Meditation – a constant companion

By Simon Hoten

If you search online for reasons to meditate you will find a multitude of answers in a matter of seconds. The search engine that I just used turned up 8.3 million results, proclaiming various benefits for the mind and body as well as lifestyle, performance, creativity and spiritual. You could easily get the impression that meditation is like a magic pill, a panacea for all that afflicts us – but of course it isn’t. Still, with regular practise its benefits are broad, plentiful and well documented too, through the increasing amount of published research.

For me personally, daily meditation gives me a deep inner calm and grounding that is like having a reliable constant companion that reminds me to touch into that innate sense of wholeness and deep contentment within me. This in turn helps me to respond to life rather than react to it. When faced with a challenging situation it can almost feel as if time actually slows down, allowing me to observe, listen, assimilate and reflect before responding in a measured and thoughtful way. In the past I might have been quick to react with anger or upset that I would inevitably regret later. There is that saying, “act in haste, repent at leisure” and this has been true for me on a number of occasions when my response has certainly not been measured! People rushing onto the tube before I can get off, late night emails (that would be better left for the morning), and the usual phone calls that might push my buttons are just a few of the common occurrences that might have been met with an over the top response.

But since establishing my meditation practise in 2003, I have developed the sense of this constant companion deep within me, that when I tune in to and really listen to, reminds me to breathe, and I feel always has my back and is always there for me to return to. That’s not to say that I sail through life like a saint and don’t occasionally get wound up!

I have found my meditation particularly valuable over these past months during lockdown. Although I have embraced the quiet times to study, start a new hobby and to deepen my practices, like many, I have also struggled with being distanced from friends and family and I’ve missed my usual outings and activities. Solitude and isolation can bring about difficult feelings, old insecurities and vulnerabilities can bubble to the surface. As well as continuing my daily seated meditation practise, I have often taken time to invite these difficult feelings, emotions and insecurities into a particular yoga nidra guided meditation practise, to explore them in a safe way.

I have occasionally wondered how my life might have been different if I had realised this inner resource earlier in life – if I had joined dad in his yoga classes when I was a teenager or continued in the meditation practise that I learnt at the Zen Buddhism course that I took with my mum when I was in my early twenties. But life then was full of different priorities and distractions and took me on a different path that would eventually bring me back to the foundations of both yoga and meditation – albeit nearly twenty years later.

But now I am truly listening - and meditation continues to be my trusted constant companion, my calm in the storm, and helps me tune into my inner voice of reason during such challenging and interesting times that we have currently.

Find out more about Simon Hoten’s meditation classes here >