Through the past many months, I have been discerning what my work with embodied meditation might look like moving forward. Events in the past year or so have provoked this question to the surface. The resulting contemplation has been rich and active and, more often than not, wholly surprising.

One of the things that has consistently appeared under the umbrella of ‘wholly surprising’ is the extent of new engagement this discernment process requires. I recently opened an Instagram account, for instance. I also have a credit card account and now subscribe to an audio editing service. I’ve become somewhat familiar with community-based social media platforms and learning environments. The email account I use for all this – a historically low traffic account for signups and memberships – has become the busiest of all my communication gateways.

I recently noted that I am struck by all this “‘in the world-ness’” to someone. I am struck by how much everyday engagement is necessary in order for me to share and explore the experience of embodied meditation with others, with you.

In the days since making this comment, I have returned to it several times. Returned and let my attention settle into what lay beneath these words. A suggestion, for one, that somehow meditation should not involve in the world-ness. A belief that while opening a new shoe store might require conscious consideration of audience and marketing, opening a new means of sharing meditation with others should not.

Seen at this level, it’s a revealing comment. In spite of the words and phrases I offer with such frequency – meditation exists to come into the world, to come into our lives – there still exists a point of view that insists, ‘No, meditation is separate from all that.’

Fortunately, life keeps insisting otherwise. Every day I am reminded that meditation is not separate, not distinct, not ‘other’ in the ways I quietly assume. The interaction requiring presence and receptiveness; the problem needing patience and curiosity; my beginning to look into podcast hosting services as another step in this journey of discernment and discovery. All these remind me of this easily forgotten fact: meditation is something we bring into this world, into engagement, into our lives.

– Neil