Last week in my Joy of Living practice I meditated on my sense of self. I noticed how much it changed depending on what I was doing, how I was being. How my sense of self felt strong and wise when I'm sitting with a belly full of chi. How I felt powerless and vulnerable after a fight with my son. How I felt competent after completing a cleaning ritual. How I felt protected by the routines I've established with Ben to get things back on track after an argument has signaled to us that something has unravelled.
Each self feels like a different person almost. Each self doesn't last, though these selves return like breath. Each self is a reminder that there is not unified permanent self that I can hate, or take pride in.
I returned to a practice that I haven't done for a while, loving the self that keeps me on track. Taking time to thank that self that gets me out running, reminds me to do the things I don't always feel like doing, but that as a whole make me feel safe, well and strong for others.
Next month I am meditating on time. I remember from my course this summer that the combination of selflessness and timelessness will bring that transformative feeling of no agency. That place where I am watching life as though it has the energy of a darting fish. As I sit with this transformative energy, I have no idea what direction my life will take. And I more often than not like that feeling. It's the adventure of being still.
Showing posts with label grounded energy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label grounded energy. Show all posts
Sunday, December 21, 2014
Tuesday, June 10, 2014
New Post
This morning was a watershed moment in my meditation practice.
It started with what are now the basics. A dedication and focusing of my intentions to meditate for the well being of everyone. A moment of open awareness where I rest my mind with the barest possible effort on the sounds that surround me.
I've been doing The Mirror meditation, which has resulted in a sense of being alone in a room, just me, the furniture, my bare awareness, of the furniture, and of my baseline discomfort--or as Mingyur Rinpoche calls it, "neuronal gossip."
After a minute or two, my awareness of sound began to sink into my throat, into an awareness of my vocal chords and how they have been shaped by the routine verbal abuse that surrounded me when I was young. How my voice in my head has so often mimicked and iterated that abuse, mostly towards myself, too often towards others. As the suffering of those body memories began to dissolve, I started to feel the natural compassion in my heart, the desire to be free of this conditioning and habits that have arisen as a result of that conditioning.
Suddenly I was angry. But it was a good anger, a healthy anger, a self protective anger that did not have to be abuse, but could be a healthy assertion of my right to experience sustained love and joy. I could feel this strong, communicative anger rising into my throat. I could feel the promise and potential of this new confidence.
I could also feel myself shifting in my mediation practice from a desire to experience a state of being, a place of calm, an altered state of consciousness, to a desire to experience a process, a purification, or alchemization of my ordinary experience. Not every moment had to be peace. There could be authentic peace, even in anger.
And then it started. The noise. My landladies had picked this week to replace the fire escape. They are responsible, wonderful landladies, so the spiral staircase to be replaced was far from dangerous. It was, merely old and rusty, and noisy. My neighbours who are young use it often, especially in the middle of the night when they are coming home from parties, or bars. I can hear the vibrations of their half drunken ascents. It is a good thing that it is being replaced.
The workers had arrived with high power drills to bust up the cement to sink the posts of the new, shiny, solid black fire escape. Damn, I thought, for a moment, because my first instinct was to move, or end my mediation. I was having such a good meditation, really making progress. And then I didn't move.
I sat and listened to their Quebecois banter about the technical aspect of the project ahead. And sat some more, as the drilling started, and sat even longer as the drilling got louder and my entire apartment building shook from the vibrations.
I sat because it was so crystal clear to me what an amazing allegory this was for what was happening to me in this moment. There was the old cement like foundation of my mind, this way of seeing things that kept me in this endless recurring spiral going from one state to another, making progress, but never really getting anywhere, or so it felt. I was tired of this climb.
And now there was this new more solid spiral staircase. On this new staircase I would be thinking less about where I was, what I was seeing, or what I was hearing, and be happier to simply experience where I was, what I was seeing, and what I was hearing.
Suddenly this sound and the feel of this drilling changed from a disruptive force that I would have once fled from without giving it a second thought, to a deeply therapeutic process. By the end of the day there would be a new foundation, and a shiny new escape route, or entry point. And it was all because of these wonderful workers with their loud, awesome drills. I could feel this process at the deepest levels of my soul.
A good meditation became a great mediation, maybe one of the most memorable meditations of my meditation journey, because of noise. Because of how I was perceiving this sound, it was like the best sound in the world. In fact so good that by the end of the meditation I found myself enthusiastically looking forward to a week of hammering and drilling and metal work. (They have to replace the balconies too!)
