Breakdowns are the best part of travel.

Breakdowns force me to see all my expectations about any trip I'm taking, which are almost always out of sync with reality. 

When I'm out of sync with reality, I suffer.

I’m much happier when I’m honoring exactly what life presents in the present moment. Life’s twists and turns are always full of wonder. 

So it is with meditation.  Breakdowns in meditation include noisy meditation settings, barking dogs, fellow meditators who do not “obey the format”, and so forth.  You get the idea.

Meditation is the practice of letting go of expectations and revering the breakdowns.

God controls the night and day. This should be a lesson for those who possess eyes. [Quran 24:44]

peace on you,
bob

become like a child

Meditation is the practice of release - letting go and trusting that all is well - that God is in control of all things.

I have found meditation is like time spent in the state of total trust and dependence of a small child. Trust, dependence on God, and a deep peaceful meditation experience are brothers and sisters. 

I ran across a helpful passage from the “Gospel of Barnabas” where Jesus talks about the notion that no one enters the Kingdom of Heaven lest He becomes like a small child. The way Jesus teaches about “becoming like a small child” is a powerful meditation instruction.

In chapter 183 of the Gospel of Barnabas (who was one of Jesus’s twelve disciples) we quote the following: 

While they sat at meat the scribe said: 'O master, you said that God loves true humility. Tell us therefore what is humility, and how it can be true and false.' [Jesus replied:] "Truly I say to you that he who becomes not as a little child shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven." Every one was amazed at hearing this, and they said one to another: 'Now how shall he become a little child who is thirty or forty years old? Surely, this is a hard saying.' 

Jesus answered: 'As God lives, in whose presence my soul stands, my words are true. I said to you that [a man] has need to become as a little child: for this is true humility. For if you ask a little child: "Who has made your garments?" he will answer: "My father." If you ask him whose is the house where he lives, he will say: "My father's." If you shall say: "Who gives you to eat?" he will reply: "My father." If you shall say: "Who has taught you to walk and to speak?" he will answer;  "My father."

But if you shall say: "Who has broken your forehead, for that you have your forehead so bound up?" he will answer: "I fell down, and so did I break my head." 

If you shall say: "Now why did you fall down?" he will answer: "See you not that I am little, so that I have not the strength to walk and run like a grown man? so my father must needs take me by the hand if I would walk firmly. But in order that I might learn to walk well, my father left me for a little space, and I, wishing to run, fell down." If you shall say: "And what said your father?" he will answer: "Now why did you not walk quite slowly? See that in future you leave not my side."

peace on you - bob