My meditation group meets weekly and brings together all sorts of varied characters.  One of these characters is my pal, Karl Rosenblum.  He is a meditator and an engineer. He blogs about it at http://karlrosenblum.com/blog/meditate/, so if you like his post, surf on over and check out his site.

He is today's guest blogger.

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  I have the worst possible mind for meditating. Not only is my brain working overtime on ideas and next steps on everything from work, yard projects, family and blogging, but my job as a strategic planner for a manufacturing company, has me looking out in intervals of 2, 5 and 10 years in the future. This is definitely not "being here and now."

   But that being said, perhaps that's why I decided to meditate. It's easy to chastise myself about past mistakes and plot a million future scenarios, but it’s hard to just sit in the present moment and think of ...nothing! Learning meditation in a group environment taught by monks was just the ticket.

   So, how did I do it? Yes, practice and determination were important, but I needed a few tricks. First off, get centered, no sense thinking about what is going on outside of the meditation hall. Second, focus on a simple object to prevent random images from creating a distraction. Call it a mantra for the eyeballs. And lastly, and the hardest for me, repeat any mantra over and over to crowd out the sporadic thoughts and imaginary conversations. Drown it out! Louder and faster is better, although not out loud.

To capture my thoughts I decided to blog about my experience. In the blog, I describe the challenges and successes with my meditation practice, including the details my left brain has decided to catalog. As a result, I have become mindful of my progress in the art of mindfulness.

I paddled this weekend with a group in south Georgia.  We canoed and kayaked about twenty miles over the course of two days.  We had lots of rain the day before we first set sail.  This made the river full and easy to float along.  Our paddle the first day was easy, if a little cold.  The next day we had a shorter trip planned.  We expected it to be easier than the day before, with time for exploring side routes and taking in the sites.

The wind started to blow and we could paddle as hard as possible and not really go anywhere.  We paddled straight into the wind, but the full river still did not carry us along like it had the day before.  In the center of the river, there were white-capped waves- flowing upstream.  It was a surprise and something of a struggle.

As we passed each other, we complained and shared our concern.  We all had an “are we there yet?” mentality.  Plus we were tired.  Paddling into the wind takes quite a bit of effort.  As we went across the center of the river, I realized that we had the easiest time when we faced the wind and waves pointed into them.  They were to be listened to and I got low in the boat, kneeling.  The wind, the waves, the river- all required my complete focus.  And so I quieted my mind.  I stopped complaining and worrying and just started listening to the water and the wind. 

The first day’s paddle did not star the river.  But the second day certainly did.  The river and the wind together were having this conversation that was powerful.  There was nothing to do but to listen to it.  And I did.  At the end of the paddle, I felt like I had learned something from getting still and listening.  I was glad to take the boat out, for sure.  We all were.  But there was something focused and still about working with nature the second day.  When I got to know the Altamaha the second day, I got some new respect for the river, for the wind, for boats, for my fellow paddlers- and for myself.  And it all came from listening.

Meditation brings focus and awareness to what is, allowing us to be present with it.  When we show up and are present, our lives take on new dimensions.  We become three-dimensional characters in our own perceptions.  Once we become fleshed-out, so do the others in our lives.  The first day, the river was a one-dimensional character for me.  She was beautiful, but ultimately nondescript- just like every other river.  But the second day, she demanded my presence.  And then I got to know her in a much deeper way. I listened to her.  And she spoke.