Today I was out and about in Sydney on a lovely sunny day and I decided to sit in a park to join one of my meditation teachers for a guided meditation via Zoom.
I found a relatively quiet bench in a little park and joined the meditation and shortly afterwards two people sat at the bench next to me (lots of other free benches in the park) to eat their lunch and have a lively conversation about their work and their colleagues.
Shortly afterwards police cars zoomed past with sirens blaring, then someone called me and my phone was ringing, the clouds shifted and suddenly I was in full sunlight and getting hot, so it was challenging to not get distracted by my surroundings and my environment while trying to meditate.
Delays, discomfort, dissappointments are to be expected in meditation, and it takes time and patience working with the more subtle aspects of the mind.
BUT
a distraction is only a distraction when you mentally resist it and label it as such, so don't resist any aspect of your surroundings.
There is a silence in the background of every sound or noise that occurs, so I chose to look for that silence instead of trying to resist the noise, and, in that way, I was able to complete my meditation in both mental and physical stillness.
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