Meditation – Intent, Intuition and the Stillpoint In Between

Looking back, I realized I haven’t written a straight post about meditation for some time, so here goes. This is kind of a companion to my Types of Meditation post. In that post, I briefly described different forms of meditation from the perspective of their benefits. In this one, I will instead talk about forms of meditation from the perspective of which aspect of mind they emphasize. I think it is useful to look at this distinction, particularly for people that have been meditating for awhile, because I believe in the value of mixing things up a bit – experimenting with different techniques to prevent your mind from becoming attached to one approach.

The two main aspects of mind are active and passive (what else?) When we are directing our mind in a concentrated fashion – reading a book, or trying to sort out a problem – we are consciously engaging in the active aspect of mind. When we are sitting back and observing (our mind or something external) or absorbing (listening to music and the like) we are consciously engaged in the passive, or receiving, aspect of mind. I put ‘consciously’ into both descriptions, because much of the time we are engaged in unconscious mental activity – just letting our mind wander about, and that might also be active or passive in nature. But the one thing all meditation techniques have in common is that in all of them we are trying to relate to our mind consciously.

There are hundreds, maybe thousands, of different meditation techniques. Some utilize active aspects of mind, and some utilize passive aspects of mind. Either way, the technique is just a means of shifting our awareness away from our usual thoughts and emotions. So while the techniques might seem drastically different, they are all meant to be doorways into other levels of awareness and insight. It is like the yin/yang symbol – the black/active/yang side and the white/passive/yin side initially seem like opposites, but they are dependent on each other, in the sense that they each help define the other. We can’t understand one without the other, and we can’t realize the wholeness they represent together until we see them both. In the same way, an understanding of both active and passive aspects of mind, and both types of meditation, enables us to see beyond them.

So what are active aspect of mind meditations? I would classify most visualization meditations in this category, particularly guru and deity visualizations. In many Tantric forms of meditation (found within Hindu-based kundalini yoga lineages and Tibetan Buddhist lineages), a visualization of  a teacher, Buddha, or deity is used in order to actually merge your own mind with the states represented by that being. This kind of meditation is also found in Christianity – read some of St. Theresa of Avila’s descriptions of her ‘contemplations of Christ’ and it’s clear she is visualizing him in  devotional fashion. Visualizations of places, mandalas, and other things along those lines are also active, because the goal is very similar to deity-visualizations – to merge your mind with the vibration of that place or creation.

Affirmations and other intent-focused meditations are also active in nature. You are actively trying to direct the vibrational level of your awareness – it is like launching an arrow in the direction you want to go through your own active effort. In fact, all of the various suggestions out there for using the law of attraction are means for effectively harnessing the active aspect of mind. Ditto for compassion and metta meditations, where you visualize those you care about and expand out from there. In these you are connecting your mind and being towards love by consciously directing it. I would say the same is true for chakra meditation, because you are trying to merge your mind with the energies of one or more chakras (amongst other things.)

Passive, or receiving (the term I prefer), forms of meditation are those that are observation or intuition based. So traditional breath meditations, and meditations where you attempt to observe your own mind, letting its activity float by like ‘clouds in the sky’, fall into this category. Chanting meditations as well, because they normally involve instruction to ’settle’ into the sound. The myriad of meditations associated with developing intuitive skills are also receiving techniques. Many of these involve ‘emptying out’, ‘opening up’ and other techniques that involve letting go of control rather than directing it as in active meditations.

Now, all this active and passive talk is really just one way of talking about meditation, because in every meditation we use a little of both. For example, when your mind wanders in a breath meditation, you do actively pull it back. And when you feel a merging occurring in a visualization meditation, you let go into the experience. So meditation is always a balancing act between control and surrender, acting and receiving.

But the overall techniques do tend to fall into one or the other category. And the type of meditation you engage in influences what parts of yourself you will discover, what parts of you will develop, and what doorways of awareness you will walk through. I think problems can arise when someone becomes attached to only one meditation technique or approach to mind. What tends to happen is that someone gravitates towards those techniques that feel the most comfortable to them, and over time, they go to the ’same place’ in their meditations every day. That’s probably fine if you are just looking for a particular daily ‘fix’ – if, for example, you mostly engage in meditation in order to calm down, and have found one place you ‘go to’ that relaxes you each time. But if you are engaged in meditation for personal or spiritual growth, it becomes a problem. Because growth and comfort rarely go together.

