Post by setiishadim on Dec 29, 2006 1:19:12 GMT -5
Upon entering any mystical/magical path, many newcomers can get confused by the sheer enormity of practices available. This is especially true within Sithism, where Individualism & free-thought is promoted. Some may feel there is a certain lack of guidance in this regard of meditation forms and so forth. It is with this in mind that I am presenting an introduction to various methods of self- development. This is meant to be an ongoing exchange of ideas, hence why I have designated it as a sticky. This simply means, I am hoping for others to share methods they use or have used previously.
Note: These techniques have been chosen specifically because they may, generally, be utilized by those of any path. Those of a darker path may adapt these methods according to their own inclinations and needs.
I. Relaxation: The Key to Meditation
BASIC RELAXATION
For this one lying on the floor is actually best. Please try not to fall asleep though! Put your palms down on the floor by your sides. Your feet should be just a few inches apart.
OK. Now just lie still for a few seconds. Let your thoughts gradually quieten down. Without any force at all let your breathing become naturally deep and regular. Now feel the weight of your body on the floor.
Now we're going to very quickly just 'name' some parts of the body in turn. Centre your consciousness briefly on each of these parts as you name them to yourself. Toes, feet, ankles, calves, knees, thoughs, groin, midriff, chest, shoulders, hands, arms, neck and head. Be aware of any areas where there is particular tension. OK? Now I'll just explain the next bit before we do it.
What we're going to do is spend five seconds making our whole bodies as tense as we possibly can. Then we're going to release all of that tension in one go, pushing it out and up and away from us. But before we do this, on the count of three take a long deep breath in. One, two, three -now tense as many muscles in your body as you possibly can, and when I count three push the air in your lungs out at the same time as you let go of every last little bit of that tension. One, two, three -push away the stress!
Now concentrate on your breathing. Breathing in through the nose and out through the nose is best here, but find some other way if that is uncomfortable for you. Let your breaths be deep, and let your mind be still. Just watch the way you take in the air and how it fills your lungs. Hold the air in your lungs for just for a second or two before you breathe out, and wait for just a second or two before you breathe in again. Just watch your breath for thirty seconds or so. If you get distracted or your mind wanders, then gently bring it back.
Now try and maintain the sense that by letting the body relax, and by allowing the mind to be still, so you are letting all parts of the system become more integrated. By simply being calm, and aware, you are letting bodymind become more balanced. More efficient. More energised. Be calm in this attitude for another minute or so.
Now gradually bring yourself out of the meditation, slowly bringing your attention back to where you are.
www.feedback.nildram.co.uk/richardebbs/meditation/meditationindex.htm
II. Beginning techniques
The Sun Salutation is a perfect meditation and exercise combination, if done with mindfulness.
Yoga Exercise - Sun Salutation (Surya Namaskar)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Sun Salutation or Surya Namaskar limbers up the whole body in preparation for the yoga asanas. It is a graceful sequence of twelve yoga positions performed as one continuous exercise. Each position counteracts the one before, stretching the body in a different way and alternately expanding and contracting the chest to regulate the breathing. Practiced daily it will great flexibility to your spine and joints and trims your waist.
One round of Sun Salutation consists of two sequences, the first leading with the right foot in positions, the second leading with the left. Keep your hands in one place from positions 3 to 10 and try to coordinate your movements with your breathing. Start by practicing four rounds and gradually build up to twelve rounds.
Sun Salutation (Surya Namaskar)
1. Stand erect with feet together and palms in the prayer position in front of your chest. Make sure your weight is evenly distributed. Exhale.
2. Inhaling, stretch your arms up and arch back from the waist, pushing the hips out, legs straight. Relax your neck.
3. Exhaling, fold forward, and press your palms down, fingertips in line with toes - bend your knees if necessary.
4. Inhaling, bring the right (or left) leg back and place the knee on the floor. Arch back and look up, lifting your chin.
5. Retaining the breath, bring the other leg back and support your weight on hands and toes. Keep your head and body in line and look at the floor between your hands.
6. Exhaling, lower your knees, then your chest and then your forehead, keeping your hips up and toes curled under.
7. Inhaling, lower your hips, point your toes and bend back. Keep legs together and shoulders down. Look up and back.
8. Exhaling, curl your toes under, raise your hips and pivot into an inverted "V" shape. Try to push your heels and head down keep your shoulders back.
