Dear friends,
Welcome to this meditation which is one of the meditations in the Real Lives series.
Today I invite you to drop the burden and begin to live more lightly and more happily.
We begin as usual by making yourselves comfortable,
Whether on a chair or a cushion or just lying down.
Try to arrange that you'll be undisturbed in these short sessions but if you are interrupted just begin again it's not the end of the world.
When you're ready close your eyes,
Take a deep breath and just relax.
All is well and all will be well.
Here you are and I hope you enjoy our time together.
Let's take a few seconds before we begin.
Today we're going to look at the burdens we carry and we are going to give ourselves permission to lay them down.
This meditation is inspired by a simple everyday sight I happened to witness as I was looking out the window of a Dublin bus on the way into one of our monthly mindfulness sessions.
I was absentmindedly looking out the window and I just happened to notice the number of people with backpacks.
As a young person admittedly many years ago I don't seem to recall anyone other than school children walking along with bags on their backs.
But looking out that bus window it seemed that every second person if not the majority had a pack on their back.
And by the way I'm not objecting to the use of backpacks.
They're so handy and I almost always carry one myself.
But it's wonderful how an everyday sight can give rise to a moment of reflection because as I looked at the people on the street I began to reflect on the bags and the burdens which we all carry.
I carry some and I imagine you carry some as well.
Let's pause now for one minute,
60 seconds to reflect on any baggage that might be weighing us down right now.
Welcome back.
So what baggage is weighing us down?
Well bags in the first place are used to hold possessions.
This reminds us to examine our relationship with a runaway consumerism that is item by item undermining our very planet as a habitable world.
If we find ourselves with more than we need or use can we unburden ourselves by sharing with those in greater need?
Can we avoid adding to the burden by unnecessary consumerism?
Then we have the baggage of the past.
We carry guilt about things done or left undone.
The harsh word said,
The encouraging word left unsaid,
The failure sometimes due to fear or ridicule to stand up for what we know is right.
Let's pause to have a think about these things.
Welcome back and of course we carry baggage and cases.
Some mark resentment,
Others labeled grudge and some labeled revenge.
All right we have to have a reasonable degree of respect for ourselves but is every affront to our ego a justification for our tendency to want to get our own back?
Many events that we consider hostile are simply the result of something amiss with the offending person and nothing to justify that loss of our own inner calm and our own peace of mind.
We have baggage labeled to do,
Lists of things to be done,
Books to be read,
Films to be seen.
I have a tendency to accept recommendations on all these things from people whose ideas I value.
The result was an impossible list of must-see films,
Must-read books.
I asked myself am I really going to be around long enough to get through all these?
So I recently dropped this baggage and I decided to delete all these recommendations,
All these accumulated impossible to manage lists.
I found a great sense of freedom at once.
Now I am ready to receive one or two ideas if there's a prospect of working on them in the short or medium term.
Let's pause for another moment of reflection,
60 seconds to see what we can do with the baggage labeled to do and we might decide to drop the baggage and the cases marked resentment,
Grudge and revenge.
Welcome back.
All of us have our own baggage but for today the last one I'll mention is the backpack entitled Thomo,
The fear of missing out.
Due to fear of missing out we fill our days and our nights with activities that allow little time for rest and reflection.
A remedy for this is to take up the idea of Jomo,
The joy of missing out.
For a change let the world turn without you,
Let the entertainment be enjoyed by someone else and for a change just enjoy the wonder of doing nothing and then taking a little rest.
The simple message of this meditation,
If we find the weight of our baggage is too great simply leave some of it down and learn to bounce along less encumbered.
Just notice the difference,
The guaranteed difference.
Give it a try.
Namaste.