I say this knowing full well that many spiritual traditions emphasize only one form of meditation, and encourage a practitioner to stick with it for life. I also recognize the value of this advice – too many people, especially here in the West, take a ’shop til you drop’ approach to spirituality, jumping from technique to technique, and thus never sticking long enough with one to discover what it has to offer. I also believe that it is important to have one core technique. BUT, I think there is great value in occasionally exploring techniques that are very different, at least in part as a test for yourself as to whether you have become attached to one form or aspect of mind. If you have a regular practice, you could do this once a week, or every few months for several weeks.

Regardless of what technique(s) you choose, remember that yin/yang symbol. That symbol is also about balance. You could say that exactly in the middle of the symbol – and your meditation practice – there is a stillpoint of perfect balance, where the mind is neither active nor passive. That stillpoint is a doorway into eternity. Or God/enlightenment/nirvana/the tao/brahma/Allah/source – whatever words you wish to use. So whether your chosen technique is active or passive in nature, or you mix it up, it is always meant to be a pathway towards that middle, still, point – the point that exists beyond them both.

For more meditation posts, check out the Meditation page.

Types of Meditation: Which One Is Right For You?

People often assume meditation is meditation is meditation. You sit, you quiet your mind, you feel peaceful, all is well. Right? But the truth is, there are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of different meditation techniques, and they each have different benefits and orientations. Meditation has been around in some form for virtually all of human history, as part of many different cultural traditions – healing, divination, sports, the arts, and, of course, religion and spirituality.

So how do you know which approach is best for you? Like in most things, it takes some exploration and experimentation. One of the easiest ways to start is to clarify for yourself why you want to meditate - that is, what are you hoping to get from it? To help you get started, here is a list of some of the main benefits of meditation, with links to resources that provide more info and instruction related to each (disclaimer here: some of these links are to my own teaching site www.TheMaatInstitute.com ).

Health and Stress Management: Studies have shown that regular meditation is effective for lowering blood pressure, boosting immunity, improving sleep quality, and managing chronic pain. The leader in health-related meditation research and techniques is the Benson-Henry Institute for Mind-Body Medicine. Their website provides both meditation instruction and published medical research on its benefits.

Psychological Therapy Complement: An increasing number of therapists incorporate some form of meditation into their therapy practice, believing that quieting the mind is an important complement to exploring the mind. Techniques vary, but the relaxation response(the same technique as from the health-based listing above) is a common one, because of its proven medical benefits. For a thorough overview of the different views on meditation within the psychological community, try this article from Buddhanet.net (jump to the Conclusion and Summary section at the end if you want to skip the mind-numbing academic detail.)

Concentration/Focus Improvement:Everyone from Olympic athletes to poker players have begun to incorporate some form of meditation into their training regimes, because it helps them detach from distractions and hone their focus. For the same reason, Zen meditation was incorporated into martial arts training centuries ago, and Zen meditation is still one of the most common forms used for this purpose (and championed by such illustrious sports figures as Phil Jackson, coach of the LA Lakers.) Although there are many Zen variations, try this overview to get started.

Intuition Development: Many occult and spiritual traditions teach that we all posses an intuitive level of knowledge within us, but that we can only tap into it when we let go of our ego-based thoughts and emotions. For this reason, meditation is a big component of most intuition-development training programs. There are thousands of such programs, so it is difficult to recommend just one, but Dr. Mona Lisa Schulz offers a grounded, modern approach in her book Awakening Intuition (here’s an excerpt.)

Creativity Development: Artists of all types use meditation to trigger their creativity and help them work through blocks. One of the most popular books to explore this is The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron. Here’s a Q&A on this book, or try this video for an overview.

Energy Body Strengthening: Many ‘alternative’ healing traditions are based on the idea of an energy body, or that the flow of our non-physical energy (or lack of flow) influences our physical health. Acupuncture and reiki are both based on this idea, but even within Western medical traditions, there is growing awareness of the role our mind plays in our physical health and ability to heal. Here’s an intro to a very basic form of chakra meditation, a common form of energy center meditation. Another common  form of meditation used in energy healing is visualization; here’s an intro to using visualization as an aid to healing.

