“Traditions may bind us. Cultures divide us. Languages and words alienate us. But in silence, we are united. Free from blame and bias, we discover a place of mutual empathy and respect. It doesn’t matter who we are, what we do, where we’re from, what we think, the opinions we have. In meditation, we’re putting all of that down. We are simply being present in the moment. And as we do that as a collective, we are sharing in this human condition. There is nothing that separates us. And that’s a very powerful idea.
Ultimately, it’s a way of feeling not only greater peace of mind internally, but greater peace externally. We start to see a shift in the way we relate to one another. Recognising the differences, perhaps even celebrating the differences. But always coming back to this idea of this shared human condition”. This passage is gratefully taken from Headspace.
Meditation, and mindfulness by extension, is often construed in popular culture as a way to escape from regular life, especially in times of worry and stress. While this may be true enough in certain contexts, it marks an underlying assumption that the experience of meditation is somehow separate from reality, and that it does not represent how things really are. But if we really take the time to look, we realise that this is far from the truth. Instead, the thoughts, judgments and biases we carry in everyday life are the things which cloud our perceptions and prevent us from fully experiencing the present. By learning to let them go, we look past artificial boundaries and distinctions that, at their core, serve to divide and separate rather than connect. And when we gradually bring the practice of meditation into our daily lives, we gain a greater sense of perspective. A sense of our mutual connectedness, and the role that we each play as part of a larger whole.
Emman's journal 