9. Inhaling, step forward and place the right (or left) foot between your hands. Rest the other knee on the floor and look up, as in position 4.
10. Exhaling, bring the other leg forward and bend down from the waist keeping your palms as in position 3.
11. Inhaling, stretch your arms forward, then up and back over your head and bend back slowly from the waist, as in position 2.
12. Exhaling, gently come back to an upright position and bring your arms down by your side.
Warning: I encourage everybody to try and practice each yoga pose by yourself at home or in the office. However if you are feeling uncomfortable or are not able to complete a posture, do not push yourself. Yoga exercise has no competition element: so just relax and try again. Nonetheless, if might be helpful to actually sign up for some yoga classes where a professional teacher will guide you through each yoga pose and make sure you are doing the exercise correctly.
[u]Yoni Mudra Meditation[/u]
Yoni Mudra is an exercise in pratyahara or withdrawal of the senses. Blocking of your ears, eyes, noses and mouth you retreat inside yourself. During the day the mind is constantly bombarded with information or stimuli from the five senses. Only when the senses are brought under control and the mind is no longer pulled constantly outward, can you hope to be able to concentrate.
The Yoni Mudra Technique
Close your ears with your thumbs. Cover your eyes with your index fingers, then close your nostrils with your middle fingers and press your lips together with your remaining fingers. Release the middle fingers gently to inhale and exhale while you meditate.
www.abc-of-yoga.com/meditation/yoni.asp[/color][/quote]
III. Intermediate Techniques
Dzogchen Mindfulness Meditation
This meditation is taught in a number of traditions in Tibetan Buddhism. Like Zazen, the practise is essentially very simple indeed, but, as you will discover if you do it consistently in the right spirit for some time, this is actually a very powerful meditation technique. It is said that this technique helps develop self-awareness, non-attachment and a feel for what Buddhists call 'Mind'.
Note that after you have done this meditation a few times, you can do it looking directly ahead or you can even do it during every moment when you are active in some activity or activities during the day.
Sit in a posture that feels comfortable, with a reasonably straight back. (See Posture.) Your hands should rest on your knees, with your fingers drooping down over your kneecaps. Keep your eyes open, and look at a spot in front of you: your eyes should look downwards at an angle of around 45 degrees.
As a way into the meditation, concentrate on your breathing. Allow it to become naturally deep and regular, feeling each breath as it passes into and out of your body, energising the whole system.
Let your thoughts subside. Let your feelings be calm. You are looking at one spot in particular, but you don't need to analyse what you it is that you are seeing. On the other hand, try not to let your eyes go 'fuzzy': just let them rest on that one place without effort.
When you find yourself thinking, following one thought to the next in the way that we normally do, then don't repress the thought, and don't indulge it. Just gently bring yourself back to being centred somehow in what might be called 'the observer' in you, that part of you that is able to stand back from your thoughts, and watch as they happen.
When you find yourself experiencing feelings, following one feeling to the next in the way that we normally do, then don't repress any of those feelings, and don't indulge them either. Gently bring yourself back to being centred somehow in 'the observer', so that you can stand back from your feelings, and watch them happening.
What we are aiming to do here is reserve certain amounts of the 'energy of our awareness' for different things. So when you find your awareness temporarily taken over by thoughts, or by feelings, or by sensory input from your eyes and so on, then gently 'bring it back' trying not to let more than 25% of your 'awareness-energy' be used up in this way. Reserve 25% of your awareness-energy for 'the observer'. The remaining 50% of the energy of your consciousness should be used to maintain, if possible, a sense of the void that, according to Mahayana Buddhist philosophy, underlies all apparent phenomena: the void from which all apparent phenomena arise, and into which all apparent phenomena subside from moment to moment. All things change in the long term, and all things change even in the short term. Nothing has any real substance. Thoughts, feelings, sense-perceptions and even the sense of 'I' that we all have are illusory. At base, there is sunyata, or voidness.
It's also important to remember at this time that we don't want to get too attached to the idea of 'the observer': 25% is about right: the fact that we reserve 50% of our consciousness for some kind of awareness of sunyata should underline the fact that even the perspective gained from observing ourselves closely can be limited insofar as it may be a limited, or dualistic, perspective.
