A way of life

Any of us can get discouraged because of our distractions. Sometimes, years after people have been meditating, they feel they’ve made no progress, because when they sit down to meditate they just feel their minds, heads, are full of the same nonsense, the same problems, the same obsessive thinking and imagining that’s been going on for years. That may also call us to reflect upon our lifestyle, upon whether there are activities or practices in our life which we could perhaps change or give up, which are the cause perhaps some of the distractedness. Meditation is constantly showing us how much it is a way of life, not just a way of prayer. And if we are consistently finding ourselves distracted, we may also be being asked to look at some aspects of our lifestyle, some of the ways in which we spend our time, some of the ways in which we encourage this distractedness.

( Aspects of Love 1, by Laurence Freeman )