Spirituality: Meditation has been and is part of virtually every world religion in some form. From St. Theresa of Avila’s ‘mental prayer’ to Rabbi Issac Luria’s Kabbalah symbol visualizations, and then to better known Buddhist, Sufi and Hindu meditation techniques, mystics within every tradition have practiced meditation as a means to exploring the forces and spirit beyond themselves. If you are interested in exploring meditation as part of a specific religious tradition, try this book list for some suggestions.

However, spiritual meditation is about shifting your awareness – shifting it away from your usual thoughts and emotions and towards a larger force (whether you call that force God or something else.) In that sense, the technique is less important than your intent. It’s important to remember that the meditation technique you select is a means to an end, not an end in itself, and that the ultimate goal is to change the way you relate to the world and your mind even when you are not meditating. So feel free to explore, but don’t let yourself get too caught up in finding the ‘perfect’ technique.

Good luck in your meditation journeys!

Here’s some info on Meditation Medical Research, or, if you are interested in how meditation is incorporated into the world’s religions, try Meditation within ALL the World’s Religions. For more posts on Meditation, try the meditation page. Or, if you are interested in another main theme of this blog, motherhood, try the Spirituality and Motherhood posts.

Meditation for Busy Women Part IV: Belief Not Required

Many people hear the word ‘meditation’ and think instantly of Buddhist monks or Hindu yogis. But meditation has been (and is) practiced within all the world’s religions, although it is often called by another name. Devotions, chanting, silent prayer, visualizations of saints – these are all forms of meditation. The purpose of each is to help us connect to the spiritual levels of our own awareness – to shift us into these levels. What I’ve tried to do in this series is touch upon some ways we busy women can find this connection throughout our day, even for just a moment. Moments add up.

You can of course expand any of the techniques I outlined into formal, sitting meditations. And you don’t have to have religious or spiritual beliefs to benefit from them. These days meditation is practiced for stress management, pain relief, drug and alcohol rehab, psychological awareness, concentration improvement, creativity  help and more. And there are as many meditation techniques as there are reasons to practice it. Some popular ones that I didn’t touch on are deep breathing, chanting, chakra meditation, and moving meditation. There are alot of great websites and blogs out there about these (maybe I’ll compile a list someday!) so just search around for what fits you.

My own interest in meditation at this point in my life is primarily spiritual. However, what I really love about it is that belief is not required as a starting point. From a spiritual perspective, meditation is really a form of inquiry and investigation. You meditate, see what you experience, and then decide what that experience represents. Just trying it opens up new parts of your awareness and your brain. You may decide the feelings and experiences you have in meditation represent a connection to a higher power, or you may decide they are simply a bio-physical response. Or that they are both, which is my own view.

The point is, your relationship to your own awareness is bound to change, and the relationship between your own awareness and the world around you. And that has always been the starting point for mystic experience, whatever religion it occurs within. You could say that the religion we ‘believe’ in determines how we interpret our meditation experiences, but it doesn’t cause them. So you can start meditating without any religious beliefs, and some may develop – or not. Either way, you are expanding your awareness, and that can only be good.

Other related posts:
Meditation for Busy Women Part I – Shifting
Meditation for Busy Women Part II – Symbols
Meditation for Busy Women Part III – Love
For moms – If You Think You’re Enlightened, Have Kids
For those interested in spirituality and the brain – Book Review: My Stroke of Insight

Meditation for Busy Women Series: Part III – Love

“He that made all things for love, by the same love keepeth them, and shall keep them without end.” – Julian of Norwich, 14^th century British Christian anchoress

 

“Live in joy, in love, even among those who hate.” – from the Dhammapada, words of the Buddha

 

“I do not want to worship from fear of punishment or for the promise of reward, but simply for the love of God.” – Rabia Basri, 7th century Islamic Sufi

 

“I am mad with love…for the divine.” – Mirabai, 16^th century Hindu Indian Saint

 

“I do this act…in awe and in love, to unite the holy letters…of the holy name into complete unity” – mystic Jewish candle-lighting incantation

 

“It is love alone that gives worth to all things.” – Theresa of Avila, 16^th century Spanish Catholic Saint

 

These quotes (four by women) pretty much sum up the spiritual purpose and source of all the major religions – LOVE. Although countless religious wars throughout history are testament to how often the world’s faiths have gone awry on this score, the mystics that have sprung up in spite of such turmoil have always served to remind us that LOVE is what it’s really all about.

