Learn from Childhood? Hold Your Breath...

 

I love helping people out in the beginning stages of their meditation practice by providing them with tips and tricks that I have found work well for me and have made my meditation easy and effective.

Thinking back to when I was Growing up,  I was always a social kid – but I also remember, that ever since I was quite young, I always relished the thought of taking time alone for some me-time.  Even if it was just for a brief interval, I valued that special solace of not having to listen, speak to or participate with - anyone but me.  As a kid I was never bored or never lonely.

                                               One of my early "outer world silencing" discoveries was when I was swimming in a pool with a bunch of other noisy kids.  While all of them were jumping and splashing and laughing, I would breath in a deep breath, dunk myself under the water and self-create my own little sacred world of “noiselessness”.   

I just loved this feeling!  I would pop my head back up for air and then go back down below the surface.  I would do it dozens of times, each time being amazed at how I could instantaneously go from a world of chaos to my special quiet place with such a natural ease.

Today in my meditation practice, I still use this same technique as a visualization technique to quiet my mind from thoughts and distractions.

Here is how I make the "Swimmers Silence” work for me now:

I imagine myself in a beautiful flowing stream listening to all of nature’s sounds from the birds and bugs to the whistling wind, to the water rushing over the rocks.

I slowly dip down below the surface and beneath the current to comfortably rest in the soft powdery sand. 

I can feel the weight of the water slowing down my movements as I slowly wave my arms into hands together-prayer position.

Being that this is my imagination, I am of course able to now somehow breathe under water as well, and it is beautiful and it is peaceful and silent. 

 All of my worries go away and my body, mind and spirit are now relaxed for meditation.

Whenever a thought or distraction enters my mind, I simply and effortlessly direct it above my head and into the flowing current of the stream as I blissfully watch that thought meander downstream.   Poof!  It's gone!  Then I softly go back to my meditation.

Every Mindful Meditation approach, no matter what its origin must deal with quieting the inevitable thoughts that will wiggle their way into the conscious mind during meditation. 

My under water technique works really well for me.

I hope my meditation approach inspires you to find your path and to discover 

your own True Nature.

Just be you,

 -Chris

Good News about Bad Weather

This winter it seems that I can't go anywhere without hearing a lot of hoopla, whining and complaining about the weather.  I can actually see and feel the suffering and mental anguish people are experiencing due to the unusual cold and snowy weather we are experiencing here in Michigan.

 I thought it would be fitting and important to share these words of weather and suffering and how we live our lives to bring us a different perspective. 

In the 4 noble truths - Buddha talked about suffering. 

The first noble truth says it's part of being human to feel discomfort.  Nothing in its essence is one way or the other.  All around us the wind, the fire, the earth, the water, are always taking on different qualities: they're like magicians.

We ourselves ebb and flow like the tides, we wax and wane like the moon.  We sometimes fail to see that like the weather, we are fluid, not solid and so we suffer.

The second noble truth says that resistance is the fundamental operating mechanism of what we call ego, that resisting life causes suffering.
Traditionally it's said that the cause of suffering is our narrow view, which is to say, we are addicted to ME.

We resist that we change and flow like the weather, that we have the same energy as all living things.
When we resist, we dig in our heels.  We make ourselves really solid.  Resisting is what's called ego.

The third noble truth says that suffering stops when we let go of trying to maintain the huge ME at any cost.  This is what is practiced in meditation. When we let go of the thinking and the Story Line, we're left  just sitting with the quality and the energy of whatever particular "weather" we've been trying to resist.

The essence of the fourth noble truth is that we can use everything we do to help us realize that we're part of the energy that creates everything.  If we learn to sit still like a mountain a hurricane, unprotected from the truth and vividness and the immediacy of simply being part of life, then we are not this separate being who has to have things turn out our way.

When we stop resisting and let the weather simply flow through us, we can live our lives completely.

It's up to us.


This excerpt is from Pema Chodron's book Comfortable with Uncertainty.   I would recommend you put this book high on your priority list.

Hey - Spring is in the air!