Identifying where we are going to place our attention in a practice session is an act so simple it often passes unacknowledged. Yet it is central to our work with meditation and very useful when we take this practice out into our lives. For this reason, Neil McKinlay identifies this as one of more helpful teachings he’s ever encountered.

How do we stick with meditation over time? How do we keep our long-term engagement with this practice fresh and alive and dynamic? In this episode, Neil McKinlay affirms the value of having role models in these regards. Of being familiar with others who have stuck with something over time and managed to keep this tenure invigorated.

Asking the question ‘Why meditate?’, Neil McKinlay reflects upon meditation as becoming familiar with. In the course of this, he links his familiarity with impulsivity - the act of responding in habitual ways - to events unfolding in and around his home. This reveals a tentative answer to that potent inquiry, a sense of why he practices today.

In this episode of ‘Bringing Meditation to Life’, a poem by Ted Kooser reminds us of the everyday ordinariness meditation - the simple practice of being present - allows us to connect with. Far from being characterized by moments of big ‘P’ presence, meditation is more often marked by immediacy of the small ‘p’ sort.

Blurring the distinction between meditation and the so-called ‘rest of our lives’, the Five Minute Meditation is a practice we can easily engage while in the flow of our busy days. This particular version uses the settling qualities of posture work to let us rest in our unique sense of the embodied present.

A weekly meditation class and a brainstorming session about making good transitions lead to a deeper understanding of a friend’s illness and death. In doing so, these events reaffirm one of the main inspirations of this ‘Bringing Meditation to Life’ podcast: to acknowledge and celebrate the fact that teachings are everywhere.

A instant of ‘fed up-ness’ reminds Neil McKinlay of the fact that meditation does not distinguish ‘practice-worthy’ and ‘not practice-worthy’ moments. In truth, everything in our life offers opportunities for us to return to embodied experience and be curious about what’s happening. Everything offers opportunities to practice attending to this.

“Should my eyes be open or closed?” Using this inquiry as our starting point, this episode of ‘Bringing Meditation to Life’ considers the issue of working with practice instructions. Neil McKinlay looks at how attending to and respecting the interface of offered instruction and personal experience can afford meditation a living presence in our lives.

How do we maintain a regular practice? An appropriate response to this inquiry requires we attend to the ‘enoughness’ of our routine. Reflecting upon his own experience with daily walking, Neil McKinlay affirms that while sometimes a relatively informal approach is adequate, at other times we need to be more definite and rigourous.

In Margaret Laurence’s novel, 'The Diviners', protagonist Morag Gunn eventually surrenders to the “necessary doing” of her unique life. Encountering this passage during a recent read of this award-winning work, our host, Neil McKinlay, realizes this inexplicable motivation has played a notable role in his own practice life.