Meditate to Live, Don't Live to Meditate.

Normally when I meditate I look at the clock and try to focus on the amount of time I want to meditate for. I usually go well over that but I am also usually fairly aware of how much time has passed.

Today, however, was a busy day and I only had time to meditate just before heading off to work. Naturally, I didn't want to "over-meditate" and be late for work. So I set a timer on my computer to beep when 10 minutes had gone by. The phone, which I thought was turned off, rang at precisely 5 minutes into my meditation. The timer on the computer was not running for some reason.

It was a good meditation and I would have liked it to go longer. But considering my timer wasn't set like I thought it was, and how close it was to the start of work it was fortunate that something snapped me out of it. And it made me remember that the whole point of meditation isn't to "get away" from it all. It's not a weekend retreat with healthy delicious food, chirping birds, and saunas. Meditation is more like combat training for life. If meditation can't help us when we are away from that little 5 minute bubble then it's really no better than any other form of escapism. Meditation is a discipline. It is a way to tame the monkey mind and be a stronger, smoother running form of ourself.

The next time I meditate I will try not to go into it with the mindset of shutting out the rest of my life. Instead, I will try looking at it as a deeper way to approach my life.