Meditation has to work on some true and deep theme; one has to learn how to turn that theme over and over in the mind.
"Humility" was a thought I practiced on first! To be humble means to have an absence of pride or self-assertion. It is an honest assessment of self which makes a one more eager to listen than talk, more anxious to admire than criticize. In meditating you hold this consept clear in your mind and warm in your heart. A beginner may be able to retain it for only a minute at a time - but minutes can work miracles when repeated often. At last I came to see that humility is simply truth, for only the spiritually blind are self important.
Dicipline was another theme I chose for meditation. When in former days I had been kept waiting for an interview, I worried because "the whole day will be late because of this." Now I began pondering the application of discipline to this foible. The truly disciplined one has a mastery of appetites and weaknesses, and apparently effortless control of temper and passion.
In moments of waiting I began to imagine myself so disciplined. In my eyes I was already that one. My ego was not raffled when when people kept me waiting, nor was flurried in the interview that followed. It has gotten now so that I almost enjoy being kept waiting. Formerly, if I just missed an elevator I fumed over the delay. Now I have learned the secret of patience: to do something else in the meantime. My "something else" is meditation. At such times I think of the sublime yet unhurrying processes of nature. And I have found that moments thus used in wise maditation are more refreshing than some kind of sleep.