Be fully present in the moment, here and now.
If a thought arises, you could say 'there is a thought'. If a feeling arises, you could say 'there is a feeling'. If looking arises, you could say 'there is looking'. If hearing arises, you could say 'there is hearing'. And gently bring yourself back.
You are sense-perceptions, thoughts and feelings, and you are the observer. You are also the ground of being, the Buddha-mind in which all these things have their basis. Be aware of the gaps between your thoughts, the gaps between your feelings, the gaps between different sense-perceptions.
Remain in this state of mindfulness.
When you are ready, prepare to come out of the meditation.
Make an 'intention', explicit to yourself, by way of sealing the energy of this meditation in your being, so that it can be used in ways that you choose.
In your own time, come out of the meditation.
www.feedback.nildram.co.uk/richardebbs/meditation/meditationindex.htm
Please feel free to post any questions, meditations, etc. I will post further meditations in the immediate future.
Seti I Shadim
References:
1.http://home.att.net/~meditation/MeditationHandbook. html
2.http://www.feedback.nildram.co.uk/richardebbs/meditation/meditationindex.htm
3.http://www.ananda.org/meditation/technique.html
4.http://www.abc-of-yoga.com/meditation/yoni.asp
5.http://www.abc-of yoga.com/yogapractice/sunsalutation.asp
Copyright Note: Elementary Meditation I is copyright protected. (2005) It may be freely reproduced conditionally, if and only if, authorship is credited and no alteration of the text occurs.
(c) Seti I Shadim 2005
Note: These techniques have been chosen specifically because they may, generally, be utilized by those of any path. Those of a darker path may adapt these methods according to their own inclinations and needs.
I. Relaxation: The Key to Meditation
BASIC RELAXATION
For this one lying on the floor is actually best. Please try not to fall asleep though! Put your palms down on the floor by your sides. Your feet should be just a few inches apart.
OK. Now just lie still for a few seconds. Let your thoughts gradually quieten down. Without any force at all let your breathing become naturally deep and regular. Now feel the weight of your body on the floor.
Now we're going to very quickly just 'name' some parts of the body in turn. Centre your consciousness briefly on each of these parts as you name them to yourself. Toes, feet, ankles, calves, knees, thoughs, groin, midriff, chest, shoulders, hands, arms, neck and head. Be aware of any areas where there is particular tension. OK? Now I'll just explain the next bit before we do it.
What we're going to do is spend five seconds making our whole bodies as tense as we possibly can. Then we're going to release all of that tension in one go, pushing it out and up and away from us. But before we do this, on the count of three take a long deep breath in. One, two, three -now tense as many muscles in your body as you possibly can, and when I count three push the air in your lungs out at the same time as you let go of every last little bit of that tension. One, two, three -push away the stress!
Now concentrate on your breathing. Breathing in through the nose and out through the nose is best here, but find some other way if that is uncomfortable for you. Let your breaths be deep, and let your mind be still. Just watch the way you take in the air and how it fills your lungs. Hold the air in your lungs for just for a second or two before you breathe out, and wait for just a second or two before you breathe in again. Just watch your breath for thirty seconds or so. If you get distracted or your mind wanders, then gently bring it back.
Now try and maintain the sense that by letting the body relax, and by allowing the mind to be still, so you are letting all parts of the system become more integrated. By simply being calm, and aware, you are letting bodymind become more balanced. More efficient. More energised. Be calm in this attitude for another minute or so.
Now gradually bring yourself out of the meditation, slowly bringing your attention back to where you are.
www.feedback.nildram.co.uk/richardebbs/meditation/meditationindex.htm
II. Beginning techniques
The Sun Salutation is a perfect meditation and exercise combination, if done with mindfulness.
Yoga Exercise - Sun Salutation (Surya Namaskar)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Sun Salutation or Surya Namaskar limbers up the whole body in preparation for the yoga asanas. It is a graceful sequence of twelve yoga positions performed as one continuous exercise. Each position counteracts the one before, stretching the body in a different way and alternately expanding and contracting the chest to regulate the breathing. Practiced daily it will great flexibility to your spine and joints and trims your waist.
One round of Sun Salutation consists of two sequences, the first leading with the right foot in positions, the second leading with the left. Keep your hands in one place from positions 3 to 10 and try to coordinate your movements with your breathing. Start by practicing four rounds and gradually build up to twelve rounds.
