Category: Meditation

Stability

89 hours.  I have guided yoga classes for 89 hours now.  That’s not a lot, I know.  But there’s a groove that is growing within me, I can feel my voice leading the group.  Even as the class size and participants rotate and ebb and flow, I feel stable.  I have regular classes and they are set and happen the same time every week.  I feel stable.

As much as I practise asanas for myself and others I am coming to rely on meditations, or moments of meditation, to calm me through any personal doubts in being a teacher.  After being an Asana practitioner for decades, using the postures to clear my head and stretch my body for peace, these days the meditation side of yoga is blossoming.  Sitting in meditation goes further to focus my desires.  Sitting in meditation has brought much of this stability into being.  I am finding the more I let loose my thoughts on what ought to be, the more what is is what I thought it ought to be.  By letting go with my thoughts, more of what I expect arrives.  Every wonderful little thing feels like a gift these days.  Meditation is allowing me to see it that way.  Gift from life.

I have some favorite meditations, things I have picked up over the years.  I should record some here.  Something to refer to.

Do You Have a Thought or Does Your Thought Have You?

My home-base studio hosted a Gratitude Practice today.  Donation only.  The class was longer than usual.  The announcement made it sound that we would be practicing meditation, a gratefulness meditation focus, as the key component for today’s gathering.  I’m not sure that happened.  Regardless, the studio was packed.  We were making spaces where there wasn’t any space. I was feeling the community of it.

Four of the studio teachers tag teamed the session.  The meditation teacher, that’s all she hosts classes for anymore, did the final Savasana.  I did not get to take her classes while she was still teaching yoga classes.  She was the studio owner in fact, when I first started attending this studio.  Her classes just weren’t at times that I could make it.  Now she hosts meditation groups.  I so want to attend, and still they are not at times that I can make it.  Today was the first opportunity to take advantage of her mature instructor style.  I so appreciate a seasoned teacher.  There is so much to learn.

Savasana was not longer than usual.  I didn’t even reach that meditative state I am finding to be common place these days.  But her voice and some of her words still brought me mentally, to my knees in personal awareness.

As we settled into our asanas, and I could hear the rustling of people in the room so I was not the only one fidgeting into place.  Our meditation coach talked us down from our active minds.  Mid-way through her calming address she said, “What’s on your mind?  What are you thinking?  Do you have a thought, or does your thought have you?”  Right there all my thoughts turned to imaginary pixels and fell from whatever picture I had in my mind, just fell away, no trace.  No thought.  It was magic.  It was what I crave from meditation, that loss of thought.  The disintegration, the vaporization, thought never existed, or better…I was beyond thought.

Meditation has become my new love.  Allowing the lull in thought, to become unencumbered by thought, allows me to feel fresh, light, grounded and vibrant again.  There’s beauty sleep, which is a real thing, and there’s meditation, which is as wholly beneficial as sleep and only takes ten to twenty minutes.  So yes, the question is pertinent.  Do I have a thought, or does my thought have me?

While there was not direct instruction to set gratefulness or gratitude as our intention, other that at the beginning of class (grateful to be coming together, grateful to be warm, housed, with family and community) The Savasana did not come with additional instructions to be grateful – I was allowed to swim in the plasma ooze of the universe, thoughtless and flowing.

That such a thought would dispel my thoughts.  I find this phenomenal.

Pause and Be Happy

I have a quote attributed to Apollonia, who I thought was a Greek god or ancient Greek philosopher – but I can’t find a reference to directly.  Apollonia said, “Now and then it is good to pause in our pursuit of happiness and just be happy.”

After years, decades really, of seeking happiness it is nice to come across a quote I can live with.  All these years of pursuing personal growth has come down to this wondrous thought.   I can stop seeking how to feel better, I can relax from the drive to be better, to motivate myself to achieve happiness, the searching to find that ‘more’ that will finally enliven me to higher purpose and ultimate sustainable happiness and I can just allow myself to be happy.

“It is good to pause in our pursuit…and just be happy.”  All is right with the world, just as it is.

Yes, I can go on to pursue a greater happiness, but I am relieved to know, I can just be happy now.  It is not in the future, it is now.  And now is right now, and in a moment it will again be right now. This cycle feeds on itself and I find myself naturally, organically in the now, in the happy.

Happiness is a funny word.  It is light and airy.  Yet, as I find myself in the happy it is deep and abiding, all encompassing.  I feel it rich and fulfilling.

I just wanted to share that quote.  Because it feels good.  And in allowing ourselves to feel happy the world can be right. And we continue to breathe.

Prayer is Not Meditation

Let’s get serious here for a moment.

There is a connective tissue of desire and receiving.  When we ask, we must open ourselves to receive.  Without the opening to receive, all our desires stay out there without the path to us.  There is an almost (but not the same as) a tangible tissue that opens during meditation that allows our desires to come in to us, we receive in meditation.

We ask in prayer.  Prayer changes us, not the circumstances.  We may be praying for someone else, but ultimately it is ourselves that are changed.   By changing us we may now change our circumstances.