I'm often hesitant to declare a meditation experience foundational. So many times I've written breathless accounts of states of being that I was sure meant that everything in my life would be better from now on in. And then I make another turn on the staircase and it feels like all I'm doing is looking back and not going anywhere.
But I'm yelling it from my balcony today. I've changed, and I will continue changing for the better, no matter how much every moment of the rest of my life may appear, on the surface, to be exactly the same.
It started with what are now the basics. A dedication and focusing of my intentions to meditate for the well being of everyone. A moment of open awareness where I rest my mind with the barest possible effort on the sounds that surround me.
I've been doing The Mirror meditation, which has resulted in a sense of being alone in a room, just me, the furniture, my bare awareness, of the furniture, and of my baseline discomfort--or as Mingyur Rinpoche calls it, "neuronal gossip."
After a minute or two, my awareness of sound began to sink into my throat, into an awareness of my vocal chords and how they have been shaped by the routine verbal abuse that surrounded me when I was young. How my voice in my head has so often mimicked and iterated that abuse, mostly towards myself, too often towards others. As the suffering of those body memories began to dissolve, I started to feel the natural compassion in my heart, the desire to be free of this conditioning and habits that have arisen as a result of that conditioning.
Suddenly I was angry. But it was a good anger, a healthy anger, a self protective anger that did not have to be abuse, but could be a healthy assertion of my right to experience sustained love and joy. I could feel this strong, communicative anger rising into my throat. I could feel the promise and potential of this new confidence.
I could also feel myself shifting in my mediation practice from a desire to experience a state of being, a place of calm, an altered state of consciousness, to a desire to experience a process, a purification, or alchemization of my ordinary experience. Not every moment had to be peace. There could be authentic peace, even in anger.
And then it started. The noise. My landladies had picked this week to replace the fire escape. They are responsible, wonderful landladies, so the spiral staircase to be replaced was far from dangerous. It was, merely old and rusty, and noisy. My neighbours who are young use it often, especially in the middle of the night when they are coming home from parties, or bars. I can hear the vibrations of their half drunken ascents. It is a good thing that it is being replaced.
The workers had arrived with high power drills to bust up the cement to sink the posts of the new, shiny, solid black fire escape. Damn, I thought, for a moment, because my first instinct was to move, or end my mediation. I was having such a good meditation, really making progress. And then I didn't move.
I sat and listened to their Quebecois banter about the technical aspect of the project ahead. And sat some more, as the drilling started, and sat even longer as the drilling got louder and my entire apartment building shook from the vibrations.
I sat because it was so crystal clear to me what an amazing allegory this was for what was happening to me in this moment. There was the old cement like foundation of my mind, this way of seeing things that kept me in this endless recurring spiral going from one state to another, making progress, but never really getting anywhere, or so it felt. I was tired of this climb.
And now there was this new more solid spiral staircase. On this new staircase I would be thinking less about where I was, what I was seeing, or what I was hearing, and be happier to simply experience where I was, what I was seeing, and what I was hearing.
Suddenly this sound and the feel of this drilling changed from a disruptive force that I would have once fled from without giving it a second thought, to a deeply therapeutic process. By the end of the day there would be a new foundation, and a shiny new escape route, or entry point. And it was all because of these wonderful workers with their loud, awesome drills. I could feel this process at the deepest levels of my soul.
A good meditation became a great mediation, maybe one of the most memorable meditations of my meditation journey, because of noise. Because of how I was perceiving this sound, it was like the best sound in the world. In fact so good that by the end of the meditation I found myself enthusiastically looking forward to a week of hammering and drilling and metal work. (They have to replace the balconies too!)
I'm often hesitant to declare a meditation experience foundational. So many times I've written breathless accounts of states of being that I was sure meant that everything in my life would be better from now on in. And then I make another turn on the staircase and it feels like all I'm doing is looking back and not going anywhere.
But I'm yelling it from my balcony today. I've changed, and I will continue changing for the better, no matter how much every moment of the rest of my life may appear, on the surface, to be exactly the same.
Sunday, February 24, 2013
My Energy Bank
The energy in my Tan Tien is beginning to stabilize. I feel it as a more reliable flow, accessible to me more easily. Like a bank with a steady flow of money.
This week I had an allegory that served me well. I imagined that the vitality in my gut was the equivalent of a billion dollars. A massive amount of energy and power, of security, excitement and freedom that was available to me at any point. All I had to do was to be aware of it. Whenever my monkey mind wandered off into another petty, or quotidian obsession, I would equate this with an indifferent decision to walk away from an easy billion dollars.
