I’ve been looking around for a nice simple (and not too long) video and music clip to help you with your meditation practice.
My idea is to help you see that you can just find a comfortable seating position, take a few breaths to relax yourself and then either watch the images or close your eyes and just get carried along by the music.
Simple and very, very sweet.
I think you could manage this even more than once a day. Do enjoy my dear hearts and remember to be very gentle with yourselves and each other as we travel through this life together.
For many years now I’ve been an on again, off again meditator. These days, I’m much, much more an on again meditator and I often meditate more than once per day. To that end I became part of my local meditation community and we meet weekly to participate in a group meditation. It’s really lovely.
This week, the meditation included a few moments in contemplation around why we/I continue with my meditation practice. Sounds simple enough right? I didn’t find it that simple.
Upon reflection, over the past couple of days that question keeps coming back to me. I’ve realised that my reasons for continuing meditation are quite different now than they were even a few years ago and they are very different from the reason I began investigating meditation and learning how to practice it.
Now these are very personal reflections but as reflections I can see how far along my personal pathway of meditation and (dare I say it) spiritual/consciousness evolution I appear to have traveled. Mind you – that’s linear wording for what I have a feeling is more of a spiral journey but that conversation belongssomewhere else.
I was originally drawn to meditation because it was different.
I married a meditator but we never really discussed it – I just knew he did it but I didn’t understand it. Interesting people seemed to also be meditators and eventually many years later my very best friend also turned out to be a long term meditator. By this time I felt meditation was stalking me! In a nice way of course and so I asked my friend to teach me about meditation. She did. Very simply, very quickly. I was quite disappointed. I thought it would be so much more mysterious really. Funny, in that way, it was a bit like my first sexual encounter….
However, meditation was not done with me by a long shot and I discovered a lovely little book (or it discovered me) and I found a kindred spirit who filled me with the mystery and the wonder I was seeking. His gentle words, his gentle humour and his patience all shone through in the little book called:
Now of course, different things really appeal to different people and since that time I’ve discovered many more teachers and read many more books but this one, the first, will always be special.
So I think that I was drawn to meditation in the first place because it was different, a bit exotic and something that interesting people appeared to be involved in. Now, well… that sounds like a description of me!
In truth, I stay with meditation because within the silence I discovered myself and I know that I will never leave me. I hope you discover something wonderful too and if you are looking for a gentle introduction into the wonderful, diverse and entirely beguiling world of meditation you could do much worse than running your eyes and your heart over that little book that helped me take my first baby steps towards developing a practice that sustains me.
To continue on this theme of ‘Calmness Of Mind” that caught my attention in the James Allen quote (see previous post) and how that relates to Meditation I started to think about why we would think about this (meditation) as a treasure in our lives.
It didn’t really take me very long to come up with quite a sizable list.
I only had to look at my week and see the number of tasks, people, problems needing solutions and distances needing to be travelled to see that my need for a calm and tranquil space should be very high on my priority list.
Well, it is of course:
I write this blog about it for goodness sake.
I attend a weekly meditation group in my local area and we sit in quiet companionship for an hour or so and it is wonderful.
I’m even looking to gain a certification to teach meditation (in the real world) so it’s high in my consciousness but it wasn’t always so.
I’ve struggled to fit it into my day – even into my week at times – but as my relationship with Meditation developed, as I began to see and feel it’s many benefits, it became easier and easier.
Image "Meditation" - Photobucket
As my friend and mentor Steve D’Annunzio once said to me: “You are a winner just because you show up every day.”
This is such a wonderful concept because it means you don’t have to judge either yourself or your meditation.
Just the fact that you sat quietly and created that calm and tranquil place for yourself means that you have been successful.
It doesn’t matter if you were fidgety, if the time you spent was short or long, if you fell asleep or kept thinking about the shopping – you win because you show up.
So keep showing up, each andevery day until your relationship with Meditation is strong and it powerful presence in your life is as natural as your breath.
Have you ever decided to do something, know it’s a great idea and then done everything you could to avoid actually getting started?
I wanted to write about meditation, how it can be a really powerful force for good in your life and what benefits it may bring to you.
So rather than get organised and create a plan of action with a sensible outline and approach, I picked up a gardening magazine and began to flick through it. And then on the second last page my inspiration lay in wait for me.
A quote from James Allen, from his classic book “As A Man Thinketh”. So of course I got on the net to find out a little bit more and there was a free e-book to download and such an array of resources related to this that I knew this was a great place for me to begin again.
Here is the quote that caught my attention:
“Calmness of mind is one of
the beautiful jewels of wisdom…
The more tranquil a man becomes,
the greater is his success,
his influence, and his power for good.”
Can you see why I was so inspired? Meditation is a wonderful pathway to ‘calmness of mind’, it’s a perfect process, tool, way of being that can bring you such rich rewards for so little cost. It is indeed one the ‘beautiful jewels of wisdom’ of which James Allen speaks.
