Chapter 1: Four approaches to monastic life

Finally those called gyrovagues are the fourth kind of monk. They spend their whole life going round one province after another enjoying the hospitality for three or four days at a time at any sort of monastic cell or community. They are always on the move; they never settle to put down the roots of stability; it is their own will that they serve as they seek the satisfaction of their own gross appetites.  (From para. 4 of Ch. 1 of Saint Benedict's Rule, trans. by Patrick Barry, OSB, 1997.)

I recognize St Benedict's rendering of the gyrovague as a good description of a familiar state of mind: a diluted, wandering attention, bad habits, rationalizations, self-centeredness, avoidance of commitment. The remedy he orders is stability. For me, that stability is found within the practice of meditation, of simply saying the mantra, and returning to it whenever my mind wanders. The stability that the mantra demands can put me on the way to reality.