Shadow Puppet Storyteller

Reflection -- Mindful of Nature -- Proper Stance

Reflection
Nature and
Stance

Three tenets of my own meditation practice; and not always taken together. I easily fool myself and elude my practice, much like I walk determinedly everyday to some degree, but side-step stretching and the care (before or after) that would give my tense, sometimes spastic, leg muscles more flexibility and capability.

I bring up reflection, simply, in reference to the way I like to play selections of music. If you are leading others in meditation and it is a fairly new experience for those attempting it, I like to create a special arrangement of music. I select three pieces and then I record them so that there is one central piece bookended by the other two before and after. If I have musical pieces A, B and C, and A is my central piece, I record in this reflective order: BCACB. It could also be CBABC, and that is up to your choosing which music flows into the central piece best.

I like such an arrangement, as it allows for a way to spiral in deep, and feel naturally led out.

When I want to lead a guided meditation, I cannot seem to help but focus on Nature. Many of us forget how to appreciate Nature in our daily lives so much as it is, especially as an adult. How often does the city-dweller get to see the stars of the Milky Way galaxy? But particularly, if I want to focus on Prosperity, what better example than Nature and all the life around us. How many leaves are in that one tree? How many seeds in its cones? The reliable extension of being a creation, believing in a First Cause, a Creator or Creators. I use what I easily feel connected to, even if still in awe of, but not separate from.

What I term, Stance, I suspect some might more readily think of as stillness. It is the state I believe is the most difficult for meditation learners to achieve. It does not simply mean to hold oneself still. I am also speaking of the ability and receptivity one can achieve with proper stance. Explaining this will require me to talk about the nature of motion and how we perceive time. I also do not think it has to do with controlling motion, although from the perspective of modern Physics, it just might.

First let me explore something that I will -- for the moment -- call related, even though it is very external to my meditation experience. Why do we get jumpy if suddenly we see movement? Biologists and Anthropologists would likely point us to our survival instinct and the utility of peripheral vision. I admit to being more than a little bit jumpy. I am at times a crazy-minded passenger, freaking when the most beloved driver next to me is not responsive upon the brake pedal at the same rate I might use. Lack of control has plagued me in this way, but I think there are other examples. I am also disturbed by the sudden appearance of crawling bugs at my desk or kitchen floor... and then, on top of that, often it is imperative I avoid discovering any of the squirmy varieties as well. These are areas where my fear overrides any daily, outward calm that I actively sustain.

They only concern me if I sense them. Usually it is visual stimuli that sets it off, but I also know that I could also have an unpleasant encounter with a bug without seeing it. I know you are shuddering compassionately along with me now as I imagine those possibilities, yet it is worse, (isn't it?) once visual confirmation of the cause of the creepy feeling up one's leg is made.

So, I am talking about the requisite quieting of one's mind, and sitting comfortably, and guarding against outward stimuli for a time (most often achieved by closing the eyes). Taken together, why does this stance do so much for successful meditation? I believe the answer lies with physics.

At an elementary level, I am going to get scientific. And while I am a great fan of science and scientists, I am as lost as most, and never took a class in Physics. But this is what fit together for me when I came out of my meditation this morning. So, we can appreciatively explore this as we might have indulged me in anything that came to mind in first grade Show and Tell.

The true success in meditation for me is when I feel I have felt that connection to the greater Whole, but not felt a sense of travel or passage of time. I really don't think I should sense anything. I just want to BE. So, as difficult as it may be to let thoughts and desires disperse, and to stop shifting in one's chair, or find a casual place for the hands, by far the most difficult is to resist grasping for a sense of time. Here's what I remind myself: motion and time are related. I believe your Stance, if it is geared to non-motion, even if we're only faking it, (because everything that makes up the physical you and the place where you are is still in motion in a very real sense), helps you experience real time, not a distorted measurement of time. (Physics author, Brian Greene, The Fabric of the Cosmos)
[11-12-11 original / 1-7-12 small edit]