Hello and welcome back everyone! I hope you all survived the "holiday season." Personally, I find that time both stressful and restful. Anyways, we have some major stuff to talk about. I want to talk about your homework (exercise 5) from last month. Obviously, we covered a huge amount of material there and there was a lot to do. As you begin to use this material, you should continue to master exercise 1 from the first newsletter. Only you know if you have reached the level of mastery that you are comfortable with. In your homework assignment from last month, I asked you to analyze different aura colors for feelings and meanings. We will discuss these colors in more detail at a later date. Continue to flesh out these colors, and add some new ones, such as pink, beige, brown, silver, gold, white, black and gray. I will go into all these colors and their meanings and uses in next month's newsletter.
The exploration of exercises 2 - 5 is an ongoing process that should continue for the rest of your practice. It is easy to develop new visualization tools, but hard to remember to put them to use. Also, you will probably be innovating and creating your own techniques soon, and you should keep track of them all in your visualization diary. But, I have found the computer to be the best diary of all. MS Excel or any spreadsheet program can be excellent for organizing ideas and creating a network of skills that you can see. So, remember to organize, and don't be afraid to use your computer.
Today we will be discussing meditation. This is an enormous topic that is open to a wide range of debate. I will only seek to create a framework for non-meditators, and then share some techniques that use visualization in conjunction with meditation. The most basic form of meditation will be our first exercise.
Exercise #6: Basic Meditation
Begin by getting comfortable. Sit in a comfortable chair, or sit cross-legged on the floor, with a pillow under your butt/lower back or lie down if you think you can avoid falling asleep. Relax and look up or out normally at a neutral object or a space of wall. Avoid staring at objects that are brightly colored or areas that are visually distracting. White wall/ceiling is the best. Take a deep breath and then exhale. Now, inhale again and count "one" in your head. Count "two" on the out-breath. Continue counting each in-breath and out-breath. Don't rush. Mentally, try to focus on the counting and don't allow yourself to be distracted.
If you lose count, just start again on an in-breath with the last (odd) number you remember. Keep this up for a count of fifty. One phenomenon that you may notice is that you will tend to relax and that your breathing will become very slow. This may be frustrating as you may be restless and want the damned exercise to be over with! Dealing with some restlessness is normal if you are just starting out. Over several weeks, if you are new to meditation, you will master the counting and be able to count to fifty without losing your place. You will also find yourself becoming more mentally active as the counting process consumes less of your awareness. We will discuss some more advanced meditation techniques next.
Meditation and visualization are similar but different. Meditation requires concentration, but also seeks to still thought activity to a minimum so that more subtle levels of awareness can come through. Just as you can't see the sun
with heavy clouds, you can't achieve mental clarity until you remove obscuring
thoughts. Meditation is so profound that it is really impossible to discuss in any real way. We simply do not possess an advanced enough vocabulary to discuss what meditation is and what impact it has on our state of mind.
Although you can see the benefits, I feel that the real benefit of meditation comes from applying it to a goal. By doing this, you gain understanding and come closer to achieving your goal. That is why I encourage the use of visualization in meditation for those who are comfortable with it. There are advanced techniques, such as shikantaza, which is a Zen Buddhist technique that does not involve visualization. We will discuss a few of these as well.
Meditation always has an object. That "object" could be the idea of nothingness, a sound, a physical object, a deity, a feeling, the deeper meaning of a word, a question, an event that is wished for or just about anything else. Meditation gathers the senses together in concentration on that object. What I have found from my own meditation practice is that it brings insight, usually relating to what you are meditating on.
So, it is helpful to keep your visualization diary handy to take notes if you have a major or minor epiphany. But, if you feel like you won't forget, try to continue your meditation practice until the end, and then take the notes. Meditation practice is cumulative, in that you can "visit" a state of consciousness again and again to the degree that you can remember what it felt like. You may have major breakthroughs in your experience where you penetrate into a very high, clear understanding, but later you may not fully remember that mental state, and thus not be able to recreate it.
