The Right Way to Meditate or Pray

Spoiler Alert: There is no right way.

Why would there be, if being tuned into God, in an ideal, enlightened, Tibetan Monk kind-of-way is just being in constant contact with a Higher Power? Isn’t that what mindfulness is? Just operating in a state of flow, all day, every day?

Yesterday, rushing around getting ready for work and preoccupied with being on time, I heard birds chirping outside. It was early and they were happy and it reminded me, Oh, right, I should probably meditate this morning. So, I set a timer for 6 minutes, which is all the extra time that I had, and sat down on my stairs to just sit and listen and tune into the Universe/God/Whatever-You-Want-To-Call-It for a little bit. The timer beeped, I turned it off, then realized, Oh, BLEEP, I should probably say a prayer, too. So, I went back to the stairs, sat back down, threw in a prayer, then went about my morning.

Do I have any idea what I am doing? Not really.

Am I an expert? I couldn’t possibly be, given the duration of my commitment to having faith.

Did I have a really good day yesterday? You bet your BLEEP I did.

For me, and perhaps for you if you are riding along on this adventure with me, this is just about establishing faith. It’s just about opening the door to the possibility that there is something bigger and better out there for all of us. It’s a willingness to believe that life really is good and in the end, it will all work out for us, including some painful lessons learned through the hard stuff.

So, who gives a BLEEP how I pray? Do I need a special pillow or place or figurine or necklace? No. Is there anything wrong with having them? Also no. In fact, there’s something wonderful about adding all of that into our lives when we are ready. Would I like to have a special corner or room in my house for prayer and meditation? Certainly. Would I be willing to go to a building where other people are connecting with faith in a way that appeals to me? Sure.

But sometimes I think all of that gets between people and reaching out to God (or Good), especially in the beginning. It becomes the clutter or pretense that stands between us and our own hearts and minds. The state of flow, listening to our breath, or saying our prayer is almost our birthright as living beings, plain and simple.

For many of us, reaching out at all is the real leap of faith, and ideally we are doing it all the time, especially in the beginning. It takes a lot of practice to change an outlook or hope for something better or just believe in Good (or G0d), so we can and should practice all the time, no matter how “bad” it looks in the beginning.