Liturgies

                                                   Meditation-The Nature of Transcendence

 

So why are we here, this is the ‘why is there something rather than nothing’ question, why are we here playing a role within our universe, the solar system, on our planet, and here in our community. BIG QUESTON?- Here is a BIG ANSWER, to come closer to the mystery of God; To enhance our union with God; To uncover our ‘made in the image of GOD. In the parable ‘The Prodigal Son, one of the best known parables, the young man comes to his senses and returns to the loving caring relationship of his father; this is symbolic for us returning to our God and being in union with the mystery. How do we do this? By coming into the present moment.  By being here with all that is here.

 

It appears we have three natures in the very different left and right hemispheres of our brains that assist us to arrive at the present moment. There is our alarm nature, our calm nature and our spiritual nature.

 

a)     Our alarm nature which encompasses a wide range of stress responses, from occasionally mild to chronically intense as demonstrated by those working in the professions of the military the police and emergency services (all chain of command models?), is facilitated by the stress neuronal circuits in our left and right hemispheres.

 

b)     Our calm nature is driven by our relaxation response and significantly by the nurturing experiences of  mother and family. Most people that we know will range across mild to moderate stress through to relaxed and comfortable, because they have an internal comfort base thanks to the nurturance. All this is modulated by the calm neuronal circuits in our left and right hemispheres.

 

c)     Our spiritual nature which each of us have! Our consciousness, our knowing that I know I am here. This nature is well dominated by our culture, our personal history our religion and our conditioning. Spiritual Teachers tell us that this nature is our true self, powerfully driven by the alternate perception neuronal circuits primarily in our right hemisphere with some help from our left hemisphere.

 

In my previous homily some months back I posed the question; Why take up meditation at all, because you can get by without it? Also that meditation does seem to be natural to human beings. In this homily I am going to explain how meditation is natural to human beings, and how the present moment is our vehicle for our union with the mystery.

 

All meditation traditions and all styles within those traditions, have the same aim, that is to bring the meditator into the present moment. So what is so valuable and important about the present moment? (Here is a hint; meditation requires paying attention, paying attention through your eyes ears nose mouth movement or internal feelings/sensations generates a shift in neural functioning to the right frontal lobes!). As Ad Ashanti an American spiritual teacher notes, ‘all you have to do is pay attention and there is a shift’ But back to the question ‘ what is so important about the present moment’? Well it is the only moment in which we can reside, we can’t be anywhere else. In our mind we seem to go into the past or future while everything around us is present- all of our environment is in the present, so who is out of step here? Secondly, to sustain ourselves in the present moment is happiness(Western Science), and the Eastern traditions would add love, compassion and equanimity. Jesus after all was mid eastern so I am confident he would agree. Thirdly there is a strong indication that such experiences bring us into union with the Mystery; Our purpose for being here.

 

Coming into the present moment requires a shift to the present moment- the shift requires a tool- the tool is paying attention- paying attention-NOW-brings us to the present moment-paying attention is what we practice during meditation, paying attention generates a shift to the right frontal lobes.

 

In the Christian Tradition, this shift, this coming into the present moment is known as moving from ‘The Mind to the Heart’, (The tradition can be traced back to the Desert Fathers)- in Buddhism as going from self to no self, (and I think that is similar for the Hindus). In Western science it is known as coming into Presence. Each of these titles suggests a turning down of the mind, a letting go of the ego and our sense of separateness, a quietening of our brains left hemisphere. Even though we have some brain knowledge, our brains remain very complicated integrated bio-circuits, so when we adjust an aspect of our brain with our mind, ( that is what we are doing during meditation),other parts of our brain are freed and opened up; so in general our left hemisphere is considered neurologically the dominant hemisphere, and thus regulates ‘inhibits’ the functions imbedded in our right hemisphere; so in shifting from the “Mind to the Heart’ we turn down left hemisphere functions and the right hemisphere has a chance to flourish and flourish it does.

 

This shift occurs through paying attention (moving to the right frontal lobe). For example, during meditation (formal practice) or  when paying attention to an aspect of our environment (informal practice) we are coming into the present moment and shifting from ‘The Mind to the Heart’, there is a turning down of the left hemisphere (our thinking and our sense of separation) and therefore a shift to our right hemisphere, usually accompanied by an experience of pleasant joyful peace. Practice is important, and with practice we can enhance our ability to pay attention and stay more and more in the right hemisphere.

 

The more you stay in the right hemisphere the deeper into the silence you can go; it is as if you were travelling down a vertical axis, you eventually cross a point where your experience is right hemisphere dominated, where there are perception changes; here are some examples; eventually your sense of time disappears and you are in the eternal now, life does not exist outside of the moment,( memories and future expectations are initiated in the left hemisphere); there is no location for speech patterns in the right hemisphere and therefore no sense of self. The construct of self resides in the left hemisphere, so there arises the Buddhist sense of ‘No Self”.

So with no time and no self attention shifts from one present moment to the ongoing present moment. Also with our sense of separateness reduced there is an enhancement of our ability to know our connectedness to all things- the oneness of all ( in quantum physics this is known as non locality) arises in the right hemisphere. Spiritual teachers would say our experience of God, our knowing of God, arises through the right hemisphere, while our belief in our God sits in the left hemisphere. Perhaps most importantly of all is to practice to stay in the present moment , and what ever arises is what arises.

 

But you don’t have to be in this deep level of timeless present , all the time; whenever you think and some times you have to plan and decide, or more importantly whenever you get lost in your thinking, or lost in your internal world  or whenever your old usual problems arise, you will ascend the vertical axis through lack of attention, and you will again be participating in the world of time, you can think remember imagine in the world of time. But gradually you will learn to be fundamentally in the present which means that you are more grounded in the present than you are lost in the mind. Eventually with practice you can stay in right hemisphere dominance and at the same time operate from the left hemisphere.

 

So how on earth is any of this transcendence natural to us human beings, well the community at large is well informed of the practical benefits of meditation and there are many; what about the spiritual benefits of meditation- what about the transcendence from ‘The Mind to the Heart’- well as we experience transcending our mind;

. We begin to live life more without judgement.

. We begin to live life with less fear and desire.

 We begin to live life with much more acceptance.

. We begin to live as “LOVE’ in the world-that’s what we are required to do.

. We begin to sense the oneness of all things.

. We get closer to the mystery, we begin to sense the eternal existence.

. We develop more compassion,

. We further increase our integrity and enhance our honesty.

. We begin to live out the dictum ‘Do no harm to others’

. We become free of the constraints of our mind –the ego.

. Throughout constant change we get to know the part of us that never changes- the I AM- our consciousness.

 

All of this arises from the present moment and brings us toward our true nature, our spiritual nature, our purpose for being here. As Jill Bolte Taylor states, all that is required is a step to the right, paying attention to move into the present moment.

 

                                                                                     

                                                                                                  Brian O’Hanlon