I will try to frame the decision to practice more like this throughout the week. I can watch T.V., another episode of S.U.V. or some really tired, stressful show. Or I can have my billion dollars and all the feelings that go with that. All the feelings of security, of potential for unlimited generosity. Of unlimited adventure.
It's an interesting exercise, thinking about how to spend this billion dollars.
But the best part is reconnecting with that vitality and confidence that happens when my Tan Tien is full and functional.
Deep comfort, security, well being have never been things I've valued. Maybe because I've never known them, or known that I had a right to want these things. Or that there was the possibility of having these things.
I knew that it was possible for other people to have them. But when I have this deep, core energy, I know that it's possible for me to have it.
I'm aware of what is available to me, this deep, deep peace.
This morning I had the thought that I'm kind of like an energy farmer, cultivating, tending accumulating this energy.
But I kind of like the idea of feeling like an energy banker. Having all this physical and spiritual wealth that I can use for others, to connect them and to enrich their lives.
Okay, maybe that feels a little grandiose. But the main thing is I want to enjoy it.
This week I had an allegory that served me well. I imagined that the vitality in my gut was the equivalent of a billion dollars. A massive amount of energy and power, of security, excitement and freedom that was available to me at any point. All I had to do was to be aware of it. Whenever my monkey mind wandered off into another petty, or quotidian obsession, I would equate this with an indifferent decision to walk away from an easy billion dollars.
I will try to frame the decision to practice more like this throughout the week. I can watch T.V., another episode of S.U.V. or some really tired, stressful show. Or I can have my billion dollars and all the feelings that go with that. All the feelings of security, of potential for unlimited generosity. Of unlimited adventure.
It's an interesting exercise, thinking about how to spend this billion dollars.
But the best part is reconnecting with that vitality and confidence that happens when my Tan Tien is full and functional.
Deep comfort, security, well being have never been things I've valued. Maybe because I've never known them, or known that I had a right to want these things. Or that there was the possibility of having these things.
I knew that it was possible for other people to have them. But when I have this deep, core energy, I know that it's possible for me to have it.
I'm aware of what is available to me, this deep, deep peace.
This morning I had the thought that I'm kind of like an energy farmer, cultivating, tending accumulating this energy.
But I kind of like the idea of feeling like an energy banker. Having all this physical and spiritual wealth that I can use for others, to connect them and to enrich their lives.
Okay, maybe that feels a little grandiose. But the main thing is I want to enjoy it.
Sunday, February 17, 2013
Living from my gut
This week I've been feeling the tingling from my Tan Tien re-generating. My lower body is starting to feel more solid. I have have felt myself as a very big cell of energy with the nucleus at the Tan Tien. When I get to this stage the purpose of my life is so clear, to just build and live from this energy.
I have nothing to lose from living this way, and everything to gain. I sleep better, I make better decisions. I connect better with other people. I write better.
So why is there this "but." Why is the undermining energy so much stronger. Why do I keep cycling back to this point of crisis. Or does it just feel stronger? I'm here aren't I? This journal has continued and been a foundation for me to bring me back again and again and again to this practice. And every I return, I realize how much I've still retained in my body and psyche.
I guess it feels stronger because I'm so attached to it. If I could accomplish the trick of making the undermining energy the foundation of my practice than the undermining energy would be the fuel that drives my practice. At which point the healthier, more nurturing energy would grow naturally.
And this time it will stay.
Tan Tien, purpose, meaning, energy, habit
I have nothing to lose from living this way, and everything to gain. I sleep better, I make better decisions. I connect better with other people. I write better.
So why is there this "but." Why is the undermining energy so much stronger. Why do I keep cycling back to this point of crisis. Or does it just feel stronger? I'm here aren't I? This journal has continued and been a foundation for me to bring me back again and again and again to this practice. And every I return, I realize how much I've still retained in my body and psyche.
I guess it feels stronger because I'm so attached to it. If I could accomplish the trick of making the undermining energy the foundation of my practice than the undermining energy would be the fuel that drives my practice. At which point the healthier, more nurturing energy would grow naturally.
And this time it will stay.
Tan Tien, purpose, meaning, energy, habit
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
From adventure to journey
When you're lost, life is always an adventure.
For most of my life I've been lost in a growth forest of painful, stressful memories. Veering around in part because I was raised in emotional chaos, and maybe because of a neurological bias towards poor co-ordination.
Adventures are great. But more and more I want to turn this into a journey. Find something of an endpoint, a home, where I can gather strength and power and resources.
