Meditation

"You just have to knock on the door. I was lucky to find meditation. It’s all within. Understand what you are. It’s a matter of turning your consciousness inward in order to then realize that God is in there, and then you can see him outside too. It’s just a shift in attitude, really."  ~George Harrison

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"Meditation is not what you think. You sit in absolute silence and your mind starts going over all your movies. During that process, you become so familiar with the scripts you keep in your life that you end up getting sick of them. Then you realize that the person you think you are is nothing but a complicated script you spend most of your energy on. After a more thorough examination, you discover your personality disgusts you. And that’s because it’s not really you. If you feel terrified enough about that personality, you spontaneously allow it to fade away. And then, if you’re lucky, you can experience yourself without the distortion of that personality."  ~Leonard Cohen

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“To me the important thing is not to offer any specific hope of betterment but, by offering an imagined but persuasive alternative reality, to dislodge my mind, and so the reader’s mind, from the lazy, timorous habit of thinking that the way we live now is the only way people can live. It is that inertia that allows the institutions of injustice to continue unquestioned.”  ~Ursula K. Le Guin

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"In our everyday lives, when we aren't attentive and mindful, we very often get swept up in a chain of associations and lose touch with what's happening in the here and now. The same thing can happen during meditation. Our objective when we meditate is to know what we're thinking as we're thinking it, and to know what we're feeling as we're feeling it instead of mentally ending up on another continent, wondering how we got there. When waves of memories, plans, and random thinking seem overwhelming, focus on breathing softly without forcing the breath. This will begin to settle your mind."  ~Sharon Salzberg

The River Must Flow

"You know those nights when sleep eludes you, and the harder you try to sleep the less you can. You are trying to force yourself to be peaceful, and you feel the resistance inside of you. This same sort of resistance is felt by many people during their first experiences with meditation. The more they try to calm themselves, the more restless they become… This resistance is born out of our very efforts to be peaceful. The effort itself becomes oppressive. Our thoughts and feelings flow like a river. If we try to stop the flow of a river, we will meet the resistance of the water. It is better to flow with it, and then we may be able to guide it in ways we want it to go. We must not attempt to halt it.

"Keep in mind that the river must flow and that we are going to follow it. We must be aware of every little stream that joins it. We must be aware of all the thoughts, feelings, and sensations that arise in us - of their birth, duration, and disappearance. Do you see? Now the resistance begins to disappear. The river of perceptions is still flowing, but no longer in darkness. It is now flowing in the sunlight of awareness. To keep this sun always shining inside of us, illuminating each rivulet, each pebble, each bend in the river, is the practice of meditation. To practice meditation is, first of all, to observe and to follow these details."  ~Thich Nhat Hanh

The Noise In Our Heads

"Time goes by very quickly; one day we may be surprised to discover our life is nearing its end, and we don’t know what we’ve done with all the time we’ve lived. Maybe we’ve wasted entire days in anger, fear, and jealousy. We rarely offer ourselves the time and space to consider: Am I doing what I most want to be doing with my life? Do I even know what that is? The noise in our heads and all around us drowns out the 'still, small voice' inside. We are so busy doing 'something' that we rarely take a moment to look deeply and check in with our deepest desires."  ~Thich Nhat Hanh

18th Century Hippy

Too lazy
Ryōkan Taigu
from The Zen Poems of Ryokan, translation ©2014

Too lazy to be ambitious,
I let the world take care of itself.
Ten days’ worth of rice in my bag;
a bundle of twigs by the fireplace.
Why chatter about delusion and enlightenment?
Listening to the night rain on my roof,
I sit comfortably, with both legs stretched out.

So Much Easier

 

"Meditation is so much easier than most people think: Whatever you experience, as long as you are aware of what’s going on, is meditation!" ~Mingyur Rinpoche

Swap

Excerpted from Fates Worse Than Death by Kurt Vonnegut, ©1991:

I was willing to believe back in the 1960s that deep meditation as practiced in India might be a way to achieve happiness and wisdom which had not been previously available to people of European and African stock. The Beatles also believed this for a while. I doubt that the late, great (I mean it) Abbie Hoffman ever believed it. He wasn't about to give up his frenzied sense of humor, the sanest thing in this country during the Vietnam War, in exchange for personal, inner peace.

I would have been glad to make that swap.