Sun Salutation (Surya Namaskar)
1. Stand erect with feet together and palms in the prayer position in front of your chest. Make sure your weight is evenly distributed. Exhale.
2. Inhaling, stretch your arms up and arch back from the waist, pushing the hips out, legs straight. Relax your neck.
3. Exhaling, fold forward, and press your palms down, fingertips in line with toes - bend your knees if necessary.
4. Inhaling, bring the right (or left) leg back and place the knee on the floor. Arch back and look up, lifting your chin.
5. Retaining the breath, bring the other leg back and support your weight on hands and toes. Keep your head and body in line and look at the floor between your hands.
6. Exhaling, lower your knees, then your chest and then your forehead, keeping your hips up and toes curled under.
7. Inhaling, lower your hips, point your toes and bend back. Keep legs together and shoulders down. Look up and back.
8. Exhaling, curl your toes under, raise your hips and pivot into an inverted "V" shape. Try to push your heels and head down keep your shoulders back.
9. Inhaling, step forward and place the right (or left) foot between your hands. Rest the other knee on the floor and look up, as in position 4.
10. Exhaling, bring the other leg forward and bend down from the waist keeping your palms as in position 3.
11. Inhaling, stretch your arms forward, then up and back over your head and bend back slowly from the waist, as in position 2.
12. Exhaling, gently come back to an upright position and bring your arms down by your side.
Warning: I encourage everybody to try and practice each yoga pose by yourself at home or in the office. However if you are feeling uncomfortable or are not able to complete a posture, do not push yourself. Yoga exercise has no competition element: so just relax and try again. Nonetheless, if might be helpful to actually sign up for some yoga classes where a professional teacher will guide you through each yoga pose and make sure you are doing the exercise correctly.
Raja Kriya Meditation
Make yourself comfortable, sitting upright, with a straight spine. With your eyes closed, look at the point midway between the eyebrows on your forehead.
Inhale slowly, counting to eight. Hold the breath for the same eight counts while concentrating your attention at the point between the eyebrows. Now exhale slowly to the same count of eight. Repeat three to six times.
After inhaling and exhaling completely, as the next breath comes in, mentally say Hong (rhymes with song). Then, as you exhale, mentally say Sau (rhymes with saw). Hong Sau means 'I am He' or 'I am Spirit'. Make no attempt to control your breathing, just let its flow be completely natural. Try to feel that your breath itself is silently making the sounds of Hong and Sau. Initially try to feel the breath at the point where it enters the nostrils.
Be as attentive as possible. If you have difficulty feeling the breath, you can concentrate, for a while, on the breathing process itself, feeling your diaphragm and chest expanding and contracting.
Gradually as you become more calm, try to feel the breath higher and higher in the nose. Be sure that your gaze is kept steady at the point between the eyebrows throughout your practice. Don't allow your eyes to follow the movement of the breath. If you find that your mind has wandered, simply bring it back to an awareness of the breath and the mantra.
Make yourself comfortable, sitting upright, with a straight spine. With your eyes closed, look at the point midway between the eyebrows on your forehead.
Inhale slowly, counting to eight. Hold the breath for the same eight counts while concentrating your attention at the point between the eyebrows. Now exhale slowly to the same count of eight. Repeat three to six times.
After inhaling and exhaling completely, as the next breath comes in, mentally say Hong (rhymes with song). Then, as you exhale, mentally say Sau (rhymes with saw). Hong Sau means 'I am He' or 'I am Spirit'. Make no attempt to control your breathing, just let its flow be completely natural. Try to feel that your breath itself is silently making the sounds of Hong and Sau. Initially try to feel the breath at the point where it enters the nostrils.
Be as attentive as possible. If you have difficulty feeling the breath, you can concentrate, for a while, on the breathing process itself, feeling your diaphragm and chest expanding and contracting.
Gradually as you become more calm, try to feel the breath higher and higher in the nose. Be sure that your gaze is kept steady at the point between the eyebrows throughout your practice. Don't allow your eyes to follow the movement of the breath. If you find that your mind has wandered, simply bring it back to an awareness of the breath and the mantra.
