Stillness 6-20: Robert Louis Stevenson’s poem called “Where Go the Boats?” is one of my favorites. The river, as he describes it in the poem, flows along forever. The boats are made of leaves and twigs, and they go a-boating down the stream, always seeking home and yet always traveling on. I use this poem to enter into meditation, because I like to regard my thoughts as little leaf-boats gently passing through my mind and going on down the river. For me, this is one of the most restful ways of calming roiling, angry, or questioning mind-chatter that sometimes inundates me.
Do you sometimes feel as though you want to throw your slippers at your thoughts or to lock them up into a closet until they calm down? Our thoughts can feel like a computer screen displaying an awful spinning disc that won’t stop going around and around. Or they can feel like the loud static of from a television station that won’t tune in properly to our show. Meditation allows for a clear signal to come through to our knowing self. Meditation ensures that we don’t wake up feeling fraught, or overwhelmed with concerns and anxieties. Instead, we’re able to deftly fashion the anxious thought into a soft, green leaf, then place it in a cool, gently-flowing stream, and watch it float away.
I can’t stress enough the importance of meditation for calming your mind, for soothing your mental chatter. Regular meditation is the equivalent of a good yoga stretch or a focused physical work-out. Just as our bodies require physical exercise, our minds require the regular practice of focus and awareness. A short period of effortless concentration, activating pure awareness in your mental body and calming the chatter, ensures that everything else in your physical and emotional life is balanced and harmonious. Otherwise, our mind aches. We overtax it constantly. We give it way too much importance and responsibility. It needs to rest, to breathe, to calm down, to remain supple and strong. Most importantly, you need to be in charge of it, not the other way around.
The acclaimed cell geneticist-turned-Buddhist monk Matthieu Ricard has been willing to be part of many neurological studies showing how meditation literally affects our brain and our well-being, including our feelings of happiness. By now, after years of practicing meditation, he has altered his brain so much that even a loud sound—the equivalent of a gunshot going off right beside his head—does not affect his brainwaves. Seriously. Think about that. Think how empowering that is!
Meditation is as essential to our well-being and contentment as taking a walk or stretching our limbs so they don’t ache. So many studies have proven the efficacy of meditation that it amazes me everyone doesn’t incorporate it into their daily lives. If you don’t meditate yet, begin now. If you already meditate, deepen your practice. Not only will you feel calmer, but you’ll be happier as well.