{"id":255,"date":"2014-04-01T11:05:11","date_gmt":"2014-04-01T18:05:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/meditation\/?p=255"},"modified":"2014-04-01T11:21:29","modified_gmt":"2014-04-01T18:21:29","slug":"halfway-down","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/meditation\/2014\/04\/01\/halfway-down\/","title":{"rendered":"Halfway down"},"content":{"rendered":"

Where do we sit when we meditate? By this I don’t mean, do we sit on a cushion or on a chair? I don’t even mean, do we sit in our bedroom or under a tree?<\/p>\n

What I am asking is simply this: where do our minds sit? Are the thoughts that ‘run round our heads’ the thoughts of our work, of our relationships, our dreams, our concerns? Noticing this, and seeing that these are just thoughts, just one aspect of experience that comes and goes, is the heart of sitting.<\/p>\n

Here’s an A.A. Milne poem<\/strong><\/a> that talks about this (illustration by Ernest H. Shepard<\/em>):<\/p>\n

Halfway Down<\/strong><\/p>\n

Halfway down the stairs
\nIs a stair
\nWhere I sit.
\nThere isn’t any
\nOther stair
\nQuite like
\nIt.
\nI’m not at the bottom,
\nI’m not at the top;
\nSo this is the stair
\nWhere
\nI always
\nStop.<\/p>\n

Halfway up the stairs
\nIsn’t up,
\nAnd it isn’t down.
\nIt isn’t in the nursery,
\nIt isn’t in the town.
\nAnd all sorts of funny thoughts
\nRun round my head;
\n“It isn’t really
\nAnywhere!
\nIt’s somewhere else
\nInstead!”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"Halfway<\/a><\/p>\n

image from http:\/\/www.thelovelys.com\/poetry-milne-800.htm<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Where do we sit when we meditate? By this I don’t mean, do we sit on a cushion or on a chair? I don’t even mean, do we sit in our bedroom or under a tree? What I am asking is simply this: where do our minds sit? Are the thoughts that ‘run round our […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":55,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-255","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/meditation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/meditation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/meditation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/meditation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/55"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/meditation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=255"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/meditation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":260,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/meditation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255\/revisions\/260"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/meditation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/meditation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=255"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/meditation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}