Tag: mindfulness

Personal Mantras used in Meditation

It has been quite a while since my last post In The Buddha’s Words and I have no valid excuse for not being more prolific with my writing. This post will provide a justification if you will for using mantras when meditating. I like many of you suffer from a monkey mind that cannot seem to turn itself off while sitting on the cushion. All the thoughts of things you need to do, issues in your life, and a general inability to let it all go are preventing you from just focusing on your breathing. One method of blocking out the monkey mind is to use a mantra during your meditation practice.

Definition of a Mantra

  1. Hinduism. a word or formula, as from the Veda, chanted or sung as an incantation or prayer.
  2. an often repeated word, formula, or phrase, often a truism: If I hear the “less is more” mantra one more

This definition is somewhat incomplete as mantras are used in Buddhism during mediation and have many other uses. A mantra can more generally be described as repeating a word or phrase as a way of programming your mind as those who believe in the law of attraction, but in our case, the mantras I’m interested in will be used during meditation and not used to manifest anything.

If you are at the point in your meditation practice where you don’t need a mantra or two to block out the monkey mind, then more power to you, but for me, it’s a useful practice. The mantra I am using currently using goes something like this:

There is no pain, there is no suffering, there is only peace and contentment

I am saying these phrases to myself, not audibly, but thinking them. On the first breath “there is no pain”, on the second breath “there is no suffering”, on the third breath “there is only peace”, and finally on the fourth breath “and contentment”. By taking the time to think about each of these sub phrases individually during each breath you increase the emphasis on the meaning. The mantra can totally block out all other thoughts as it is repeated over and over again. For me, the act of meditation is about leaving any state of pain, suffering, and creating a state of peace and contentment.

Note I’m not trying to manifest a new car or more money. I’m also not trying to bolster my ego by telling myself how great I am, nor am I trying to practice some bullshit self-improvement technique. For me, meditation is not some tool I use to create a better version of myself or God forbid correct all my faults. As the Buddha taught pain and suffering exists all around us as an innate result of experiencing life. I prefer even if it is only during my meditation session to create a state of no pain, no suffering, only peace, and contentment. You might view this as an escape from life, but I contend it is more than that. I’ve come recently to experience my meditation practice as more of a revelation of what is truly authentic. Maybe another way to put it is that through meditation I am experiencing my most authentic self. I’m not saying meditation is the only way to be more like who you really are, but it is certainly one of the best ways. Most other activities in life have you playing a role, trying to gain something, achieve a goal, satisfying some desire, or are generally concerned with improving some aspect of your life by doing stuff. You know, the way we spend the vast majority of your days.

Most human beings are very goal oriented always seeking to improve themselves, gaining some satisfaction from checking off one goal after another on the list, but strangely enough still largely unsatisfied with their existence. This strong attraction to acquiring things and the subsequent brainwashing that has occurred over the many hundreds or years has done nothing to nurture our true nature or foster even a modicome of self awareness. If someone deviates from path (norm) they are either lazy or insane by the standards of society. Meditation and the use of mantras can help you undo some of this conditioning. The Buddha provided the Noble Eightfold Path as a means of escaping all this self induced suffering. Regarding meditation and the discovery of your true self the focus should be on right mindfulness and right concentration.

Other mantras I’ve used in addition the afore mentioned one includes:

Zazen is life

I am here, I am present

I am happy to be alive today

I give thanks for the Buddha, I give thanks for the Dhamma, and I give thanks for the Sangha

If I have any advice it would be to not make your mantra too complex. Shorter phrases fit better within the span of a breath and can be more impactful. You can also intersperse periods of just observing your breathing and when the monkey mind begins to take over, go back to your mantras.

Namaste

Meditation Experiences – Uno

This is my first (Uno) post regarding my recent meditation experiences. `It is not so much my intention to teach about meditation, but I am more interested in explaining my own journey. However, with that said there are a couple basics that you may want to consider such as the sitting position and the benefits of having some kind of seating cushion often referred to as a Zafu. There are a number of different sitting positions, but I would say most of the world uses either full lotus, half-lotus, or Burmese. These are pictured below:

Full Lotus

Note both feet are resting on the thighs, this takes a fair amount of flexibility and is not for everyone.

Half Lotus

In the half-lotus only one foot is on the thigh, this is easier than full lotus for most people.

Burmese

Another popular position and probably the easiest when first getting started.

When I started meditating I tried the full lotus position, but I’m not that flexible and was unable to get into the correct position, so I used the half-lotus position most of the time and even tried the Burmese position. One thing I like about the Burmese sitting position is that your knees are at the same level, where when sitting in half-lotus one is higher than the other. This comes in handy when you put your hands on your knees, you feel that your arms are completely balanced.

