Catch the Ball When It Comes to You

photo: Streetplay.com

You have to catch the ball when it comes to you. Get one of those old fashioned Spaldeens and then throw it to your significant other. It’s meditation since all you can think about is that ball. The competitive distraction of games is absent because the only object is to pass the ball back and forth and the stillness requirement, which makes meditation a problem for some, is done away with as now you have to move freely to throw and snag an object as it moves through space. Who would have thought that such a simple and almost effortless activity could be such a perfect vehicle for attaining a meditative state? Why has no one thought about this before? Normally, to mediate you have to go into some dark Asian setting with scrims, like a dojo or zendo, in which there are Japanese or Chinese characters on the walls. This along with the sounds of gentle music and the smell of incense is nice, but even more inviting is the notion that the enjoyment of a meditative state can be achieved in an act of pure play. No pain no gain is the usual expression accorded activities like working out that are supposed to improve our well being. But mediation which is predicated on relaxation and concentration both might be enhanced if the will factor is removed. Just go out and have a catch and before you know it your mind will be as clean (and devoid of thought) as a whistle.
N.B.  Throwing a Spaldeen can save money on marriage counseling, for argumentative couples who have trouble with verbal communication.

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Bodhidharma practicing Zazen by TsukiokaYoshitoshi (1887)

A lot of people give up meditating because they don’t experience enlightenment. They are looking for a white light experience, transcendence or at the very least a knowledge which will enable them to better handle reality. Meditation might provide the last of these three alternatives in the way that sleep can often clear the mind when you're stumped on a problem. However, the end result of meditation may be no more than the meditative state. The meditative state becomes a fixture of the imagination, the way muscle memory works for athletes, and its postures, the straightened back, the lowered eyes, the left hand cupped in the right with the two thumbs touching (the mudra of Zen) become the entry into such a state. But what is disconcerting and profoundly difficult about meditation is not the holding of the posture, which may or may not be filled with back or butt ache in the beginning, or even the moratorium on ambulation. It’s what actually devolves from the sitting. In fact sitting is the exact reverse of hallucination or white light experiences. There's an old expression, you can speak to God, but if God speaks to you, you’re a paranoid schizophrenic. Meditation is not for a new generation of sixties love children, whose feet are planted firmly in the sky. It’s not for the faint of heart since it plants your feet firmly in the reality of the present—something which is definitely an acquired taste.