I now have a lifetime habit of early morning standing. Sometimes I don't stand as long, or with as much dedication as I would wish. But I know that I don't and will never feel right anymore if I abandon this practice.
The time has come to take the power I gather from this practice and use it to get the things I need out of life: a more steady supply of income, a more focussed sense of what my contribution to society will be. And a more entrenched, internalized locus of power.
Believing in my ability to shape my life has to be the central habit in my life. The habit I feed, so that this nagging feeling of being lost and out of control gradually begins to dry up.
For most of my life I've been lost in a growth forest of painful, stressful memories. Veering around in part because I was raised in emotional chaos, and maybe because of a neurological bias towards poor co-ordination.
Adventures are great. But more and more I want to turn this into a journey. Find something of an endpoint, a home, where I can gather strength and power and resources.
I now have a lifetime habit of early morning standing. Sometimes I don't stand as long, or with as much dedication as I would wish. But I know that I don't and will never feel right anymore if I abandon this practice.
The time has come to take the power I gather from this practice and use it to get the things I need out of life: a more steady supply of income, a more focussed sense of what my contribution to society will be. And a more entrenched, internalized locus of power.
Believing in my ability to shape my life has to be the central habit in my life. The habit I feed, so that this nagging feeling of being lost and out of control gradually begins to dry up.
Monday, December 21, 2009
Being Dreamt
As the days where I'm standing first thing in the morning build, the energy builds and my realization that I am an energy that is dreaming me becomes clearer.
Okay, clear to me, but I realize that might be a little cryptic to somebody else. Here's what happens now when I meditate. I stand. I feel the energy starting to circulate in my legs, in my Tan Tien. It builds up in my spine and between my knees and hands. Then I hear my muse, the voice that instructs me in what to do while I'm standing. I tells me to stand with her a little bit behind my body and just observe. Observe the energy a it builds, as it becomes the ball that lifts my arms. As it begins to open up my chest, my upper back, my brain.
I just observe the energy. And sometimes that energy even starts to get a little funky with me, sending pleasurable, erotic feeling through my tummy. Yesterday I had a weird afternoon meditation where I remembered my first, very disappointing, sexual encounter. I remembered it. I surrounded it in this new energy and I let it go. I feel like I'm being cleaning out of sadness and anger and disappointment as I ally with this new, although it's always been there, concept of self.
Is this self-immolation? It doesn't feel like it. I feel stronger, sturdier when I'm allied with this energy. I have a clearer picture of what I need to do to bring well being into my life. I feel healthier, not manic or unsettled.
The more I do this, the more I am driven by this energy. The more I am driven by it, the better I feel. To be driven by wellbeing. That is the best way to live.
Okay, clear to me, but I realize that might be a little cryptic to somebody else. Here's what happens now when I meditate. I stand. I feel the energy starting to circulate in my legs, in my Tan Tien. It builds up in my spine and between my knees and hands. Then I hear my muse, the voice that instructs me in what to do while I'm standing. I tells me to stand with her a little bit behind my body and just observe. Observe the energy a it builds, as it becomes the ball that lifts my arms. As it begins to open up my chest, my upper back, my brain.
I just observe the energy. And sometimes that energy even starts to get a little funky with me, sending pleasurable, erotic feeling through my tummy. Yesterday I had a weird afternoon meditation where I remembered my first, very disappointing, sexual encounter. I remembered it. I surrounded it in this new energy and I let it go. I feel like I'm being cleaning out of sadness and anger and disappointment as I ally with this new, although it's always been there, concept of self.
Is this self-immolation? It doesn't feel like it. I feel stronger, sturdier when I'm allied with this energy. I have a clearer picture of what I need to do to bring well being into my life. I feel healthier, not manic or unsettled.
The more I do this, the more I am driven by this energy. The more I am driven by it, the better I feel. To be driven by wellbeing. That is the best way to live.
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Letting the energy do my thinking
The last week instead of assuming postures, I've been starting from the first position and letting the energy build and direct my body. At a certain point my muse told me to simply let this energy do my thinking for me. For a short while my thoughts stopped chatting and I was able to simply be in this energy.
I felt that very strong field of magnetic energy. It began to loosen my shoulders and go into my upper back. I started to shake a little, like a mini seizure. And then at one point it was like my body filled up like one of those snowmen balloons. I was just this energy being there.
I felt the urge to scream, and started fooling around with the idea of a mantra. Eventually it morphed into Yaweh. I am.
