All over the world people are doing it. Students in school assemblies are doing it; mothers in ante-natal classes are doing it; financiers on Wall Street are doing it; even Ruby Wax is doing it. Suddenly it seems as though the whole world is practising meditation. The press is full of articles about the practical benefits of ‘mindfulness’. One organisation, Abacus Wealth Partners, even offers clients an exercise called ‘the money breath’ to enable them to remain calm when they see their investments drop!
At a basic level meditation exercises are known to slow down the heartbeat and deliver a wide range of health benefits. But there needs to be a health warning too. Meditation is not a panacea for all ills. There are many who have meditated for years but who are still deeply enmeshed in their neuroses, still capable of flying off the handle and behaving irrationally or in a way which is ill-considered and damaging. While the practice of meditation has great benefits, we have to work constantly at integrating our own contradictions, clearing out the weeds, and opening shutters into dark places to let in the light. Jung called this the path of individuation: becoming a whole person. It is a process that makes considerable demands and it is life-long. As Emily Dickinson expresses it in a poem, it is like building a house, brick by brick, piece by piece, until one day the scaffolding is removed and the house stands tall:
Just such a retrospect
Hath the perfected life,
A past of plank and nail,
And slowness – then the scaffolds drop
Affirming it a soul.
