From “Cool” to “Critical”
Why I started to do Meditation
Why I started to do meditation
I have been practicing yoga and meditation for the last 45 years and have been a yogic nun for the last 35 years. I am originally from the United States, but I have been teaching yoga and meditation and working in social projects in Peru for the last 21 years.
I started doing meditation in 1976 when I was a college student at the University of Nebraska. This was at a time when it was important to do things that were “cool”. My friends and I did a lot of “cool” things like being vegetarian, eating brown rice and tofu, riding bicycles or walking instead of using cars, buying food at co-operatives, and living together in communes.
But the “coolest” thing to do was meditation. It was “cool” because it was from the East. It was something mystical, a bit unknown, and more importantly something the Beatles had done.
Listen to my story about being “cool.”
One of my best friends, Steve, went to hear on Indian yogi give a lecture at the University of Nebraska along with 2000 other students. He couldn’t understand a word the yogi said because of his thick Indian accent. This seemingly did not matter as Steve went back the next day to learn a personal meditation mantra from the yogi. I was following Steve’s lead in doing meditation so that I could be “cool”, too.
At almost 69, I have normal blood pressure and sleep well and easily every night probably because of my years of doing meditation. However, people who meditate also have moods and emotions and sentiments that can lead them down unwanted pathways.
“Cool” doesn’t last forever
But the motivation of being cool only lasts so long. Being a college student and being part of the 1970’s college culture could only last so long. I got my university degree. I moved on. My friends moved on.
One day I woke up and it seemed like all my friends were getting married. Even if their partner did not seem so suitable, they were getting married. I went to wedding after wedding. Then my friends started having kids. Some stayed married. Some got divorced. Most of us finally got real jobs. It seemed that real life had started and it no longer seemed important or necessary to be “cool”.
In the meantime, while all this process was going on, I found other things about meditation that hooked me. The first big one was that it helped me deal with the extreme stress of my first real job. I was working in a hospital as a nurse. I found that when I meditated after work that I could relax instead of re-playing the day’s events over and over again. It helped me to relax and regroup for the next day. It lowered my anxiety about the new challenges of this job.
Lowering one’s anxiety like I was able to do when I came home from work is one of the most famous benefits of meditation.
There are many others and today there are hundreds of articles on the internet about research and the benefits of meditation. For example, tells us that the UC Davis newsletter lists these benefits of meditation: reduced stress, improved memory, increased attention, enhanced will power, better sleep, less pain, lower blood, pressure, less anxiety, less depression, and greater compassion.
No, I don´t think meditation can solve every problem.
With all of these great benefits, my long history of doing meditation, and the fact that I am a nun, you might be surprised to hear that I don’t think meditation is a panacea.
Yes, meditation has many benefits. Yes, I have benefited from meditation. Yes, I have seen many people benefit from meditation. Yes, I would recommend that people do meditation. Yes, I think it is important to have a spiritual base in your life. No, I don´t think meditation can solve every problem.
Having an open mind is important
I believe that part of having a spiritual life is to have an open mind. In order to have an open mind it is important, I can say vital, to study and gain knowledge. Speaking from experience, having an open mind is not something that meditation just “gives” you. You need to study and look for facts. Acquiring facts and analyzing them, gives you answers.
It gives you answers based on reality, not based on whatever mood you might be in at the moment. This is the base of critical thinking.
This small story is a case in point. I am in involved in hiring people who work in our organization’s projects. I used to make hiring decisions based on having a “good feeling”, about the people involved. I now realize this usually translated to mean that I was looking for a job candidate who was convincing and spoke nicely or somehow put me at ease. In short, I was looking for people who were nice to me. Obviously if your hiring criteria is based on whether someone is nice to you or not and you don´t know the person’s abilities it is likely that problems will arise.
Here is the story of Mr. X and the type of disaster that my system invited. We needed to hire someone to manage a new protect. This project was growing at a rate that we had not expected. I had been convinced by an outside consultant that we needed a local Spanish speaking person who could also speak good English. I quickly hired Mr. X because it seemed he spoke good English and because it seemed that he had the kind of experience we needed.
I made this decision in a rushed way because I felt under pressure from the workload and the many new aspects of the project. It turned out later that Mr. X could not easily transfer his skills and knowledge to our needs AND his English was not even that great! Needless to say, this unthought out decision caused a LOT OF problems!
In retrospect, I could have made a better decision by collecting and then analyzing more facts. I could have done these things:
1. Investigated and researched what the increased workload and new aspects of our project would imply in terms of the exact skills that a new hire would need. Looking back, I now realize that I did not know clearly what skills were needed for the job. And if I was not aware of the skills that were needed, how on earth was I going to find them?
2. Made a list of the needed qualities of the new hire. Kept the list by my side in the interviews so that I could ask questions which would point to the presence or absence of the needed skills. This would help me to keep to the mission of looking for facts and not be diverted by some emotional reaction in the interview.
3. Looked at the candidate’s personal references. Talked to people who know him in other work situations. I could have gathered more facts this way.
4. Tested Mr. X’s written English abilities. The job required both written and spoken English. I did not test his written English before hiring him. This would have given me more information.
Meditation and Critical Thinking Go Together
Both meditation and critical thinking are important. Meditation helps me to look inside myself and find a purpose in life. It is my aid in being less anxious, reaching out to others, and being more compassionate. At almost 69, I have normal blood pressure and sleep well and easily every night probably because of my years of doing meditation.
However, people who meditate also have moods and emotions and sentiments that can lead them down unwanted pathways. These pathways are sometimes rocky and dark. Critical thinking asks me to look for facts and analyze them. It helps me to make well thought out rational decisions. Basing decisions on rational thinking not sentiment is helping me to have better outcomes. I have found that critical thinking is helping me to “light up the pathway.”
