Wedditation: kissing life with our attention

Where better to enjoy meditation than at a wedding?  This photo is taken from my beautiful sister’s beautiful wedding last month as I was introducing a wedditation, which I used to close the ceremony.  But before we get to that, let’s find out how we got there.

In June 2008, halfway through a month-long personal retreat I slipped out and attended a dear friend’s wedding at which I gave a short speech.  The following morning I then returned to retreat enlivened by the whole occasion with fresh energy and no loss of momentum or interest in the practice.

And later that year another dear friend was to enjoy a wedding ceremony and asked me to do something for that too.  And given the importance of meditation practice in my life we soon realised that a guided meditation would work really well to start the ceremony and so the first ever wedditation took place.  And it was lovely.

So when my sister announced that she was to be getting married this summer, I was very quickly commissioned for my second ever wedditation – which for those of you haven’t clocked as yet is a) a guided meditation that takes place at a wedding and b) a word I have clearly made up.

Given how much care I have for my sister, I didn’t really prepare for the wedditation since I wanted it to be very much led by intuition.  So following a relatively classical ceremony with readings and the like I then invited the 140 strong assembly to slightly buck convention and join me in some formal practice.

And it ended up being truly wonderful.

I ended up introducing it in a way that surprised even me by saying something like:

Given I’ve spent an above average amount of time in formal meditation training many people often ask me why.  To which I say something like “oh, to understand the nature of mind” or “y’know…to see through the illusion of the separate sense of self-identity”…but these answeres a bit masculine…a bit boys-y maybe.

If you were to ask me today why I practice meditation I would say that it is so that I may love better.  In Singhalese the word for meditation is bhavana which means growing.  And what are we growing but the qualities of the heart – love, generosity, acceptence, patience, openness…all the same things that we celebrate at this wedding here today.

And with that I invited everyone to join me – by NO means a crowd with any meditation background AT ALL! – and I led a ten minute or so loving-kindness practice.

But with a twist…in that for the first object of well-wishing I took the bride&groom…may you be well…may you be happy…etc.  Then oneself, then your neighbour, then the whole assembly and then anything that the heart can possibly imagine.

And in the heat of the improvised moment I threw in a couple of new images that I hadn’t heard before which I now remember quite vividly…such as inviting people to kiss their bodies with their attention…eys, mouth, hands, stomach – classic tension-holding points  given a romantic interpretation.  And when dropping the classic metta phrases, to drop them like flowers into water.

And as an even more magical final twist…rather than ringing a bell or telling people it was over…I simply started playing a song called Gabriel by Lamb – a magical song which speaks more about love than I could possibly myself.

And should you ever wish to know what a wedditation looks likes… have you ever seen as well dressed a meditation group?