Meditation

This practice is a variation of Vipassana Meditation. This is a slow, ordinary walk based on awareness of your feet as they touch the ground. You can walk in a circle or in a line. Take ten to fifteen steps, going back and forth, inside or outside. Your eyes should be lowered to the ground, just a few steps ahead.

While walking in Vipassana, one gives attention to the contact of each foot as it touches the ground. When other things arise, simply notice what took your attention and gently return your focus to your walking. It is the same technique as sitting, but for some, the movement is helpful and can be a welcome change.

Try this for twenty minutes, it can result in a deep awareness…

Zazen is not even meditation, by our Western standards, so deep is its lack of attachment. In Zazen, you have no goals. You can sit anywhere, but a place with few distractions would be good for beginners. Don’t look at anything in particular – just emptiness, no need to focus or concentrate on anything.

You should relax your breathing. Don’t manage it, let it happen. In your relaxation, it will become natural. Let your body remain motionless. You can sit on a pillow or use a bench, whatever helps, but once you settle, remain immobile, because if the body doesn’t move the mind will gradually fall silent.

When you practice Zazen, do not try to stop your thinking. Let it stop by itself. If something comes to your mind, let it come in, and let it go out. It will not stay long, unless you attach to it. When you try to stop your thinking, it means you’re bothered by it. In Zazen, do not be bothered by anything. It may take quite a while before you find your calm, serene mind in this practice. Many sensations come, many thoughts and images arise, but they are just waves of your own mind.

Usually we think of our mind as receiving impressions and experiences from outside, but that is not a true understanding. Actually, our mind includes everything. Nothing outside yourself can cause any trouble. You yourself make the waves in your mind. If you leave your mind as it is, it will become calm. After a few days of practice, you will enjoy it tremendously. You will see layer upon layer start to drop.

A moment comes when you are simply there…with no mind…

Suspending Judgments – Truth vs. Right & Wrong Meditation

One of the great benefits of meditation reveals itself when we learn to replace our concept of right and wrong with an acceptance of Truth. Truth has nothing to do with what we find moral, right/wrong or good/bad in the wordly sense. If you pay attention, you’ll notice that our beliefs change to suit our mind’s wants and desires. Truth, in itself, is a wisdom that comes only from the Heart.

This little meditation practice can be blended into your Vipassana meditation. Work to let go of right and wrong inside of you. Your mind throws so many things at you during your practice. Resist the urge to analyze or theorize what is going on. Instead, quietly watch the critic inside of you label things: right, wrong, good or bad.

You can suspend this habit of judging all things with a compassionate look within yourself. Sit there passively, not engaging the thought or fantasy of it. Understand that your critic is there, don’t try to push it out or make it go away. It is enough for you to simply watch.

This will take practice. One of the best ways I’ve found is to remain constant with my breath. If you’ll focus upon your breath, and not attach to your thoughts, you’ll feel the release of a tremendous burden. This weight, which most of us carry around, consists of our anxieties and fear.

As your critic quiets, you’ll discover a wonderful sense of liberation. Try it…

Find a place where you can sit comfortably, undisturbed, for at least 20 minutes. Your back and head need to be held straight. You may sit on the floor or in a chair. Your eyes are best closed as you remain still, moving only if it is really necessary. If you must move, notice how and why you are moving.

Simply be mindful of in-and-out breathing. You may feel that your breathing is too short, too long, too gentle or too heavy. Do not try to control it. Stop judging. Just let it be, let it settle by itself as you watch.

It is the process of watching that which is the meditation, not what you are watching. Remember not to become identified with, or lost in whatever comes up: thoughts, emotions, judgments, body sensations. When you become distracted, gently refocus your attention on your breathing. There’s nothing wrong with you. Keep at it. If questions or problems arise which require an answer, let them remain a mystery until your meditation time is over.

Keep watching. Just breathe…

We are going to combine breath work and imagery. First, I want you to “breathe through your heart” by imagining that the way you take in air is through the center of your chest. Just breathe in and out, through the chest, allowing yourself to open up ever so gently. A mantle of softness and kindness envelops you. Let yourself sink deep inside yourself. I want you to go down, down, down, to that beautiful, secret place of the most high within you. Everyone knows where it is inside of them. We all have different ways of visualizing it. For you it may be a garden. For others it can be a stream, a river, an ocean – wherever it is that you feel safe.

And while you are there, as you sit, you are willing at this very moment to do everything you can to make love possible. And call forth that within you that will guide you and bring you to love.You feel a tap on your shoulder and as you turn, there is a luminescent being standing there. This being looks at you with such kindness and Truth that you cannot avoid contact with it. You feel an absolute pull toward it. And this being asks for you to give to it everything that you value. It puts before you a bowl, and it says, “Please pour everything that you value into this bowl.”

You say, “I have not brought anything with me.” But the being is asking you for pride …attachment …emotion …passion …memories …guilt …shame. Things you hold within yourself about being victimized.

Please, pour it all in. Everything. All your successes, all your failures. Right now. Your work, your mate, your children, your ideas, your hopes and ambitions. And you see that the moment they touch the bowl, they disappear. Because the energy we are pouring into it is dream stuff. It is unreal… This luminescent being asks, “Is this all you have?” Have you held back from it? Pour more.

And now, pour yourself into the bowl. There is nothing left. In truth, the being tells us that we can keep nothing in this life. Everything is neutralized in the ocean that is love. The drop becomes the ocean. We become one with everything. Let yourself dissolve into the bowl and feel that sense of humility wash over you. Humility is the space for silence. And silence is the space for love.

Let yourself have this moment. And wherever it is leading you right now it is good, be it in tears or in laughter. This is not about a high, but about a space.

All that exists for you right now is this moment. If you feel like moving, move. Sway. You have found the very core of your own presence. You are free. Take this feeling. And in everything you do and every moment that you have, today, tonight and tomorrow, this celebration exists in you. This celebration is who you are. This celebration is your life.