Wednesday, January 07, 2009

Meditation and Coincidences.

I first began practicing meditation on May 25, 1975.

It's not that I wrote down the date in a diary or marked it on a calendar. As it turned out, there was a lunar eclipse that evening and it's easy enough to get the dates of eclipses on NASA's website.

Another "coincidence" that helps keep that date in my consciousness is that that day happened to be Vesak as well. Vesak is considered by Buddhists as the date of the birth, enlightenment and the passing away of Gautama Buddha.

Discovering this Vesak coincidence after the fact is proof enough, for me at least, that I'm heading in the right direction with my meditation practice.

I've since then returned to my boyhood faith of Catholicism. My meditation has been ever so slightly modified into what Catholic monks call Centering Prayer. A few years ago I discovered yet another "coincidence" regarding my meditation. Playing around with the letters in my full legal name (as given to me by my father) I found an interesting anagram...... "Romes Buddhist master".

The word Rome, of course, can refer to the city in Georgia where I live......or the home of the Roman Catholic Church.
Simple Layout by Village Idiot Savant