Meditation Made Easy Page 7

  The Arrive Early for Everything exercise is also good for beginning meditators. A major obstacle for most people is finding the time to meditate, and finding the time flows from having a sense of control over the rhythm of one's day. To make the space you need for meditation, you have to think backward from the time you need to walk out the door in the morning and add the extra time so you can move with leisure. You may have to get up a little earlier, which means you may have to go to bed a little earlier, which means you may have to watch less TV or enlist the cooperation of your family.

  Consider experimenting with arriving early sometime.

  PAUSE ON EACH THRESHOLD

  TIME: 3 seconds.

  Pay attention to your body, especially your belly and midline torso, when stepping across any boundary—any doorway, any entrance, any border between one space and another. You can call this a “body scan,” this process of taking a quick survey of how you feel and what your senses report.

  As you move through your day, you can use any threshold as a moment of awakening. Pause at any doorway, even an open door, and take a conscious breath, instead of blasting in. Notice the quality of feeling on the border (the threshold) and as you enter. Over time you will develop a physical intuition about what has been going on in the room. If you are already intuitive, this practice may help you keep your intuition sharp.

  If there are people in the room, that brief pause will give them the feeling that you respect their space. The pause also lets you “catch up with yourself” as you enter.

  If you are in an open space or room, you may be able to feel layers of borders around other people. All animals have zones around them. When you are a certain number of feet away from them, they are just aware of you; any closer and they get restless or alert, ready to flee (or, sometimes, attack); and then when you get too close, they move. You have invaded their space. Awareness of the invisible zones around people and animals is an intense source of joy in life.

  Boundaries are flexible, because people let themselves be crowded together at times, and yet at other times they seek greater distance. At parties sometimes it is fun to be in the crowd, then you may want to go off with one person and be at a distance from the others. Lovers may at times want to merge and mingle their essence, but the whole process of relationship is one of developing appreciation for boundaries and working out the rhythms of contact and withdrawal.

  Being healthy in meditation depends on respecting your own boundaries, your own limits and preferences, your yes-and-no structure. When you learn to enjoy your boundaries and be balanced within them, then the possibility of experiencing a larger boundary arises. There are moments here and there in meditation that seem “boundless.” For instance, in a breathing meditation, sometimes you may feel intimate with the ocean of air embracing the planet and embracing your body. In fact, if you pursue meditation, it is almost inevitable that you will have experiences of boundlessness. This makes it all the more important to develop your appreciation and respect for boundaries, as well as to witness the kinds of contact that occur on borders. Start by observing the feelings in your body as you cross thresholds.

  TAKE A CONSCIOUS NAP

  TIME: 5 minutes to 20 minutes.

  PLACE: Anywhere you can be undisturbed.

  Anytime you feel an energy slump or just need to change gears, you can take a conscious nap. All you do is put your head on your desk, or lie down on a bed or the floor, and pretend to nap. You may drift; you may or may not nod off. The main thing you are “doing” is recognizing and giving in to the calling of your body. You don't care whether you fall asleep or not.

  Usually we resist these callings and instead think about getting another cup of tea or something to eat, or we just let our minds wander. But it is very powerful to simply give in to the sensations of fatigue and sleepiness and let them carry you wherever. You might be more relaxed if you have a clock in sight or can set an alarm so that you know you'll wake up at a certain time if you do fall asleep.

  Many people have reported that after meditating for even a few days, their experience of napping changes and becomes delightful. The naps often feel even more special and sacred than the meditations. Some people prefer to “nap” rather than meditate, and they have more profound experiences in these naps than they ever do in formal meditations! Almost everyone, at certain times, needs to nap instead of doing his or her regular meditation.

  One of the side effects of doing sensual meditations is that common, everyday experiences acquire an enhanced quality. Meditation trains you to notice and enjoy quiet little phenomena that are always there, and these small pleasures pop up in unexpected places.

  BE COZY

  TIME: About 30 minutes.

  PLACE: Your nest, or anywhere special and quiet.

  Choose a favorite book, magazine, tape, or CD and make a special time to be with it. Set aside at least twenty minutes; half an hour is better. Turn off the phone, put a note on the door that you are not to be disturbed, and cozy up with your favorite thing in a secluded, private spot. The idea is that you are taking good care of yourself and are natural. Part of coziness and also the next exercise, Experience Perfect Safety, is the feeling that your boundaries will be respected.

  While you are reading or listening, notice your natural attention span without interfering in any way. Follow the rhythms of attention as you would when you are just being with yourself.

  In the natural course of things, if you were reading or listening to something you loved, and you suddenly thought of a friend you hadn't seen in years, you might jump up and call her or him. Or you might look up from the book and just daydream. If you are listening to music, you might dance sometimes and other times lie down and close your eyes. Be that natural with yourself now, and always, when you meditate.