If you already meditate, you are probably saying stop you are boring me to death. Ok enough about sitting positions, just choose one that works best for you and get on with it.

Once I got serious about meditating, meaning doing it every day the question was for how long should I sit? I started out with sitting for 10 minutes, then 15, and now I am sitting 20 minutes at each session. With each successive increase in time came benefits as it seemed like the first 10 minutes or so was still a battle of fighting with my monkey mind, which was mostly focused on challenges at work. So while 10 minutes of meditation was better than nothing I didn’t really get a whole lot of benefit out of it, but when I moved to 15 and then 20 minutes things started to change. I’m speculating that I could probably get even more out of my practice if I extended the time to say 30 or 45 minutes, but I’m not there yet. Most of my meditation sessions occur fairly early in the morning after I have completed my yoga practice, which by itself takes about 30 minutes, so, all in all, I’m spending about 1 hour in the morning practicing yoga and meditation.

I have tried Zen (Zazen) meditation with your eyes open and the mudra hand position (see below). I did this for some time but was never really comfortable having my eyes open and eventually changed to meditating with my eyes closed, but I still use the mudra hand position from time to time.

When I started meditating about two months ago, I used the technique of counting breaths, which helped me drown out the monkey mind a bit, but I rarely do that now. Most of the time I will focus on just watching my breathing and trying to stay present.

If you are not currently meditating you might ask, why in the hell are you doing this? For me the answer was easy, I was very unhappy, experiencing a lot of anxiety and worry in my life, and I knew if I gave meditation a fair try I might be able to alleviate some of this angst. I will be honest I was fucking miserable and dreading each day and knew this was no way to live. In my next post, I will explain what meditation is doing for me and cover some of the benefits you can also expect during your own journey.

Namaste

 

Note: I wrote this post using Grammarly, which really helps. Give it a try, it works with WordPress and Google Docs.

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Yoga + Meditation = Mindfulness

Do you ever feel like a hamster running on a wheel in a cage? Of course, you do we all are running a fast as we can to do all the things required to make a living, take care of our families, and just survive on this earth. The problem is we are full of anxiety about getting shit done on time and in the end we are just plain tired out. Years ago I started doing yoga, primarily to help me function better physically and to cope with the demand of sitting all day to accomplish my work. Over time I found yoga practice provided much more than just improved flexibility, but also allowed me to relax and approach my day in a more calm state.

More recently I started meditating after my yoga session and I found the combination of the two provided an even higher level of awareness. At first, I found it difficult to meditate, but by performing my yoga practice first, it made it easier to sit for meditation. One of the reasons for doing the yoga first is that it made it easier to sit for meditation because I had stretched my back and hips, which just made the physical part of sitting much easier. The second reason was that the yoga relaxed me, and made it easy to move into an even deeper state of awareness as I began to meditate. When you put them together Yoga + Meditation you have this powerful combination that helps you become more mindful and ultimately jump off the hamster wheel.

This new-found mindfulness allows you to approach each day with a positive mindset no longer filled with anxiety and worry. You now have an opportunity to look at your work more realistically. As you increase your level of mindfulness you begin putting your work and obligations in perspective and they no longer torment you. The increased awareness of the world allows you to look at your work as just one aspect of your life, in effect it becomes less important than your peace of mind.

Change your paradigm and make the investment of an hour or so every morning. Make this a priority and this investment will pay tremendous dividends that will enrich all aspects of your life.

 

Yoga + Meditation = Mindfulness

Namaste

 

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Reframing goal setting

One of the books I have been reading is called “Ask and It Is Given” by Esther and Jerry Hicks and in that book, they have exercises for helping you manifest what you want with the law of attraction. One of the exercises they advocate is basically framed as:

I want “something” because “what it provides you”.

The idea is to list what you want and why for various categories of your life such as material things, career, relationships, health, etc. So naturally, I start listing shit I want such as a bigger house, a new car, a boat, and some gym equipment. Why did I jump right to listing the stuff I wanted instead of experiences, new behaviors, or being more mindful? I think much of this is the programming we receive from society and the media. Take Instagram for instance and you see all of these posts with expensive cars, extravagant homes, and private jets. We are literally being programmed to think first of acquiring more shit, when we know in our hearts the satisfaction from all this stuff has but a momentary effect on our happiness then it is off to buy the next piece of crap we don’t really want or need.

