Last night, I was in bed just ready to fall asleep and I realized - oops I missed meditating this afternoon. I get caught up with things and it is sometimes hard to remember - this is why I'm giving myself stars to help me begin to set a habit. (see previous post)
What do I do when I meditate? It's actually quite an active process. Usually, I sit. I have some prayers and phrases I like to say to help me settle into sitting there. I focus on my out going breath and I allow any thoughts that arise to float away as if gently down a stream and I return to my breath. Lots of times my mind is very active and I get ideas for art and analyze my life and when I realize I've been off thinking I just gently come back to my breath.
I had a meditation teacher once who had us focus on breathing and concentrating on our Hara point. He had us hold our hands there - it's just under one's belly button. He did this because in the West we are very mental. We live in our heads and he felt that to teach meditation in the West one had to ground the process down into the gut.
I haven't studied a formal meditation. I've encountered Buddhist meditation. Similar to what Pema Chodron teaches. I've never participated in a lot of formal training with it. Last year, I started listening to Pema Chodron's talk titled Noble Heart by Sounds True while my Mom was ill. My yoga teacher loaned it to me and it just helped me do exactly what the subtitle says "befriend one's obstacles" It helped me feel a little more sane.
So Eliza left a great comment in the post where I asked if you meditate - I will quote her comment here
eliza said...i do something i call meditating every morning and every night for at least fifteen minutes, often for twenty or more. i say i 'call it meditating' because, while i know it's helpful, my thoughts still scamper and run about during most of the time i'm sitting with my eyes closed, so i'm not sure it qualifies, technically speaking, as meditation. the best moments in my sitting time are the prayerful ones, when i really concentrate and invoke my connection with God. and like i said, i'm quite sure it helps me tremendously. but my ears perked up when you said perhaps we could help each other. i'd love to compare notes and hear about your inner experience, and maybe get some tips on how to concentrate better! in the meantime, good luck finding your taproot again...
The funny thing is I had just read an article in the March 2007 issue of Yoga Journal that I thought responded so nicely to what Eliza said. The title of the article was "Positively Healing" by Carol Krucoff. The article is about meditation and yoga practice and Krucoff quotes from a yoga master named T.K.V. Desikachar. Here is a quote:
"In Desikachar's view , the idea that meditation requires emptying the mind is a common misperception: meditation, he says, actually involves filling the mind with an object of inquiry. "It is never possible for the mind to be empty," Desikachar notes, "except in a deep state of sleep." The intent is to "become one with the object of focus." You can meditate on virtually anything: a natural object, such as the sun or moon, a flower, tree, or mountain - or on a person, sound, deity, even a color. Or focus on the body or the breath. Desikachar suggests choosing an object that is both appealing and healing."
I thought this was so interesting. I probably first started sitting meditating 14 years ago. Prior to that I used photography as a kind of meditation. When I was a child I think I did it naturally in my environment - wandering around my back yard - though it wasn't called meditation. As a child, I was just fully playing in the now. Over the last 14 years I have come to realize that I cannot sit down to meditate and expect it to be the same as the last meditation.
I will try different things but always it is about turning my gaze from outward to inward and to tap into that energy that is greater than my little ego - some would call it Higher Spirit - the Buddhists might call it groundlessness. I continue to meditate and want to expand it right now in my life because it allows me to feel more sane with whatever arises - be it good/bad, traumatic/joyous. Although it is subtle,and sometimes, many meditations are more like getting to know my scattered mind - overall, I notice it helps me feel more peacefully, lovingly, and gratefully ALIVE!!!!!
