Category: Meditation

A Doctor’s View of Meditation

“The benefits of meditation have been well proven by science. Meditation reduces chronic pain, blood pressure, headaches, anxiety and depression. It helps you lose weight, lowers cholesterol, increases sports performance, boosts immune function, relieves insomnia, increases serotonin, improves creativity, optimizes brain waves, helps in learning, focuses attention, increases productivity, enhances memory, and more.

But none of those reasons are the reasons I meditate. It is to be more awake to life, to myself, to cultivate loving kindness and compassion toward myself, others, and to the sordid human condition we find ourselves in.

The good news is that all you need is a few minutes and a place to sit and be quiet (you can do this anywhere).

Here is a simple instruction for mindfulness meditation you can do from Dr. Mark Hyman:

Sit in a comfortable position. Try to sit in the same place each day. Avoid positions that you might fall asleep in.
a. The back is long and supports itself.
b. Shoulders are relaxed downward, the neck is long, and the chin is pointing neither up nor   down.
c. The face is relaxed.

Begin to breathe (preferably through the nostrils). Feel the belly rise, the ribs expand, and the slight movement in the collarbones and shoulders as the breath moves upward. Feel the exhalation.

Focus on one aspect of the breath.
a. The movement of air in and out of the nostrils.
b. Or the lifting and falling of the belly.

Watch that one aspect of the breath.
a. When the mind wanders, gently bring it back to the breath and the aspect you have chosen to watch.
b. Do this as many times as you need to.
c. There is no such thing as a good or bad meditation. (Good and bad are judgments, events in the mind – just note them and go back to the breathing.)

Start with 5 to 10 minutes and then increase the time until you can sit for 30 minutes.”  Mark Hyman, MD, facebook@drmarkhyman

Meditation Stops Resistant Thought

“That’s why so many of us teach meditation. Because when you stop thought, you stop resistant thought. When you stop resistant thought, then you let it in. That’s why we teach appreciation, because when you’re in appreciation, you are not in the mode of resistance, and you are letting it in.”
—Abraham
Excerpted from the workshop: North Los Angeles, CA on August 13, 2001

 

Wayne Dyer on Meditation

“Perhaps the most elusive space for human beings to enter is the gap between our thoughts. When you attempt to clear your mind, usually the act of clearing your mind only leads to more thoughts.

After all, thinking about what it would be like to be in the gap between our thoughts…is just another thought. Have you observed the following at times? Usually we stay on one thought until another one takes over, leaving very little unused space. The spaces between our thoughts are brief, and seldom does anyone wonder what it would be like to have fewer thoughts, or what we’d find in the void between them. But the paradox is obvious. 

Rather than expanding that space between, we move on to more thoughts. So why should we concern ourselves with entering the elusive gap?

Because everything emerges from that gap — the void.

We get an inkling of why the gap between our thoughts is such a vital concept to grasp, and yes, to enter regularly, when we consider the following:

The place of “no thing” is where all that is “some thing” comes from.

We need the void of nothing in order to create something.

Habit 1: Observe the Silence Between the Notes

“It’s the silence between the notes that makes the music” is an ancient Zen observation, which clarifies this idea. Imagine, if you can, music without pauses or silent spaces. Without the pauses for silence, the music would be one infinitely long note of noise. What we call music would be impossible.

This is true for all of creation, including the world that you wish to create for yourself. Creativity itself is a function of the gap.

St. Paul said, “… that which is seen, hath not come from that which doth appear.” No, indeed, it comes from the emptiness, the void, the space in between. In the silence between our thoughts, we find the possibilities of creative genius and spiritual awareness that elude us when we remain attentive only to our run-on thoughts.

Habit 2: Think of Thoughts as Things

Think of thoughts as things, which need silence between them to attract and manifest new forms into life. Two bricks can’t be fastened together to form a wall without a space for mortar. The mortar itself is comprised of particles, which require spaces to allow them to become mortar.

Our thoughts are the same.

They require a pause between them to give life to what they represent separately. This is the gap, and it’s a space that allows us to build, create, imagine, and manifest all that we’re capable of creating with those thoughts.

Habit 3: Observe Your Thoughts, But Don’t Describe Them

It’s a place of ecstatic peace and serenity. I can’t describe the gap.

Why? Because to do so is to leave the gap and revert to what is either in back of it or in front of it. I know the bliss I feel when I’m in the gap, but the moment I contemplate that bliss, I’m out of the gap. I think of the gap as God’s house, since God is the omnipresent, invisible force that is in all of creation.

Habit 4: Dissolve Your Boundaries

In every drop of human protoplasm, there’s a “future-pull” that allow the physical journey to progress. The entire material-world journey is all in that microscopic drop of a seedling called our conception. It came from the no-where, shows up in no-where, and is heading back to no-where.

It’s all a question of spacing.

There’s something analogous with our thoughts as well. Within us is the almost unfathomable power to enter the gap between our thoughts, where we can commune silently with God and bring to life the same creativity that we see in the world of nature — of which we’re an integral component.

That’s right.

We’re just as much a part of the miraculously creative panorama of nature as the flowers, the sunsets, the seedlings turning into palm trees, the changing of the seasons, and everything else. It’s being outside of the gap, and listening only to the ego that keeps us from living at the level of being able to manifest.”

From “Getting in the Gap” by Wayne Dyer

Tenzin Palmo: On Meditation

Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo’s teaching on meditation is to the point and very relatable. Her clear step by step explanations are really helpful because they examine the methodology of meditation such as quieting the mind, best postures and your focal point. Excellent tips!  Patience, perseverance, and relaxation are needed in meditation.