[u]Yoni Mudra Meditation
Yoni Mudra is an exercise in pratyahara or withdrawal of the senses. Blocking of your ears, eyes, noses and mouth you retreat inside yourself. During the day the mind is constantly bombarded with information or stimuli from the five senses. Only when the senses are brought under control and the mind is no longer pulled constantly outward, can you hope to be able to concentrate.
The Yoni Mudra Technique
Close your ears with your thumbs. Cover your eyes with your index fingers, then close your nostrils with your middle fingers and press your lips together with your remaining fingers. Release the middle fingers gently to inhale and exhale while you meditate.
www.abc-of-yoga.com/meditation/yoni.asp[/color][/quote]
III. Intermediate Techniques
Cathartic Dancing Meditation
"Cathartic Dancing Meditation is a cosmic powerhouse that can be used by students in good health with a normal cardiovascular system. As it is a physically strenuous exercise, one should get a complete physical examination by a competent doctor before experimenting with this technique. Explain the method to your doctor and ask if it would be physically dangerous for you to do. He probably won't understand your motives for wanting to do it, but he can tell you if he thinks your heart can safely handle it. As with jogging or mountain climbing, you must practice this method at your own risk.
Cathartic Dancing Meditation is similar to Rajneesh Dynamic Meditation but is simpler, easier to do, and is more likely to keep you interested month after month, year after year. Neither method is really new. Sufis, Druids, and countless other esoteric and tribal cultures have used similar techniques for centuries.
( press refresh to animate dervish)
Most students will benefit from doing Cathartic Dancing Meditation daily for a period of between one to five years. After five years it has usually done its job and the student can then concentrate on the more subtle meditation methods.
I feel compelled to inform you, however, that this physically vigorous meditation method is the most powerful kundalini awakening technique I know of. Cathartic Dancing Meditation has three stages and lasts for 40 minutes.
Stage #1 (ten minutes) Start by standing with your eyes closed and breathe deep and fast through your nose continuously. If you are only physically capable of doing deep breathing for five minutes, then reduce the length of the first stage without feeling guilty. Remember that you are doing this method to help your meditation, not to physically injure yourself. Allow your body to move freely as you breathe. You can jump up and down, sway back and forth, or use any physical motion that helps you pump more oxygen into your lungs.
Stage #2 (twenty minutes) The second stage is a celebration of catharsis and wild and spontaneous dancing. Totally let go and act as an ancient human being dancing in tribal celebration. Energetic, nonverbal background music is recommended. African tribal drum music works especially well. You may roll on the ground and do strange spontaneous body movements. Allow the body to move within the limits of not hurting yourself or others. For once in your life screaming is encouraged. You must act out any anger you may have in a safe way, such as beating the earth with your hands. All the suppressed emotions from your subconscious mind are to be released. If at anytime during the second stage you feel that your energy level is starting to decline, you can resume deep and fast breathing to give yourself a boost.
Stage #3 (ten minutes) This stage is complete quiet and relaxation. Flop down on your back, get comfortable, and just let go. Be as if a dead man totally surrendered to the cosmos. Enjoy the tremendous energy you have unleashed in the first two stages and be a silent witness to it. Observe the feeling of the ocean flowing into the drop. Become the ocean.
This spontaneous dancing meditation technique is intended to grow with the student and change as the student changes. After a few years of vigorously practicing this method, the first two stages of the meditation may drop away spontaneously. You may then begin the meditation by taking a few deep breaths and immediately go deep into the ecstasy of the third stage. If practiced correctly this method is health giving and fun.
Almost all Westerners are head oriented and emotionally repressed. For us a chaotic, spontaneous, and emotionally cleansing technique like Cathartic Dancing Meditation is vital for serious progress to be made quickly. The physical benefits of this technique obviate any need for hatha yoga or traditional kundalini yoga methods. I strongly recommend that Cathartic Dancing Meditation and/or Rajneesh Dynamic Meditation techniques only be used in combination with traditional quiet sitting meditation methods. While the active meditation methods can be very helpful, they are not complete systems in themselves. If you rely on active meditation techniques alone you will only be doing half of the internal work that needs to be done.
