Walking through a storm
Apr. 18th, 2004 07:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
vaneramosSince ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
lisalemonjello asked about my meditations, I have intended to post a couple. Some of the guided meditations I use are fairly intricate, but what follows is a very simple one. The words are slightly adapted from one recommended by Jack Kornfield in A Path With Heart. This is a good one for frequent use. Try sitting quietly in a chair and repeating it for 15 minutes once every morning. Practise saying it alound, but once it becomes familiar you can say it quietly to yourself, or just let the words run through your head. Repeat the whole thing slowly, perhaps three times a minute, giving yourself time to reflect on the words.
Let me be filled with kindness and love.
Let me be well.
Let me be peaceful and at ease.
Let me be happy.
Perhaps they sound hokey. Whether or not you think so, you'll probably find yourself resisting them sometime in the process. Observe your own emotions with kind attention and let them wash over you. Keep going.
What I was pleased to discover last spring, and have rediscovered this year, is it's easy to use as a walking meditation. Once you become familiar with the words, you can repeat them silently to yourself while walking on the beach or down the street. After a few days or weeks you might choose to focus the thoughts on someone else: a loved one, a sick relative, a someone you're having trouble getting along with, or a politician or world figure.
Let George be filled with kindness and love.
Let him be well.
After using it for a while, you'll find the words come easily to you in moments of anxiety or conflict. I used it in hospital last March, but somehow over the course of the spring I forgot about it. I'm pleased to have unearthed it again.
This morning I left the apartment early to walk and use this very meditation. I had only gone halfway down the block when I heard thunder. I considered turning around, but the meditation compelled me to go on. There was something fabulously cliché about repeating these words to myself in the middle of a storm.
Then it started to pour. I kept going.
By the time I reached the pond, the rain was mixed with hail.
I couldn't resist pulling out my camera and taking some photos; I so rarely see the Eramosa River in such a state.
Geese on the dark pond with hailstones.
I kept repeating the words of the meditation while I took pictures. Using my camera comes so naturally to me, I decided it was okay. Unusual circumstances.
The rain lasted about 10 minutes and I arrived home wet but not drenched. Because of the distraction of the storm, my meditation lasted 20 minutes, five minutes longer than intended.
Maple buds on York Road.
Don't wait until your walking in a thunderstorm to learn this meditation.
lisalemonjello asked about my meditations, I have intended to post a couple. Some of the guided meditations I use are fairly intricate, but what follows is a very simple one. The words are slightly adapted from one recommended by Jack Kornfield in A Path With Heart. This is a good one for frequent use. Try sitting quietly in a chair and repeating it for 15 minutes once every morning. Practise saying it alound, but once it becomes familiar you can say it quietly to yourself, or just let the words run through your head. Repeat the whole thing slowly, perhaps three times a minute, giving yourself time to reflect on the words.Let me be filled with kindness and love.
Let me be well.
Let me be peaceful and at ease.
Let me be happy.
Perhaps they sound hokey. Whether or not you think so, you'll probably find yourself resisting them sometime in the process. Observe your own emotions with kind attention and let them wash over you. Keep going.
What I was pleased to discover last spring, and have rediscovered this year, is it's easy to use as a walking meditation. Once you become familiar with the words, you can repeat them silently to yourself while walking on the beach or down the street. After a few days or weeks you might choose to focus the thoughts on someone else: a loved one, a sick relative, a someone you're having trouble getting along with, or a politician or world figure.
Let George be filled with kindness and love.
Let him be well.
After using it for a while, you'll find the words come easily to you in moments of anxiety or conflict. I used it in hospital last March, but somehow over the course of the spring I forgot about it. I'm pleased to have unearthed it again.
This morning I left the apartment early to walk and use this very meditation. I had only gone halfway down the block when I heard thunder. I considered turning around, but the meditation compelled me to go on. There was something fabulously cliché about repeating these words to myself in the middle of a storm.
Then it started to pour. I kept going.
By the time I reached the pond, the rain was mixed with hail.
I couldn't resist pulling out my camera and taking some photos; I so rarely see the Eramosa River in such a state.
Geese on the dark pond with hailstones.
I kept repeating the words of the meditation while I took pictures. Using my camera comes so naturally to me, I decided it was okay. Unusual circumstances.
The rain lasted about 10 minutes and I arrived home wet but not drenched. Because of the distraction of the storm, my meditation lasted 20 minutes, five minutes longer than intended.
Maple buds on York Road.
Don't wait until your walking in a thunderstorm to learn this meditation.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2004-04-19 06:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-04-18 07:01 pm (UTC)I used to do a guided meditation for Elli. I'd talk her through the colors of the chakras and have her do the visualizations with me, the color red then relate it to an apple the deep red of a ripe apple, breathing and on the in breath taking the color into every inch of your body, on the exhale letting any bit that isn't red flow out of your body with the air. Spend about a minute on each, and then walk her through a meadow, an underwater garden, or any of a number of different ones, sometimes she'd drift off to sleep, sometimes she'd be relaxed but awake and then we'd just lay there breathing. These were magical times, ones that I wouldn't have missed for the world.
Van you are all about bringing up memories for me today!...
be well
connor
no subject
Date: 2004-04-19 07:12 am (UTC)My beliefs have changed radically in the past eight years, but I have missed the emotional grounding that came from my daily Christian meditations: we called them devotions or quiet times. I couldn't figure out what I believed until about three years ago. After that it was easier to find a practice that made sense to me. Meditations like this remind me of affirmations I have learned to use from books on creativity, like The Artist's Way. It's a kind of cognitive therapy. Establishing the discipline to do it regularly is the hard part.
I was bewildered last week to rediscover this meditation, because I remembered how much I enjoyed it a year ago, and yet somehow I had completely forgotten about it. That's what anxiety does to me; I get distracted by a problem, or my routine gets disrupted, and I lose track of the work I've been doing, and then my memory is the pits. So here it has taken me a year to catch up to where I was. And yet I can see the benefits of habits I have slowly built over the years, like morning pages, going for walks and keeping a better handle on housework. A day at a time.
When I found it again this week, I had to smile, because the second line of the meditation reminded me of a new buddy who always tells everyone, "Be well."
no subject
Date: 2004-04-19 09:33 am (UTC)I like leaving it at be well, that is open to interpretation. what is well to me can be different from everyone else's definition.
anyway great stuff I am going to spend some time today with that meditation.
be well
cheers
connor
no subject
Date: 2004-04-19 08:52 pm (UTC)These days I'm more concerned about emotional wellness. To another person the phrase might be about overcoming addiction. We could even use it to help us concentrate on eating more healthily.
Re: meditation
Date: 2004-04-19 07:33 am (UTC)Love Arvo Part!
no subject
Date: 2004-04-19 12:17 am (UTC)~paul
no subject
Date: 2004-04-19 08:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-04-19 09:03 am (UTC)here, at 8:30, it would be broad daylight.
of course, you are a bit North of
here, aren't you? ~paul
no subject
Date: 2004-04-19 02:46 pm (UTC)The sun rises at about 6:30. Remember, by summer solstice I'll be getting more daylight than you!
no subject
Date: 2004-04-19 05:00 pm (UTC)you're right, it would get that dark
in a thunderstorm. we won't have any
for about 7 or eight weeks here. you
could send one down if you're not using
it.,
no subject
Date: 2004-04-19 09:13 pm (UTC)