The 5 Tibetans and Meditation Practice

[Guest guest]

Hi everyone, my thoughts or questions on a couple of practices:

 

Firstly - the 5 Tibetans:

 

Regarding movement 1, I've found it easier to reach the 21 reps by

slowing down the speed of twirling a lot but am not sure if this

defeats its purpose. I do know one thing, doing it at full speed is

a great way to lose weight - not because of the calorie burn but

because the nausea kills off appetite !! I'm unclear of the way

this 'movement 1' fits in with other 4, all of which seem to have a

spine straightening effect to help the energy go up. Actually the

weblink I looked at, said the main point of the 5 movements, when

done as a group, is to delay the ageing process - that's a nice

bonus of course.

 

Secondly - Meditation.

 

I've struggled over the years with getting this right .......

 

Most approaches are prescriptive. They say focus on a posture, a

breathing technique and/or on a mantra and do nothing more. 'that's

all there is to it'. The results are relaxation, emotional

cleansing, etc.

 

Others like Chrism's (hope I get this right Chris !!) say that such

practices are introductory lead-ins. They take you on a blast-off

and then like the first stage of a rocket, fall away naturally, to

be replaced consciously or otherwise by feelings of the texture of

forgiveness, humility, gratitude and all of those qualities which

lead one closer to God.

 

In turn, as the effect of THESE qualities is felt ever more

strongly, the mind spontaneously moves into suggestibility, a

thought vacuum, or to recall Chris's beautiful word 'a reverie'.

 

At that point, any regression of the mind into everyday thinking

should be discouraged by " witnessing " , so that a complete focus on

helping energy's movement through the body can be felt. My

difficulty is in having these intrusive thoughts occur to me yet IN

THE SAME TIME FRAME, being required to acknowledge the fact that I'm

merely witnessing them !!

 

To me, these 2 processes occur in sequence, not simultaneously and

one can't invalidate the experience of one thing by its replacement

by another. Multi-tasking has never been one of my strengths, but

I'd like to learn from others on this.

 

Thanks for reading - John R.

[Guest guest]

Hi John R.

 

The thoughts and meditations issue up for me too as I really need to

settle my thinking when I draw. Years ago I used to meditate

ferociously. I was very found of walking meditations. I used to try to

do them constantly, perhaps too much, but I invented some

manifestations of sensation that I am trying to revive as I start to

meditate again. They were intuited for the moving meditations and

proved to be very powerful for me. But now I am seeing if I can adapt

them to sitting. Here is where I am at.

 

The first precept to manifest is " a body at rest is aligned with

gravity. " So the idea is too feel strongly the directional force of

gravity on my body and let myself relax into it. Here is what I am

saying as a mantra, " Gravity presses....., Relax....., Align....., Body

at rest. " Each part is a call to a sensation. In the first the call is

to feel the heaviness of the gravitational force, making it almost

oppressive. The second is to feel relaxation in the body, to give up

resistance to this force. In the third I imagine vectors descending

vertically from above and feel my body becoming aligned with this. The

last I put them all together and bring forth restfulness. The object is

to have all of these sensations manifested at once and when I get this

fairly consistent I might drop the last line. It is not about the words

but getting the sensation of the restfulness of the body being aligned

to gravity, so the greater this sensation is the less loud I make the

words in my head. As Tara said, a task is good, so if my mind starts to

wander I just go back to the words of the mantra.

 

I will skip a step as it applies to the moving meditation, so the next

precept to manifest is " thoughts at rest are aligned to gravity. " This

was very effective when I did it years ago, but really only when I had

a good consistency with the body manifestation above. I haven't worked

on this one so much recently but in those days I would

again imagine vectors raining down, I would feel the weight of thoughts

and they would fall away with the directional force. However they were

not like thoughts of everyday life one thinks but became little blips

of sound and image and word, pre thoughts. At least that is what I

witnessed. And I would let these drain on down before they became

something to think, that is before I started to participate in

association from them. This was the most consistency I have ever gotten

with settling the thinking.

 

Petition Grace with Gratitude-

 

Bret

 

 

On Jan 30, 2006, at 7:37 PM, wrote:

 

> Hi everyone, my thoughts or questions on a couple of practices:

>

> Firstly - the 5 Tibetans:

>

> Regarding movement 1, I've found it easier to reach the 21 reps by

> slowing down the speed of twirling a lot but am not sure if this

> defeats its purpose. I do know one thing, doing it at full speed is

> a great way to lose weight - not because of the calorie burn but

> because the nausea kills off appetite !! I'm unclear of the way

> this 'movement 1' fits in with other 4, all of which seem to have a

> spine straightening effect to help the energy go up. Actually the

> weblink I looked at, said the main point of the 5 movements, when

> done as a group, is to delay the ageing process - that's a nice

> bonus of course.

>

> Secondly - Meditation.

>

> I've struggled over the years with getting this right .......

>

> Most approaches are prescriptive. They say focus on a posture, a

> breathing technique and/or on a mantra and do nothing more. 'that's

> all there is to it'. The results are relaxation, emotional

> cleansing, etc.

>

> Others like Chrism's (hope I get this right Chris !!) say that such

> practices are introductory lead-ins. They take you on a blast-off

> and then like the first stage of a rocket, fall away naturally, to

> be replaced consciously or otherwise by feelings of the texture of

> forgiveness, humility, gratitude and all of those qualities which

> lead one closer to God.

>

> In turn, as the effect of THESE qualities is felt ever more

> strongly, the mind spontaneously moves into suggestibility, a

> thought vacuum, or to recall Chris's beautiful word 'a reverie'.

>

> At that point, any regression of the mind into everyday thinking

> should be discouraged by " witnessing " , so that a complete focus on

> helping energy's movement through the body can be felt. My

> difficulty is in having these intrusive thoughts occur to me yet IN

> THE SAME TIME FRAME, being required to acknowledge the fact that I'm

> merely witnessing them !!

>

> To me, these 2 processes occur in sequence, not simultaneously and

> one can't invalidate the experience of one thing by its replacement

> by another. Multi-tasking has never been one of my strengths, but

> I'd like to learn from others on this.

>

> Thanks for reading - John R.

>

>