WARNING: Obviously one must practice Cathartic Dancing Meditation in a safe location and not near the edge of a cliff or on a hard surface where one might fall and break one's skull. A large room or hall with thick carpeting is good. Outdoors in the early morning on a soft and well tended lawn with group participation is best. Do it on an empty stomach and avoid falling into dangerous objects such as windows. It is allowable to briefly open one's eyes occasionally to maintain your location. Create a safety zone around your dancing and spontaneous body movements. Be courteous to neighbors and delete the screaming if it will be heard by others. "
home.att.net/~meditation/MeditationHandbook.htm
"Cathartic Dancing Meditation is a cosmic powerhouse that can be used by students in good health with a normal cardiovascular system. As it is a physically strenuous exercise, one should get a complete physical examination by a competent doctor before experimenting with this technique. Explain the method to your doctor and ask if it would be physically dangerous for you to do. He probably won't understand your motives for wanting to do it, but he can tell you if he thinks your heart can safely handle it. As with jogging or mountain climbing, you must practice this method at your own risk.
Cathartic Dancing Meditation is similar to Rajneesh Dynamic Meditation but is simpler, easier to do, and is more likely to keep you interested month after month, year after year. Neither method is really new. Sufis, Druids, and countless other esoteric and tribal cultures have used similar techniques for centuries.
( press refresh to animate dervish)
Most students will benefit from doing Cathartic Dancing Meditation daily for a period of between one to five years. After five years it has usually done its job and the student can then concentrate on the more subtle meditation methods.
I feel compelled to inform you, however, that this physically vigorous meditation method is the most powerful kundalini awakening technique I know of. Cathartic Dancing Meditation has three stages and lasts for 40 minutes.
Stage #1 (ten minutes) Start by standing with your eyes closed and breathe deep and fast through your nose continuously. If you are only physically capable of doing deep breathing for five minutes, then reduce the length of the first stage without feeling guilty. Remember that you are doing this method to help your meditation, not to physically injure yourself. Allow your body to move freely as you breathe. You can jump up and down, sway back and forth, or use any physical motion that helps you pump more oxygen into your lungs.
Stage #2 (twenty minutes) The second stage is a celebration of catharsis and wild and spontaneous dancing. Totally let go and act as an ancient human being dancing in tribal celebration. Energetic, nonverbal background music is recommended. African tribal drum music works especially well. You may roll on the ground and do strange spontaneous body movements. Allow the body to move within the limits of not hurting yourself or others. For once in your life screaming is encouraged. You must act out any anger you may have in a safe way, such as beating the earth with your hands. All the suppressed emotions from your subconscious mind are to be released. If at anytime during the second stage you feel that your energy level is starting to decline, you can resume deep and fast breathing to give yourself a boost.
Stage #3 (ten minutes) This stage is complete quiet and relaxation. Flop down on your back, get comfortable, and just let go. Be as if a dead man totally surrendered to the cosmos. Enjoy the tremendous energy you have unleashed in the first two stages and be a silent witness to it. Observe the feeling of the ocean flowing into the drop. Become the ocean.
This spontaneous dancing meditation technique is intended to grow with the student and change as the student changes. After a few years of vigorously practicing this method, the first two stages of the meditation may drop away spontaneously. You may then begin the meditation by taking a few deep breaths and immediately go deep into the ecstasy of the third stage. If practiced correctly this method is health giving and fun.
Almost all Westerners are head oriented and emotionally repressed. For us a chaotic, spontaneous, and emotionally cleansing technique like Cathartic Dancing Meditation is vital for serious progress to be made quickly. The physical benefits of this technique obviate any need for hatha yoga or traditional kundalini yoga methods. I strongly recommend that Cathartic Dancing Meditation and/or Rajneesh Dynamic Meditation techniques only be used in combination with traditional quiet sitting meditation methods. While the active meditation methods can be very helpful, they are not complete systems in themselves. If you rely on active meditation techniques alone you will only be doing half of the internal work that needs to be done.
WARNING: Obviously one must practice Cathartic Dancing Meditation in a safe location and not near the edge of a cliff or on a hard surface where one might fall and break one's skull. A large room or hall with thick carpeting is good. Outdoors in the early morning on a soft and well tended lawn with group participation is best. Do it on an empty stomach and avoid falling into dangerous objects such as windows. It is allowable to briefly open one's eyes occasionally to maintain your location. Create a safety zone around your dancing and spontaneous body movements. Be courteous to neighbors and delete the screaming if it will be heard by others. "
home.att.net/~meditation/MeditationHandbook.htm
Dzogchen Mindfulness Meditation
This meditation is taught in a number of traditions in Tibetan Buddhism. Like Zazen, the practise is essentially very simple indeed, but, as you will discover if you do it consistently in the right spirit for some time, this is actually a very powerful meditation technique. It is said that this technique helps develop self-awareness, non-attachment and a feel for what Buddhists call 'Mind'.
