It happens to everyone when they meditate, an urging for food, sex, a cigarette, or some other attractive item. Or, one’s foot gets tired, things get boring, or an obligation pops up in the mind. Some are attractions, others are aversions, but both are, at their root, exactly the same in their role in meditation. They are distractions at the time of meditation, and learning to identify and move on from these is paramount to our success at meditation.
I began meditating outside of a Christian context, which has been a real blessing to my spiritual progress. While I cannot claim faith in every aspect of Buddhist religion, the truth contained in some components and priorities of Buddhist philosophy is extremely helpful in meditation practice. My first meditation retreat, led by Rebecca Bradshaw, focused on Vipassana meditation and Metta meditation. But what stuck with me the most was her message on attraction and aversion, summarized in her own experiences.
She is an extremely calm and peaceful woman, and she humorously testified that during one of her first long meditation retreats, the grounds crew cut the grass every Wednesday, always at around the same time in the morning. This coincided with a meditation session, and led to a storm of emotions brewing inside of her every Wednesday morning, which included resentment, disdain, and anger at the grounds crew for interrupting her precious meditation time. She thought about why they could not possibly cut the grass at on a different schedule! Aversion, in full view.
During the same long retreat, she mentioned that every day, while meditating she thought ravenously about lunch. She thought about other things, but the excitement and anticipation of lunch was very engaging, and a target of curiosity and desire. And after lunch, thought, consideration, and concern about the next day’s lunch arose. Attraction, strutting through her thoughts.
She skillfully explained to us that while one was attraction and the other aversion, they both were introducing themselves into her thoughts, and were fixations of her ego onto a situation she wanted to be different: the mowers off, and the lunch in front of her. And both sought to divert her from being present, and from experiencing the moment as it was.
John Main describes thoughts and images as “distractions at the time of meditation”. Surely, thoughts and images will arise while we meditate. And the issue is not that these are all “bad”, or even matters we should not deal with. But during meditation we can label our attractions and aversions as such, set them aside, and simply be with ourselves. Later posts will address what to do with persistent or patterned attractions and aversions, but here we will leave it at simply identifying.
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