meditation – James Roose-Evans

Reflections on ageing

I have already mentioned my friend Anne Powell whom I visited daily when she was dying. It was during her 95^th year that I used to drive to Great Oak at Earlsfield in Herefordshire to visit her in the cottage where she lived, alone and housebound. On one occasion she said to me, ‘I wish I could do something. I feel so helpless.’ I replied, ‘Anne, you don’t have to do anything. You are! It is a privilege just to be here with you.’

If we have lived a full life then old age is about learning to let go, to shed. We need to simplify our lives at this stage so that, in the words of Teilhard de Chardin, ‘in the process of emptying we allow God to fill our lives’. The practice of meditation is an excellent preparation for this phase of one’s life. I write this as one now in his mid-nineties.

Untying knots

Frequently we experience situations, most often in relationships, when we are faced with a problem that seems tangled and insoluble, a situation when any attempt to talk through the problem only seems to complicate matters further. What to do? As so often Shakespeare expresses it succinctly:

‘O Time, ‘tis thou must untangle this, it is too hard a knot for me.’

We learn to wait. We learn it through our practice of meditation.

Walking

One of my favourite Chinese sayings is, ‘A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.’ In other words, one makes a path by walking! So it is with the practice of meditation. We begin simply by sitting still, being totally aware and listening inwardly. Day after day. As Jesus said, ‘No one having put their hand to the plough and looking back is worthy of the kingdom of heaven,’ and we need to remember that when Jesus speaks of heaven he is not speaking of somewhere hereafter but that the ‘kingdom of heaven is within you’.

Repetition

While it is important to set time aside each day to meditate it is even more important to practice saying our mantra, be it a single word or a phrase, at intervals throughout the day, whether we are cleaning our teeth, sitting on the toilet, preparing a meal or waiting in a queue. The repetition acts like a monastery bell summoning us to the Silence within. The mantra also works in another way when we are in an emotional upheaval, or experiencing a setback or challenge; it acts like yeast on the whole of our being, both psychologically and spiritually.

At sea

From time to time we are blown hither and thither by inexplicable rages, fantasies, loves, lusts, animosities – so that we seem like a ship without bearings, adrift on a stormy sea. Much depends on our early upbringing and it may be that some form of analysis or therapy is necessary if we are to be able to understand and control our emotions. And, without fail, the simple practice of silent meditation will provide a way forward.

The Kabbalah

The practice of meditation goes back many centuries and is found not only in Buddhism. It is interesting that the Kabbalah, the ancient mystical tradition of Judaism, recognising the conflict between the opposites in each of us, recommends the practice of meditation as a way of integrating them.

At the threshold

Meditation is like being seated at a threshold, waiting, doing nothing other than listening to the Silence, sensing that what is beyond is also all around us and deep within us – bringing, as Wordsworth wrote, ‘intimations of immortality’.

Crossing

Whenever I sit to meditate I make the sign of the cross, not in the name of the Trinity, but as a symbol of the integration of the opposites within myself. At the end of the meditation I make the sign of the cross: on my forehead that my thoughts may be true; on my lips that my words may be true; on my heart that the flame within may burn steadily; and finally on the area of my sexuality. This last is important and is so often left out of the spiritual journey, yet it is a very powerful energy and needs harnessing. Even when, with advanced years, there is no sexual activity or desire, nonetheless it remains psychologically an essential part of one’s being.

From beyond

From the dimension of reality that is beyond all verifiable dimensions, from beyond time and space, we receive intimations of meaning that sustain us. It has nothing to do with the imagination or with fantasy; rather, it is another kind of knowing, a received knowledge, intuitive rather than intellectual. Our age so venerates the intellect that it is chary of that which cannot be neatly analysed and catalogued by the intellect.

Each one of us is capable of tuning in to this other dimension of reality through prayer or meditation, through the heightened awareness that comes from an inner listening. For there is within us all the wisdom we can ever need.

Notes from the foothills

There are a few who in the practice of meditation climb so high that they can see from the top of the mountain. They are the mystics, to be found in all religions. The rest of us trudge along the foothills, knowing we may never glimpse the summit. And the journey is rarely easy. All who have walked the route to Compostela know how rough the terrain can be, and how on arrival at a hostel one sometimes finds the toilet rolls have run out or one is kept awake by the loud snores of fellow travellers! A pilgrimage makes demands. But we plod on!