What ever it is in life – Faith must, must, must, absolutely must come first.  With faith all things are possible.  That is not a cliché.  That is real. “Everything you can imagine is real.” -Picasso.  Faith IS the molecule, the element, which carries imagination into reality.

Diasaku Ikeda – “The entire universe exists within us.” It is all available within us – all the time, at any time  .  Cellular and macro physics – e v e r y t h i n g  is within us.  Each and every one of us.  It is up to us through our desire, through our faith and our absolute knowing to pull this existence up to come into being.  Everything is available within each of us.

Cher said, “I’ve been poor and I’ve been rich.  Rich is better.”  In my own life, this is true.  I may not be rich, but I am no longer poor.  This change was through me, not from the outside.  It was affected by me, in prayer AND in meditation.  I am just regular Josephine Schmoe.  I’m nobody special, but I am witnessing a transformation in my life every day that over the course of a year is noticeable to those around me.  Over the course of the last decade, I am not sure I am recognizable from where I was ten years ago.  And all I am doing is getting quiet with myself every day.  I am meditating.

Nichiren Daishonin – “An ordinary person is a Buddha, and a Buddha is an ordinary person.” God is truly sitting next to us on the bus, regardless of how he smells.  God is One of Us.  Thank you, Joan Osborne

Still prayer is not meditation.  Prayer is not a half-hearted longing or a wish or a plea, either.  At its core, prayer is a personal vow to make something happen.  And a strong prayer that fills one with resolve is the personal vow to make something happen without fail.  If only we could remember that our future self already knows everything we pray for is already here.  It is already present.  It is now.  In prayer our present self is asking for that connection to the future self, and this is a beautiful by-product of prayer.

Meditation is the connective tissue between prayer and results.  Meditation is the opening, the emptying, the invitation to arrive, to come in. Meditation facilitates the cycle of desire and receiving.

Prayer is ourselves opening up to god to share our most heartfelt desires, and hurts and sympathies.  Prayer cries with god, the source, and rejoices with source. Prayer is our communication with god.  Meditation is the communication of god with us.  Meditation is the receiving mode on the tuner.  We have one mouth and two ears, but we sure talk a lot.  In Meditation we are opening our spiritual ears, and closing our mouths.

I have been practising buddhist prayer for well over thirty years.  Life is still ups and downs, I felt good for having a mode of expression to  air my frustrations.  It was not until I added the meditation – straight up, no bells, no whistles meditation – every day for the last three years that my life has become filled with the rewards of my dreams.

When I yoga, I am not in moving meditation.  I am not in prayer either.  I am firmly in my body.  I am here, in this body, just as it is, right now.  This is what I have to work with.  I breathe and open my lungs.  I rejoice with the infinite and sacred pockets of humanity that reside within me.  I find myself rejoicing how good I feel.  I open my mind to consider the parts of me that may not feel good today; it is only for today.  Every day I feel different.  No two days are the same.  I appreciate and rejoice in the variety.  My meditation is only seated, calm, considered meditation.  My prayer is only seated, calm considered prayer.   Yoga is not my meditation.  It is not my prayer.  It is my humanity as I continue to breathe.

Corpse Pose Rememberance

For the new year I went to a new-to-me yoga studio in Tacoma.  I truly enjoyed the experience.  It was a wonderful way to start my year.  I found it challenging, but not too much.  The other older woman there was able to do more than I.  Life is comparative and I can’t help but apply that to my yoga practice as well. Her abilities give me something to work toward.   The young ladies next to me were not able to keep up with me.  This gives me something to be proud of.  The instructor was knowledgeable and situationally aware of all the levels of practioners in his studio.  I tried things I’ve not tried before.  I held postures far longer than I have asked others to hold postures for.  In fact my arms hurt from the warrior pose.  It has been a long time since my arms have hurt in Warrior.

At the end of the session we worked our breathing techniques and I always appreciate a strong Pranayama practice for days afterward.  Finally at the end of our Corpse Pose remembrance the instructor rang-sang a deep Buddhist bell.

He gonged lightly once.  I was delighted to hear the tone of my own beliefs outside of my Gongyo practice.  Then he rang the bell repeatedly, growing stronger until the reverb flowed into to the last tone and I was carried mentally into remembrance and reverence for the departed.  My eyes grew teary and my smile peeled my face open in joy.  The instructor started the mallet singing around the bell rim and the solid sound reminded me that I am of the earth and not the other side.  As the tones echoed around the studio I felt myself checking in with my body.  Checking in that all functions are good.  Checking in with the muscles, the cells, the skin.  And the ringing stopped.  I heard the padding feet of the instructor leaving the room.  I rose from the pose and I am still filled with joy.

As I checked in with my body I found that my body responded as a much younger bady than it has in many years.  I do want to do another mental body scan this weekend.  I to feel that same openness in my trunk, my core.  I also would like to scan my esophagus and digestive track as this has caused me discomfort for several years now.

I am thrilled to find this studio and this teacher/instructor.  I will enjoy returning here.