Meditations on love are a key component of the devotional arms of every spiritual tradition. I have written a bit about this in my posts on mommy devotion (Part I and Part II), so I won’t go into it more here. We all have people in our lives that we love (and creatures – pets count!). The issue from a spiritual perspective is how, in our busy lives, can we FEEL that love more often, instead of getting bogged down in the day-to-day muck of interacting? And then, how can we transform that personal love for one being or creature into a wider, more universal love that links us to a higher power or force within ourselves?

Here’s one idea, based on the ‘bhakti’ yoga concept of devotional visualization:

Choose someone (or some creature) in your life that you have a fairly uncomplicated love for. Take a moment out of your busy day to visualize him/her with your eyes closed – if you have kids, doing this right outside their door after you put them to bed is great. Visualize them until you feel a swell of affection in your heart (if you’ve had a rough day with the person and can’t feel that love, don’t worry, just pick someone else for now!). Once you are feeling your love for that person (or pet), drop your visualization of them, and see if you can just FEEL the love, apart from that trigger. If you can, then imagine that feeling of love expanding larger and larger, until it takes over your entire body. If you can keep the feeling and visualization going, imagine that love emanating out from you, until you are just a little dot in a giant field of love.

Like all visualizations, this one can take a few attempts to login to. But it is something you can do for even just a few minutes to shift yourself, and open that magical doorway to all spirituality – yes, LOVE.

Here’s the prior and final post in this series.

Meditation for Busy Women Series: Part II – Symbols

What do you think of when you see the Nike swoosh? Nike hopes you think excellence, victory, speed, power, motivation…you get the idea. They spend millions of dollars in advertising and athlete endorsement deals to generate those associations deep in your subconscious. When you see that swoosh they want you to have an instant, visceral reaction, so that when you are looking for athletic gear, Nike is the brand you have to have.

Branding experts understand the power of symbols, and how they speak directly to the unconscious levels of our awareness (and all you moms out there see everyday just how young this conditioning starts – can anyone say Disney?!?) But spiritual traditions have known this power for thousands of years, and used it for other purposes – to trigger spiritual experience, insight, and shifts in consciousness. Symbols are shortcuts to meaning and shifting, because they compact dozens of emotional and intellectual associations down to one visual queu. And they are highly personal – your reaction to a Christian cross, Star of David, or Islamic crescent is going to be based on your own experiences and relationship to the religions they represent, your past emotional associations with these symbols, and your current intellectual views.

Because symbols are shortcuts, they are excellent shifters (for more on shifting and its relationship to meditation, see the first post in this series.) And because women’s brains tend to have more connections between the intuitive, emotional hemisphere and the rational, analytic one, I think symbols are particularly powerful for us (see this post for more info on brain hemispheres.) 

Selecting and printing out some key symbols that represent your personal and spiritual goals, and displaying them around your computer, on your refrigerator, bathroom mirror, in your wallet, or anywhere else that you will come across them throughout your day can be a great way to trigger shifting on a moment’s notice. Here’s what I suggest (and since this is a post for BUSY women, I have tried to keep this intitial setup to under 10 minutes!):

- Spend 1 minute creating a free-form list of emotions or spiritual concepts that you would like to cultivate more of in your life. Some examples might be peace, joy, gratitude, calm, compassion, love, or strength.

- Now spend 1 minute thinking of an image, symbol, or picture that represents each concept for you. A dove might represent peace, a single candle flame calm, two hands together in prayer gratitude. Or, perhaps you already have some spiritual symbols that you associate with these things, such as mandalas, or pictures of saints or teachers. Don’t worry about getting everything down the first time – you are likely to think of more over time once you start this process.

- Spend 5 minutes on the internet doing an image search. Both yahoo and google have search options to search only images. Save the pictures you like to your hard drive, or print them out straight from the site.

- Spend 2 minutes placing or taping these pictures in key locations where you will encounter them, such as those mentioned above. It’s best to have just one symbol in each location, and it can be small and unobtrusive.

