“Your hand opens and closes and opens and closes. If it were always a fist or always stretched open, you would be paralyzed. Your deepest presence is in every small contracting and expanding, the two as beautifully balanced and coordinated as bird wings.” ~ Rumi
Here’s the thing: we all know we should meditate, right? Even conventional doctors are informing us about the huge benefits of meditation. But how do we go about doing it exactly? And does it really matter how we do it?
When it comes down to it, meditation can be as simple, or as complex, as we want it to be. There’s a myriad of styles. Some are faux pas. Some are cliché. Some are even down-right silly. And I’ll go more into these various styles in later articles.
But when we really get down to the crux of the matter, meditation is essentially about one thing that can be broken up into a myriad of things: Presence. Being present to the moment is the umbrella that all things mindful fall below. But what is it about this “moment” that is so important? Why is all this fuss about the “here and now”?
All of life is a moving meditation. The universe itself is a vibrating orchestra of varying frequencies (or collapsing wave functions) all in superposition with each other. Essentially, meditation is the act of familiarizing, or re-familiarizing, ourselves with our own unique contribution to this orchestra.
Learning how to meditate is nothing short of becoming present to the interconnectedness of all things. When we meditate we come to realize that we are both the seer and the seen. We are an extension of the universe becoming aware of itself. This is the importance of presence.
Being in the moment, and especially being quiet and listening to what the moment has to say, is the foundation of healthy, mindful meditation.
So if our goal is to achieve presence with the vibration of the universe, and presence is about being in the moment and familiarizing ourselves with the current state of our mind-body-soul, then how do we actually do it?
We do it by finding a sacred “place” to “perform” our meditation. It can be anywhere. It can be in a peaceful, natural setting or a quiet room. It can be in a crowded mall. It can even be in a schoolyard with a thousand kids screaming their little-kid head’s off.
Obviously, if you’re just beginning, a quiet place is preferable, but it can be done just about anywhere. The point is the meditation place is inside us. The key to mindfulness isn’t necessarily about discovering peace and quiet “out there.” It’s primarily about discovering peace and quiet “in here.”
The main purpose for resonating with this sacred vibration is to nix the overreach of the Ego. When we practice mindful meditation we are practicing getting out of our own way. When we nix Pride and small-mindedness, we free ourselves to unfold the Spirit Lotus, to kick open the third-eye (or ajna chakra), and to awaken the mysteries that have been hiding within. Having done this, we open ourselves up to a torrent of creative energy that comes pouring down into our pineal gland.
super-flow experience occurs that takes us out of small mind and launches us into Big Mind. This energy is a raw current that transports us to the “Transformation Place.” It’s a place where all cosmic knowledge is stored, and where the sacred Akashic Records are held. Here, we are free to trump our selfish “being” with interconnected “becoming.”
At the end of the day, meditation helps us to take a step back and get a different perspective. It helps us realize that we may not be able to change everything, but we can change the way we experience things. The key to tricking our “being” into “becoming” is to search for the cracks between light and dark, between chaos and order, between inhalation and exhalation, and to vibrate there with the cosmos; so as to become the type of Promethean person who can steal fire from the gods and then share it with the rest of us.
Here’s an interesting video by Andy Puddicombe: All it takes is 10 Mindful Minutes
When is the last time you did absolutely nothing for 10 whole minutes? Not texting, talking or even thinking? Mindfulness expert Andy Puddicombe describes the transformative power of doing just that: Refreshing your mind for 10 minutes a day, simply by being mindful and experiencing the present moment.
Here’s a guide to five ways of mindful meditation.
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