It's a hard, hard thing for me ego to accept that this. Just this standing in this field of energy is such a strong and important part of our evolution. But I know it is. And I know that my rewards for this are deep and enduring. To become this energy. To let it direct my life towards more loving, useful behaviour. To do this is to be secure in the knowledge that abundance is always available to me.
Now it's time to stop worrying.
I felt that very strong field of magnetic energy. It began to loosen my shoulders and go into my upper back. I started to shake a little, like a mini seizure. And then at one point it was like my body filled up like one of those snowmen balloons. I was just this energy being there.
I felt the urge to scream, and started fooling around with the idea of a mantra. Eventually it morphed into Yaweh. I am.
It's a hard, hard thing for me ego to accept that this. Just this standing in this field of energy is such a strong and important part of our evolution. But I know it is. And I know that my rewards for this are deep and enduring. To become this energy. To let it direct my life towards more loving, useful behaviour. To do this is to be secure in the knowledge that abundance is always available to me.
Now it's time to stop worrying.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Growing desire
Woke up an hour earlier than usual, so I ended up standing for almost two hours. I'm starting to feel the energy really grow again. And with that I'm starting to feel a deeper desire for the energy.
My desire for this renewal of chi has been mostly intellectual up until now. But today I felt a real craving in my heart for it. For the wonderful feeling I have known. A kind of nostalgia, a kind of desire for what you've always had. It's such a great feeling because it feels like such a real, solid desire than can always stay with you, not the ephemeral feeling of a fleeting desire. Or the pain of a bad habit.
This is true healthy desire, and it gives me faith that I'm on the right track.
My desire for this renewal of chi has been mostly intellectual up until now. But today I felt a real craving in my heart for it. For the wonderful feeling I have known. A kind of nostalgia, a kind of desire for what you've always had. It's such a great feeling because it feels like such a real, solid desire than can always stay with you, not the ephemeral feeling of a fleeting desire. Or the pain of a bad habit.
This is true healthy desire, and it gives me faith that I'm on the right track.
Friday, October 23, 2009
Heart brain
Two things. Two things happening today. This morning a very strong feeling of groundedness. I felt as solid as a mountain in my lower body. Haven't felt that in a while. It's an extremely comforting feeling, the sense that strength is coming from something other than the outer circumstances of your life, or I guess I mean, the cultural or economic circumstances. It is coming from something external though. I'm pretty sure, even if it feels like my brain is creating it. It's coming from the "cosmos." I guess. As you can see I'm not quite comfortable with that term. I'm not a New Agey person and I'm self conscious about using that terminology. And yet even if I'm not comfortable saying it, I do believe in it. How can I not? There is a cosmos. There is space out there and it's pretty powerful. Okay scratch that. Very powerful. Powerful beyond our imagination. I feel myself in the magnetic force of that power. It grows every day and it will become more intense.
The second thing. I read in The Way of Power yesterday that the energy of the cosmos enters through the heart. So I made a conscious effort to feel it there. And it felt good. Really good. Like I had stable, constant access to a powerful source of love, and that I just had to develop the practice everyday and that gradually the self hatred that I know permeates my soul, will have a weaker and weaker grip on me.
It doesn't want to let go. I can hear it, I can feel it. It is still stronger than my practice or any lovely feeling of connection to the universe that I have developed today. Or at least it feels like it is stronger.
It's not. Of course my little self hatred synapses, or paths in my brain that I've cultivated, are puny tiny barely alive little things compared to the energy in the universe and that love. But because they run my brain they feel bigger for the time being. I wonder how often I have to choose the consciousness of the universe over the chatter of my self-contempt before it loses power permanently. I wonder if that's possible. I hope so.
The second thing. I read in The Way of Power yesterday that the energy of the cosmos enters through the heart. So I made a conscious effort to feel it there. And it felt good. Really good. Like I had stable, constant access to a powerful source of love, and that I just had to develop the practice everyday and that gradually the self hatred that I know permeates my soul, will have a weaker and weaker grip on me.
It doesn't want to let go. I can hear it, I can feel it. It is still stronger than my practice or any lovely feeling of connection to the universe that I have developed today. Or at least it feels like it is stronger.
It's not. Of course my little self hatred synapses, or paths in my brain that I've cultivated, are puny tiny barely alive little things compared to the energy in the universe and that love. But because they run my brain they feel bigger for the time being. I wonder how often I have to choose the consciousness of the universe over the chatter of my self-contempt before it loses power permanently. I wonder if that's possible. I hope so.
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