  Notice the difference between reading in a coffee shop or airport or mall and reading at home or in another private place. Which do you prefer? Or do you have moods and sometimes prefer one situation and sometimes another?

  Most people have moods and vary in what they want. One day they like reading a newspaper or book in public; another time they relish being alone. There is no need to make your meditation practice the domain of just one of your moods, to meditate only when you are happy or energetic, or when you are sad, pensive, or tired. There is no need to be so narrow in your interpretation of what meditation is. In practice, what this means is that you should eventually have three or four different types of meditations to match each of your moods—just as you may have different kinds of music or clothes to match your moods.

  EXPERIENCE PERFECT SAFETY

  TIME: 20 minutes.

  PLACE: Somewhere quiet and protected.

  If you live in the industrialized world, you are safer than 99 percent of all humanity that has ever lived, and you are statistically more likely to die from the stress you put yourself under than from any external physical threat. This statement may totally contradict what you think of as common sense—many of us are convinced by television news and other gossip that we are in mortal danger from all manner of things every time we step out of our homes. The news does a good job of screaming about the dangers that befall one person in a million, but it tells us nothing about what we will experience when we walk out the door, except maybe the weather.

  Imagine a situation in which you are perfectly safe—or at least very safe. You could be anywhere in the real world or the imaginary world: in a cave underground or in the mountains; in your own special garden or on your own private island. Go ahead, build that castle in the sky, dream that dream. Then give your physical body a chance to soak up the feeling.

  Review your senses. How do you breathe when you feel safe? When you look around the world, how do you absorb color when you are feeling safe? Simply explore the way your senses work when you are feeling safe in the world. Stay there and let your senses organize themselves around safety. You may feel a sense of expansion, relaxation, relief. Now visualize moving around in y
our current, everyday world with that sense of safety. What happens?

  After a while, unsafe sensations may rise to the surface to be processed. Be with them. This is healing, so allow the process. Or if you are as snug as can be in your safe zone, let your senses drink in the feeling.

  People vary so widely that it is impossible to generalize. Some people can tolerate every kind of human thought impulse with little difficulty. For them, watching thoughts is like watching TV or a movie or a stage show. Some people are at home, more or less, with every human impulse.

  Other people are frightened by their thoughts and feel they have to control them. If you are this way, then do things that make you feel safe. You might want to meditate with a group in a religious context or get psychotherapy. You can do dance therapy, theater training, or journal-writing classes, and you can meditate in the physical quiet and shelter of a church. Respect your need for safety, and be gradual and gentle with yourself. If you need help with safety, get it.

  TAKE A HOT-COLD SHOWER

  TIME: An extra 5 minutes in the shower (if that).

  Take a hot or warm shower. Slowly turn the water on cold.

  For some of us, our time in the bathroom each morning is the only quiet time of the day. If that's true for you, make the shower a sanctuary. Bathing in the morning before work is usually a habitual set of motions. You had to make it that way at some point in your past in order to get to work on time. Now you have that handled and you're an adult; you have the right to enjoy your body while you are bathing.

  All you have to do in the beginning is move more slowly. You do that because it is easier to be attentive when you are moving with less haste. After you get used to paying attention, you can move quickly and still be attentive.

  Some ideas of sensual things to attend to:

  Have good things to smell, perhaps several types of body shampoo. Breathe in the smell while shampooing.

  Take longer with your head under the water. Enjoy some conscious breaths with the water streaming over your hair.

  Let the water massage your neck while you breathe consciously.

  Take longer shaving or toweling.

  Rub lotion all over your body. (It is a very different experience to rub lotion on skin that has been chilled slightly.)

  After you have gotten into that, perhaps after a few days, experiment with turning the water on cool at the end. Do that for a few days, then gradually make the water cooler and cooler.

  Cold is refreshing. It makes the skin tingle and, if gotten used to gradually, is very healthy. The human body can easily handle cold; just be gradual, and proceed only in accord with your pleasure. It can take a month to be able to handle a cold shower even for ten seconds and have it be pleasurable. Yet it is an amazing wake-up that makes you very aware of your skin as a boundary.

  Embracing the cold also trains the body to thrive on being shocked. You are there in the shower, luxuriating, and then the cold comes on. As you get used to it gradually, the shock becomes invigorating rather than painful. And we all need help in gracefully meeting the shocks that life provides.

  Then, awakened, stand there and bless everyone you will meet that day. Send light and love ahead of you along the path you will walk.

  When you walk out of the bathroom, toweling yourself off, you will be ready for the day.

  If you have time for a longer meditation, this self-care will help prepare the body for relaxed alertness. Some people, for example, work out or do yoga for forty-five minutes, then shower, then meditate.

  DO THE SLUMP

  TIME: A minute or two.

  WHERE: At your desk or anywhere else.