Two Quotes about Circles

"People often say, ‘Meditation is all very well, but what does it have to do with my life?’ What it has to do with your life is that perhaps through this simple practice of paying attention – giving loving-kindness to your speech and your actions and the movements of your mind – you begin to realize that you’re always standing in the middle of a sacred circle, and that’s your whole life. This room is not the sacred circle. Wherever you go for the rest of your life, you’re always in the middle of the universe and the circle is always around you. Everyone who walks up to you has entered that sacred space, and it’s not an accident. Whatever comes into the space is there to teach you."  ~Pema Chödron (via)

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"Remember: no matter where you go, there you are."  ~Buckaroo Banzai (via)

Alternative States

In her book Meditation for Beginners: Techniques for Awareness, Mindfulness & Relaxation (©2002),  Dr. Stephanie Clement muses a bit about altered states of mind:

In the sixties, we thought an altered state of mind was something induced by drugs. Not that drugs are anything new; alcoholic beverages alter one's consciousness, and they have been around since about the beginning of recorded history or longer. Opiates have been used for both medicinal and recreational purposes since the first century or earlier. Coffee and chocolate alter the brain's chemistry, and thus the state of consciousness. Some of us are affected by the weather.

With the introduction of Hinduism and Buddhism in the West, we have incorporated some of the basic principles of mind-altering practices into our daily language. We joke about good or bad karma (a Sanskrit term). Whe we say, "Give me space," oftentimes what we really mean is "Give me both the time and space I need to think."

Now, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, we alter our minds with television, the Internet, and electronic games. Using technology, we can enter a virtual reality and experience something very like the real deal. We use aromatherapy to soothe our bodies and minds. We use headphones to shut out ambient reality and to create a different one for ourselves. We have dozens of ways to tune in, tune out, and turn on.

Actually, we enter an altered state of consciousness very frequently.

Anchored

Excerpted from Invitation to Meditation by Howard Cohn, © 2006:

In reality, you never leave the present moment. You're always here. You're never not here. You only imagine that you leave the present moment.

You are anchored to the present moment in three different ways. One, by your body, which contains the five senses. Whenever you feel as if you've slipped away from the present moment, allow each of the senses to reconnect with your immediate surroundings. Allow yourself to be immersed in the sights, textures, sounds, scents, and tastes of the present moment. As you do so-- again, by simply noticing-- you are aware that you are alive in the present moment.

Two, you are anchored here by your breath. With each inhale, and with each exhale, you sink more deeply into the present moment. Inhaling, you expand. Exhaling, you release. Inhaling, you experience the breath. Exhaling, you let it go. Inhaling, you settle into the body's natural stillness. Exhaling, you gently harmonize your body and mind. Inhaling and exhaling, you are aware that you are alive in the present moment.

Three, you are anchored here by your awareness of your thoughts. Notice them as you would notice the sights and sounds around you. Notice them as you would notice a cloud passing through the sky. Notice that certain emotions may arise with certain thoughts. Don't stop them. Don't be afraid of them. Don't react to them. Just notice them. Let them come and go like changing weather patterns. And in doing so, may you realize that they are just thoughts and emotions-- nothing more. And in doing so, may you realize that you are still here-- still anchored in the present moment.

Five

In this excerpt from the article "Teaching Mindfulness to Young People" in the September 2016 issue of The Lions Roar, Ofuso Jones-Quartery (aka Born I Music) describes a simple exercise he uses to teach meditation to young people:

"Finger Breathing"

In this exercise, the students hold out their left hand and, with their right pointer finger, trace around each left-hand finger.  Each time they trace upward they breathe in; each time they trace downward the breathe out.  By the time they've done the whole left hand they've taken five focused breaths, then they trace in reverse to make it ten.  This is something they can practice discreetly by putting their left hands on their laps and tracing and breathing at any point in the day when they need to focus, come back to the moment, or relax.

(extra)Ordinary Moments

Excerpt from “Bowing to Each Other” (Shambhala Sun, November 2015) by Brother Phap Hai:

Recently, a practitioner asked me about the benefits of meditation.  I knew that she was hoping I would talk about dazzling lights, profound insights, or psychic powers.  Perhaps to her disappointment, I shared with her my growing sense of appreciation for the ordinary moments of my life-- a cup of tea in the morning, warm sunshine, laughter.  Before, I had taken these things as a given rather than a gift.  Now as I practice more, my experience of them has become richer, deeper, and more meaningful.

Do you have time?

"When people say they don’t have time to meditate, I ask them, ‘Do you have time to feel like shit?’"  ~Gabrielle Bernstein

Meditation

(via IvaShiva)