Influence

Meditation is not a prayer.  Meditation is not an asking for anything.  It is a space, an internal space to get clear.  It’s a space an internal space to catch your breath.  I can’t think of a single person who hasn’t told me they are “too busy” and all they want is a moment to catch their breath.

This last month I have been doing fifteen minutes of meditation every day.  There was a week there when these sessions were not getting results.  I wasn’t feeling the love.  This week though I was reminded to add back in the meditative practice of requesting to visit with the divine.  And oh, how she has come in with a to my meditation – warm and thrilling.  In meditation, always ask for the divine to touch you, join you, look upon you.  The warmth of this love is unsurpassed in its wholeness.

I am in love with life.  I am happy.  Every day.  And yeah, not everything goes right, but it no longer seems to matter.  I adjust my view and everything is aligned again.

I admit Abraham and Esther and Jerry Hicks have a lot to do with this current crazy, happy, love feeling.  I give them and their entire support team (family, loved ones, co-workers, you name it) a ton of credit for my good mood.  There is magic in meditation.  Abraham and Esther are proof.  And we humans love our proof.

Before Abraham and the Hicks, I reveled in the Seth Materials, I ate up spiritual teachings of Wayne Dyer, Marianne Williamson, Gary Zukav, Shakti Gawain, Benjamin Hoff, the Lotus and Yoga Sutras, the Bible, the Bhagavad Gita; you name it I was infusing it into my brain waves.  I eat up TedTalks for breakfast, and enjoy the light fare of Oprah and Deepak – grazing all day long on these delights.  I do and have for a long time surrounded myself with soulful awakening ideology.  All of them are a part of me.

I can’t hold all these thoughts in for myself.  While I want to write them out, share them out there in the universe of already stated knowledge, I don’t want to be just more blather.  Of course I want to make a difference.  We all do, each of us separately want to be the difference in our lives and for those around us.  Otherwise we wouldn’t be poking in each other’s business all the time and offering advice no one wants to hear.  And here I am not sure this is advice I offer, but another point of view.

I love that Source is here to guide me.  I love that I get to stretch my ears to hear and to allow this divine love to flow through me.  May this be the growth we all need and crave and know to be real and right.  May this process be delightful and energizing for each of us that has found our way here as we continue to breathe.

For Starters

I have decided to stay home tonight and write rather than head out for yoga.

I want these posting to be relevant, well-written, insightful and I want to reach those that want to be reached.  This blog, I have been thinking, is to be a yoga teacher primer.  Maybe.   As a newly minted yoga teacher I want to record the journey.  This is the record of my journey.

I love me some yoga.  And meditation is crazy goodness.  I swear, at this time, fifteen minutes of meditation is my new lover.  I am constantly on the look out for a fifteen minute slot to sit in meditation.  And it is sweet surrender when I do.  I am happier, more secure, and confident with myself when I have meditated.

I have heard yoga called the moving meditation, the prayer in motion.  And yes, I have experienced this.  And it IS divine.  It is a full body source awareness.  It is an inner focus on my external body.  It is love, it is divine love seeping into every joint, ligament and blood cell as they are moving and flowing in this wonderfully mundane life.

What I really want to get at is, my goal in meditation is to stop thinking and then to connect with the divine.  My goal in yoga is to allow my body the motion it deserves, and then IT calms down too.

Buddhism lead me here.  Wait, let’s start earlier. Christianity led me to Buddhism.  Buddhism led me to yoga and yoga enforced meditation.  But just to be clear – prayer and meditation are super close to each other.  They are not the same.

While we can contemplate the words of the masters, we can also contemplate no thing.  Contemplating no thing may actually be a more expedient means to our sustained happiness.  It is for me – feel free to choose your path.

Chanting in an ancient unintelligible language actually helped to clear my mind better than focusing on words in my own language.  I kept getting in my own way.  To chant in a dead language and focus on the sounds of the syllables and vowels allowed my head to empty and my prayers to become clear.  My prayers were my heart talking.  My heart speaks more plainly than my mouth ever has.  Things happened, and prayers became answered.  My friend tells me I am very good at manifesting things.  And it is true, most of what I have wanted has come to pass.  I may not be requesting very big things, but I have come to know happiness.  That is pretty huge.

We all strive for happiness.  I’m sorry we strive; happiness is.  Happiness is in recognition; recognition of happiness.  Sustainability is huge.  I myself was not clear that happiness is sustainable.  But it is.  It is sustainable when it permeates everything one holds dear.   I can soak in happiness; steep in happiness; wallow in happiness, speak in happiness and it is sustainable as we expect happiness.  We become mired in happiness and it’s a wonderful place to be mired.  If I am going to be stuck – let it be in happiness.

I have been practicing yoga since I was nineteen.  To gain the designation to be a yoga teacher/instructor/guide is such a thrill.  While I work on my personal yoga, my personal satisfaction and my own awareness, I was able to legitimize my guidance as a yoga instructor.  And a yoga instructor is a whole new journey.  I continue to breathe.

Boy, I hope this blog doesn’t blather on  and on too often.  I just want me some yoga.

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