sample of what I might be able to achieve one day. I now don't need faith - I have seen a tiny sliver of the power of meditation.

Soon after this I stopped going to the counsellor and increased my meditation sessions to a full hour every day. I have had some more insights into my unconscious character, you know, the person we are when we don't really look at ourselves and just go through life by feel. These insights have provided me with a better understanding of who I am, how I feel about myself, how I feel about others, how I react to others, and many other understandings.

From this new knowledge of myself, I am now able to move forward with mindfulness and awareness. I can start to cultivate the awareness of everything I do without being overshadowed by my automatic daily habits and tendencies controlling me. I can start to behave the way I know is right and talk the way I know is right (even in the most troubling times) with a deliberate calm and peaceful manner.

While I am still so very far from achieving this - I know it is possible and I will get there with the help of the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha.  I know I am truly blessed to have had this opportunity to find the Dharma.

Self Aware

I am becoming a great deal more self aware and starting to see things in myself which I did not notice before. I am also starting to see things that I do not want to have in my behaviour or speech or thoughts.  The more I focus on the application of the Dharma, the more I see how I need to apply it. I think this is good.

One area I have really made some very big improvements of late is how I view others. I use to put some people on a pedestal (not for any good reason which they have shown me, but rather just because they hold a position or look like someone I should look up to) and found it very hard to talk to them, but recently I have become aware that everyone is just a human being, like me. Doing the best they can in this life (without a manual), just like me. While I see some are doing it better than others, I am the same as all other people and they are the same as me.

I have many problems (also many good points) and it is hard to see that others also have problems, especially when they are so very good at covering them up. This is something which I have come to realise, it is not that there are many people all around me who are without issues/problems/troubles, and therefore I stand out as the only one with issues, the different one; it is because many people hide them well and just make me appear to be different. But I only appear different to me as I can see inside myself and know my issues. All others look at me and are probably thinking the same as me, 'wow, he seems together' because they can see inside themselves and see their own issues, but can not see mine.

The job I am doing at the moment is the central hub or coordinator for a lot of information coming from a lot of different people. It is in this position that I am finding that even people in very high positions, still struggle from time to time.  I don't smile at their struggles, but it makes me feel like I'm just one of the team to know that these people are just like me, and that I am just like them.

My biggest issue is that: I have never mastered how to hide my problem and openly ask questions that others would not.

Anyway, how has this helped.  Well, I am finding it a little easier to approach people, to talk to people, to not take what they say as the total truth (it is just their personal truth). Therefore I am finding that I don't need it do all the changing, I am not the odd one out who doesn't fit, and to accept others who might be a little unskilled.