How to Meditate on Your Kitchen Bench

When we think of meditation an image comes to mind, similar perhaps to the one above. It is of someone meditating in ideal circumstances. They are probably very attractive by mainstream standards, they are certainly in a peaceful environment and we then think that we too, can’t meditate until we become the very image that we have conjured in our mind. The thing is, this is not (usually) how life is… it doesn’t look like this. I’ve followed the yogic life for many, many years now and regular meditation is perhaps the backbone of my sadhana (practise) and becoming a mother, running an off grid permaculture property and cooking all food from scratch as well as guiding others to live by the inner light was not going to stop my practise. Sometimes we need to harness our shakti (power) to stay on track! Here’s how I use the kitchen bench to continue on with my meditation practise in my hands on life on the land, life of motherhood... life.

The kitchen bench has recently become my place of meditation. I built a tipi by hand and it took me almost two years. I have spent hours in there in meditation and practising agnihotra, practising yoga asana and pranayama too. I can’t meditate there much at the moment because too many karma yoga duties draw me away. I live in pristine bush in Southern Tasmania. It is so quiet, it is so beautiful and there are numerous spots under trees that are perfect places for meditation. I can’t meditate there much at the moment because my duties draw me away. In short, I can’t meditate in several places that are perfectly suited to meditation… but that’s alright because I have found I can meditate on the kitchen bench.

From experience I have learned that the kitchen bench is as good a place for meditation as my tipi, as the bush, as a lake or an ashram. It is a central location in our little home, from my spot up on high I can supervise the baby and I can have the space I need to tune into my inner self, that ever peaceful expansive bliss that is found in meditation. To sit on the kitchen bench and mediate is to sit on the highest of mountains. My kitchen is the Himalayas and my kitchen bench is the highest mountain top ashram.

The kitchen bench, as mundane a spot as it is has been transformed by my perception of it. Because I have be shown how to see it as a harbour for my practise of meditation my heart has opened it as a space for the expanding energy of love and peace. That is all it takes, that is all it took, for my heart to open up this little spot for my higher good and peace and love. We can look here there and everywhere, we can go to the top of mountain tops and we can lock ourselves away from the world but what we really need to do is to open our hearts to allowing a space for our highest good to materialise… in the life we live, in the life we have, in the moments we have NOW.

Theresa Daley is a Mindfulness Mentor and Spiritual Counsellor 
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