Because meditation is an internal journey, there is an internal landscape. Learning to navigate that landscape is part of the process. For me, at least at this point, I have found that meditating on "non-materialism" is the most helpful "object" for me to use. I see an imaginary setting of green grass and blue skies, with a bowl that actually symbolically represents the idea of non-materialism. As I meditate on the bowl, I breathe in and out and try to stay completely focused on the inside of the bowl, (the bowl is seen floating in air, facing me).
Soon, I only see the surface of the inside of the bowl, which has a rocky, crystalline look to it for some reason. Then, when I have that aspect down, I try to keep my attention fixated on the idea of non-materialism, using the bowl as an anchor for my mind. This phase is by far the most difficult. The mind is not used to focusing on the purely abstract for long periods of time. But, in my practice, I do experience fairly regular feelings of light and bliss. I
sometimes have days when I feel like crap, and so my meditation feels crappy,
but even then you can sometimes break through to a more positive state.
The point is to be regular and persist, not to feel high. One technique I discovered recently is that you can meld your awareness of your breathing with
your meditation. You can start your meditation practice, get established, and then focus on entering the state of "Beyond Unified Breathing," which is a state where you are beyond even thinking about the fact that your breathing and meditation are unified. If you are a more advanced meditator, you
might want to try this. As you meditate on achieving this breathing state, you will gradually enter into it.
You can create an internal meter, like the gas meter on your car that will tell you when the state is at "full," in other words, fully in effect. As you concentrate on achieving the state, you see the meter move from empty to full. This is done passively; you shouldn't force the meter. This is an example of how you can use meditation to map and revisit an internal environment. Don't be discouraged if you can't pull this off immediately. It takes a bit of practice, but you will soon be there.
Exercise #7: Meditation with Visualization
Start by getting into Exercise #6, the basic meditation state. Once you are comfortably there, choose a symbol that has Spiritual connotations for you. Fixate your attention on the object while visualizing it. If you have mastered the basic exercise, you should be able see the object clearly in your mind, against a blue-sky background. Count your in-breaths and out-breaths as
before, while maintaining the visualization. Tough, isn't it! Try to do a
breath count of twenty. Then, take any notes on the experience that seem relevant, in your diary. Over the next few weeks, try the following
variations on the technique.
First, see a deity that you work with as sitting across from you, looking at you. Pay passive attention to how the deity
appears, what they are wearing, and how they look and feel, without forcing
them to look a certain way. Meditate on the deity while counting the breath.
Secondly, on a separate occasion, try to meditate on a single sound,
such as a deep resonating Om (ohhhmmmm). You can visualize the Om as a circle floating in the sky, or as the Sanskrit Om (see http://www.spiritsound.com/aum.html). Thirdly, think of a question and then meditate on the question without actually thinking about it; simply treat the question as an object and do the breath-counting meditation with it.
If it helps, give it a symbol to visualize it. Lastly, try thinking of an event that you would like to have happen to yourself, that would not hurt others. See the event in your mind, visualizing it as a single static image that sums up the feeling of the event. Use this as the focus while doing breath-counting meditation. Take notes!
Remember that meditation divides your life into two worlds, one of grasping, and one of non-grasping. But that consciousness that is centered, happy, clear and present, and free from grasping and neurotic obsession with image, having and getting will become a bigger and bigger part of you each day. Grasping, everyday consciousness is a flim-flam, a smoke screen that prevents you from seeing reality. Reality is actually a positive thing, if you can get past ordinary consciousness. And that realization, once you make it yours, can give you real, lasting quality of life that is independent of your financial and emotional life.
Whew! Another monumental amount of material has been covered! The only way to really understand meditation and what it will do for you is to do it. Without that, you will not be able to understand its significance. We will discuss
meditation in more detail later, but right now, I would like you to find your
own meditation voice. Do some reading on the Internet and find a technique that interests you and pursue it. Or, master the basic breathing technique. I would recommend this if you are a novice. No meditation practice is "elementary;" they are all as advanced as you are willing to go with them.
Exercise #8: Feedback
Please send me some feedback. A question, an observation, or just yell at me! I need feedback to figure out what material and focus will best serve all of you. Please write me at [email protected] and I will respond as quickly as possible. I am most interested in knowing what you personally want to know more about! Until next month�bye!