Note that after you have done this meditation a few times, you can do it looking directly ahead or you can even do it during every moment when you are active in some activity or activities during the day.
Sit in a posture that feels comfortable, with a reasonably straight back. (See Posture.) Your hands should rest on your knees, with your fingers drooping down over your kneecaps. Keep your eyes open, and look at a spot in front of you: your eyes should look downwards at an angle of around 45 degrees.
As a way into the meditation, concentrate on your breathing. Allow it to become naturally deep and regular, feeling each breath as it passes into and out of your body, energising the whole system.
Let your thoughts subside. Let your feelings be calm. You are looking at one spot in particular, but you don't need to analyse what you it is that you are seeing. On the other hand, try not to let your eyes go 'fuzzy': just let them rest on that one place without effort.
When you find yourself thinking, following one thought to the next in the way that we normally do, then don't repress the thought, and don't indulge it. Just gently bring yourself back to being centred somehow in what might be called 'the observer' in you, that part of you that is able to stand back from your thoughts, and watch as they happen.
When you find yourself experiencing feelings, following one feeling to the next in the way that we normally do, then don't repress any of those feelings, and don't indulge them either. Gently bring yourself back to being centred somehow in 'the observer', so that you can stand back from your feelings, and watch them happening.
What we are aiming to do here is reserve certain amounts of the 'energy of our awareness' for different things. So when you find your awareness temporarily taken over by thoughts, or by feelings, or by sensory input from your eyes and so on, then gently 'bring it back' trying not to let more than 25% of your 'awareness-energy' be used up in this way. Reserve 25% of your awareness-energy for 'the observer'. The remaining 50% of the energy of your consciousness should be used to maintain, if possible, a sense of the void that, according to Mahayana Buddhist philosophy, underlies all apparent phenomena: the void from which all apparent phenomena arise, and into which all apparent phenomena subside from moment to moment. All things change in the long term, and all things change even in the short term. Nothing has any real substance. Thoughts, feelings, sense-perceptions and even the sense of 'I' that we all have are illusory. At base, there is sunyata, or voidness.
It's also important to remember at this time that we don't want to get too attached to the idea of 'the observer': 25% is about right: the fact that we reserve 50% of our consciousness for some kind of awareness of sunyata should underline the fact that even the perspective gained from observing ourselves closely can be limited insofar as it may be a limited, or dualistic, perspective.
Be fully present in the moment, here and now.
If a thought arises, you could say 'there is a thought'. If a feeling arises, you could say 'there is a feeling'. If looking arises, you could say 'there is looking'. If hearing arises, you could say 'there is hearing'. And gently bring yourself back.
You are sense-perceptions, thoughts and feelings, and you are the observer. You are also the ground of being, the Buddha-mind in which all these things have their basis. Be aware of the gaps between your thoughts, the gaps between your feelings, the gaps between different sense-perceptions.
Remain in this state of mindfulness.
When you are ready, prepare to come out of the meditation.
Make an 'intention', explicit to yourself, by way of sealing the energy of this meditation in your being, so that it can be used in ways that you choose.
In your own time, come out of the meditation.
www.feedback.nildram.co.uk/richardebbs/meditation/meditationindex.htm
Please feel free to post any questions, meditations, etc. I will post further meditations in the immediate future.
Seti I Shadim
References:
1.http://home.att.net/~meditation/MeditationHandbook. html
2.http://www.feedback.nildram.co.uk/richardebbs/meditation/meditationindex.htm
3.http://www.ananda.org/meditation/technique.html
4.http://www.abc-of-yoga.com/meditation/yoni.asp
5.http://www.abc-of yoga.com/yogapractice/sunsalutation.asp
Copyright Note: Elementary Meditation I is copyright protected. (2005) It may be freely reproduced conditionally, if and only if, authorship is credited and no alteration of the text occurs.
(c) Seti I Shadim 2005