Now I’m pissed off for wasting my precious time dreaming about shit I don’t need when the things I really want have little do anything in the material realm. So it occurred to me that I needed to reframe the way I think about setting goals and what I really want in life. Let me be clear I’m not saying material things shouldn’t be on your list, but there is a price you pay for pursuing those things often at the expense of goals such as cultivating a more mindful existence. Let’s say we flip this paradigm upside down and our goal categories become something like this:

  1. Mindfulness
  2. Relationships
  3. Experiences
  4. Knowledge
  5. Health
  6. Career
  7. Finances
  8. Material Things

What the hell, now we have some really worthwhile things to focus on, things that bring happiness and personal development, and guess what items one through five either cost nothing or are relatively inexpensive. This revelation came to me after I had completed that law of attraction exercise and still felt uninspired. I need to go back now and rework my list to look something like the one above and dig deep into each category and focus on those things that will really enhance my life and not just drain my bank account.

To be continued………..

Namaste


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Focusing on your purpose

It is one of the fundamental laws in life, that you have finite time, and using it for any particular purpose is where you will see results, not elsewhere. Let’s take an example say you work 60 hours a week at your job, but you would like to be a writer. Now that book you have wanted to write will not magically write itself, as almost every waking hour is dedicated to your work, i.e. not writing. It’s called a tradeoff, this is what life is one tradeoff after another. You spend your time doing this and you can’t do that other thing. The problem is not that we are making tradeoffs, it is often that we are focused on the wrong thing.

If you really want to work 60 hours a week on your job because you love your work then, by all means, do it, but be aware you may be giving up family, friends, hobbies, and relaxation. We have created a society where many of us can work from anywhere and we have so many tools that make this possible. I am constantly being interrupted by messages sent to my phone by various apps that I feel like I am never off the clock. To make it worse we have a global workforce, where you will often work with team members in China, Europe, India, Mexico, and the United States just to name a few. What this means is early meetings and late meetings the day is being stretched and so are we. What used to be a manageable length day now becomes a marathon.

Just remember you get what you focus on and nothing else. Make a habit from time to time to analyze what you are spending your time on and weighing it against where you want to go.

Namaste

 

If you would like to support this blog, check out the awesome selection of eBooks at:

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Grateful Journal July 18, 2019

Up early again and after a few cups of coffee it was time to practice being grateful again.

source post on Grateful Practice

Grateful Tip of the Day:

The only way to be truly grateful is to appreciate what you have or what you are becoming. You cannot be grateful by spending your time thinking about things you do not have. It is understanding what you have that brings you happiness; there is no happiness in wanting. You will receive more when you finally appreciate all you have.

Journal Entry:

Namaste

Grateful Journal July 17, 2019

Up early again and after a few cups of coffee it was time to practice being grateful again.

source post on Grateful Practice

Grateful Tip of the Day:

While the typical grateful journal entry may only take 10 or 15 minutes, there are times when it will take longer. Don’t give up, search your soul and think about those things that you are thankful for, even if it takes much longer than 10 or 15 minutes. This is not something you are doing that is on your To Do List, it is a practice and only benefits you if you take the time to do it with all your heart.

Journal Entry:

Namaste

Your Grateful Practice

It’s been a while since I’ve written anything for this blog. I’m not sure why, but it is what it is as they say. I have written about being grateful and actually writing it down in the past, although my own adherence to this advice was somewhat intermittent at best, until about 6 months ago. I broke down and bought a journal partly because I had always read that hand writing things down has more of an impact than typing them. For me that seemed to ring true. So everyday or almost everyday I get up early and at about 5:00 a.m. I start writing in my journal what I am grateful for and then I add a little thing called Decree to the Universe.

The Decree to the Universe is to a large degree a realization that your grateful practice is providing you. It may take the form of an affirmation or at least a way of being, even if it only lasts for the day ahead of you.

Sometimes I write very conventional statements of being grateful for things like my family or my home, and sometimes very simple things like this cup of coffee is pretty damn good. At other times I write what I think I am becoming. All of this journaling takes about 10 minutes of your time. Write down what you are grateful for and then some Decree to the Universe; read it back to yourself slowly so that you really feel it.

One of the things I noticed is that all the benefits I list below, did not happen for me overnight. It seems like it took months to attain the full effect that a grateful practice can provide. Maybe I’m a bit slow, but in any case it appears that perseverance matters.

So why go to all this bother? Well there are a few good reasons:

  1. It’s hard to start your day as an asshole if you just listed a number of things you are grateful for.
  2. It begins to distance you from the woe is me and isn’t this world unfair way of thinking.
  3. You start appreciating even the little things more intensely and you really start appreciating the people around you.
  4. It makes you more focused on who you really are or who you should be than the pain ass that you can be even to people very close to you.
  5. You eventually become more mindful, which ultimately results in you becoming a happier person.

Just a note here, there is really no need to buy some special grateful journal any decent journal with lines on it will do the trick.

Here is an example from my journal this morning. I may post more in the future.

Namaste