  Let your spine curl forward and your head drop slowly. Feel the weight of your shoulders as they slump forward, and notice the curve of your back. There is a gentle stretch all the way from your waist, through your entire spine, to your neck.

  Stay there for a moment and breathe, and extend the stretch as long as you like.

  All you are doing is letting your upper body give in to gravity. Luxuriate in the feeling of not having to hold yourself up. Gravity is the masseur.

  Then, very slowly, come back to an erect posture. Savor the sensations all over your body. You may have sensations in your skull, a feeling of relief, a tingling through your back, and other pleasurable kinesthetics (bodily sensations of movement).

  You can do this exercise over and over again, as much as you like.

  It is also a great exercise to do at the beginning and end of every meditation.

  GIVE IN TO GRAVITY

  TIME: 5 minutes.

  WHERE: Anywhere you can get down.

  You can do this exercise while sitting, standing, or lying down. Explore it in all postures and go with what feels most interesting to you.

  Notice the ground beneath you. Look around you and see the foundation beneath you. Then feel the areas of your body that are in contact with that foundation.

  An invisible force, centered in the Earth's core, is attracting your body to the very center of the Earth's body. This is called gravity. Although we rarely notice gravity, we have sensors in our body that constantly monitor our relationship with it.

  Surrender to the downward pull of gravity while staying in your same posture. Let your senses of touch and balance become alert to the pull of gravity. Gravity is not just heaviness; gravity is attraction. And attraction is always interesting. Gravity is a form of love.

  If you are standing, stay erect but let your body hang off your bones. I know this sounds strange, but that's the way the skeleton is designed: all those bones hold you up. Your muscles can let go.

  If you are sitting, either in a chair with your feet on the ground or with your butt on the ground and your feet tucked up, then sit upright as you let your pelvis be pulled by gravity into a snug contact with the Earth.

  If you are lying down, then completely let go, let yourself drop, and feel the way the Earth holds you up.

  In all postures, no matter how much you let yourself go and surrender to gravity, the Earth supports you. You do not fall through the floor.

  But it sometimes feels as if your consciousness falls through the floor and touches some energy core inside the Earth. This is a very simple experience even though it takes many words to describe it. It is as though some part of yourself reaches down, like a root, and taps into a source of energy and power originating in Nature. Indian, Tibetan, and Chinese yoga masters talk of an energy center between the legs, which they call the “root center.” This center comes alive when you surrender to gravity; it sparkles and tingles, and you may feel energy coming into your body and moving down your legs.

  Once you give in to gravity, simply enjoy the sensations and breathe.

  Stay there for a while, and you will begin to feel lighter and lighter. Having surrendered to gravity, you make friends with it. Your body reorganizes itself and begins to experience gravity as a force holding you up as much as a force pulling you down.

  NOTICE WHAT'S UP?

  TIME: 1 minute to 5 minutes.

  WHERE: Indoors or outside.

  WHEN: Sometime when the sun is up.

  Standing or sitting raise your arms above your head and notice what is there. Notice how “up” feels. What does the space above your head feel like?

  Solar power comes from above, and when people think of their Higher Power, they often think of it as above. Perhaps because of this natural feeling of a source overhead, we can actually reach into the Above and bring its blessing down into our bodies.

  Hold your hands out, as if embracing the sky, reaching upward to the sky in celebration or greeting.

  You could also explore turning your palms to face each other as you hold your arms over your head. Pay attention to any sensations of currents flowing between the hands.

  Then, slowly, let the hands drift downward and almost touch the top of the head; pause and breathe, then lightly touch the head.

  Move the hands upward again, pause for a moment with th
e arms extended, then bring the hands slowly down and almost touch the heart area; pause, then lightly touch.

  Tip

  Reach up again, pause, then bring the hands down to almost touch the belly; pause there, then lightly touch.

  Savor the flow of power downward from the Higher Power or the sun, through your body, into the Earth.

  If you want, you could take a moment to linger with any pleasurable sensations on the top of your head, in your heart, or in your belly.

  TENSE TO RELAX

  TIME: 1 minute to 5 minutes.

  WHERE: You can do the exercise invisibly wherever you are, or you can get down on the floor and go to town.

  With the body, almost everything is done in opposites. If you want to breathe in, breathe out first. If you want to be rested and energetic tomorrow, go to sleep tonight. The situation is similar with relaxation: if you want to relax your muscles, tense them first.

  Get into tensing and relaxing gradually, at your own pace. Experiment with tensing and relaxing your face, your hands and arms, your legs—you pick the body part and the sequence of movement from part to part. Voluntarily tensing your muscles is definitely doing something. It is an action. To relax, don't do anything and do not tell yourself to relax. Just let go of the tensing action.

  Explore also the different feelings invoked when you tense for longer or shorter periods of time. Tense and hold for a certain number of breaths, then release and notice the sensations.