- When you come across each symbol, just take one deep breath as you focus on the symbol. Of course, if you can do more, do more! And if you want to try a more formal meditation, gazing symbols such as these for a few minutes while deep breathing can be a great form of meditation. Symbol contemplations and meditations have been integral to almost every spiritual tradition humanity has generated.

Go back to the first post on shifting, or on to the third post on love.

Meditation for Busy Women Series: Part I – Shifting

My favorite professor in college once said to me, ‘The best skill you can develop in life is how to shift gears.’  She had just walked into a conference with me, after bidding farewell to her toddler and babysitter on the campus lawn outside. At the time, she was juggling a full teaching schedule, two young children, a book project, and her tenure review process. I didn’t really know what she meant then, but I do now, as do most women juggling family, career, friends, volunteer projects, and countless other activities. Sometimes life feels like one big ‘Survivor’ challenge - we sprint up the rope ladder, leap over the log hurdle, crawl through the tube tunnel, and think we’re done…only to be confronted by a 200-yard swim across a lake.

I meet many women who want to incorporate some type of contemplation or meditation into their lives, but simply feel they do not have the time, and I can definately relate (found this cute post on trying to meditate with a baby recently – definately deja vu for me.) So I’ve decided to put together a series of five posts on meditation techniques for busy women, especially moms.

The theme for this first one is SHIFTING! I think it’s a mistake to think that meditation is mostly about quieting or calming your mind. More than anything it is about shifting your attention, instantly and completely, when you need to. And you probably already do this to some extent, as research shows women are actually better at this than men (see my post on Multitasking for some info on this.) You can shift from a conference call, to comforting your three-year old after a fall, and back to your conference call, without batting an eye. You probably engage in shifting of this type dozens of times throughout your day.

Meditation is simply using your shifting abilities to connect to something greater than yourself, outside of your normal everyday awareness. And doing this for even a few moments at key points throughout your day can really make a difference. Here’s a few shifting/meditation techniques you can incorporate into any day:

1) Parking Lot Moment: Anytime you are walking to or from your car in a parking lot (or to and from a bus stop, subway stop, etc.) focus on the feeling of the sun as it hits your face or body. If the sun is not out, focus on any breeze you can feel. The elements of nature are classic meditation foci, and anytime you get your awareness out of your busy head and into some natural element of your surroundings, you will shift. The sun and air are with you everywhere and they are vastly bigger than you are, so connecting to them instantly expands your awareness beyond yourself.

2) Bathroom Vacation: Memory is incredibly powerful, and research has shown that each time we recall a memory, we rewrite it to our brain with new emotional content, potentially making it more and more powerful over time. Pick a favorite vacation moment that you have had, particularly one that represents a relaxed and happy feeling. Everytime you go to the bathroom, close your eyes for just a few seconds after you are done and imagine yourself back in that moment. Develop the scene in your head visually. Make every potty break a chance to revitalize!

3) Shoe-Changing Thank-Yous: Gratitude is a universal spiritual theme. Connect to it at least twice every day by using the acts of putting on or taking off your shoes as opportunities to say thank you. Everytime you take a shoe on or off, think of one thing you are grateful for. Don’t get too  high-falutin here – keep it simple (and if all you can be grateful for is that this day will be over eventually, that’s fine!)

Of course, any of these can be expanded into longer, more formal sitting meditations if you have the time. Just try and seclude yourself in a quiet spot for 10-15 minutes (at first - you can go longer if you like later on.) Sit up straight anywhere you are comfortable, take a few deep breaths, and then commence with one of the techniques from above. If your mind begins to clear, you can drop your visualization and simply float in the sensation you have. When your mind wanders, just pull it back. Don’t get frustrated – each time you pull your mind back, you are doing a meditation ‘push-up’, and you will benefit, whether you realize it or not!

If you are interested in a more formal, sitting meditation practice, try the Types of Meditation post. Or, the other posts in this series, which also include meditation techniques you can incorporate into your day, are on Symbols, Love, and Belief.

Of, if you are interested in posts on motherhood, try the Spirituality and Motherhood posts.

For all the meditation related posts, go to the Meditation Category. Or, check out some meditation books from the Women’s Spirituality Book List.