Meditation – the ease of re-connection
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Meditation – the ease of re-connection
A question asked of me years ago when I was spending a lot of time in meditation was, 'How does sitting on your bum for hours a day really support you or anyone else, or actually change anything?'
At the time I would partake in meditation retreats for over a week spending up to 8 hours a day sitting. A simple enough question, and with that equanimity went out the window. It was a fair question and worth looking at.
What was really being sought in those long hours spent in arduous sitting positions, hoping for some enlightening moment to dawn and make sense of it all? A dedicated focus on not moving the body served no true purpose at all, required unnecessary effort and created more torment for the mind with the overriding of pain felt in the body to fit a belief or ideal that this was necessary to achieve the end result … a moment of elusive enlightenment. Phew!
It is not possible for a body in torment to be at ease or at-one with the still presence within.
Meditation had become an escape from the perceived harsh reality of the world. A desire to relieve the tension of all that the depth of sensitivity allows one to feel …
These days meditation is not considered weird or unusual and many are looking for relief or time out from the stresses or general overload experienced in life. Yet, meditation is not the quick fix management solution we may hope for, and although it may seem to ‘calm the farm’ for a short period, it is not the answer to all the daily stresses, reactions and unease. Under the calm exterior the wild sea can still be raging. Meditation or Mindfulness used in this way will not bring any lasting change; rather, it is a management tool at best.
So why then meditate and for what purpose?
Meditation is simply a point of inner connection, a regathering, re-yoking to the essence within that is then moved in life – a quality of inner stillness that is lived through all our movements.
The body becomes the movement of meditation and that quality of conscious presence is taken into the livingness of each day. The mind and body are in union and in harmony as one moves.
It requires no particular pose, cross-legged or otherwise, no mantras or special sacred place and no effort. Neither does it require any particular time frame as an inner connection can be made in an instant when the alignment shifts.
There is no perfection in this world and at times we may get caught in reactions, stresses and overload in life and that is where the support of tools such as the Gentle Breath Meditation® can support a re-connection to the body and the being. In the simple flow of following the in-breath and the out-breath while keeping the mind focussed on the movement, the body can settle and have a registered marker of stillness in the body – an energetic quality of being that is not stationary, rather moves with us.
Filed under
Conscious presence, Gentle breath, Meditation, Stillness
