My Contemplative Practice: The Gentle Discipline of Returning
Dan Vanoli, a retired computer programmer and project manager, has played a key role in restoring St. Paul United Methodist Church in Downtown Dayton alongside his wife Beth and other volunteers. Today St. Paul serves as a neighborhood hub, offering a food pantry, youth programs, weekly liturgy, and more. Dan has also completed a Men’s Rites of Passage and has long been active with Ohio Illuman, helping to organize and facilitate men’s councils across Southwest Ohio.
I was introduced to the practice of contemplative prayer in 2003. In fact, my first sit was with Fr. Thomas Keating and Fr. Richard Rohr – talk about lineage! At that time, I threw myself into meditation with great enthusiasm, but from a misguided direction. I was chasing achievements, trying to reach for some “silver bullet” that’d propel me into some mystical trance which would carry me away from the world of pain and suffering. Boy, did I have it all wrong! It’s no surprise that I became frustrated and spent nearly two decades in an on-again, off-again practice. I wasn’t sure it was helping, and I always seemed to find an excuse not to make the time to practice, convinced other important matters demanded my attention.
The two things that transformed my inconsistent practice were Covid and my wife, Beth. My wife is much further along in her practice, and during Covid we found the time to establish a daily routine of meditating together. I discovered how much easier it is to sit when you have someone to share the practice with.
In recent years, my sits have lengthened to 30 minutes, and I feel no urgency for them to end. Often the time passes quickly. Although I’m retired, my life remains full and active with many obligations. Like others, I’ve found that if I postpone my morning sit, the whole day feels unsettled. I grow impatient and short-tempered, and I miss the peace my morning sit would have given me.
I think the secret of meditation is to be gentle with yourself. The discipline is not about forcing thoughts away, but about acknowledging them like roommates in your mind, letting them be, and gently returning to the breath over and again. As Pema Chodron says, “How we regard what arises in meditation is training for how we regard whatever arises in the rest of our lives.” This is my practice. In fact, those are the very words I return to whenever I struggle to release interrupting thoughts during meditation.
Yes, I feel grounded and closer to the Divine source when I meditate. Yet the most practical benefit is my growing ability to meet the bumps, bruises, and distractions of daily life without being dragged down by them. I’ve come to see that meditation is not an escape into painless oblivion, but a way of entering more fully into life itself. Isn’t that exactly what Richard Rohr reminds us in our men’s rites of passage when he said, ‘Life is not about you; you are about life’? For me, meditation affirms that truth. It helps me participate fully in life. And that is proof enough that it works.
