Meditate, Yep. Do It:

I have always had mixed feeling on seated meditation. Some days I can sit with a still mind and really enjoy this moment of “just being”. Other days seated meditation is like hand cuffing me to a right wing republican or anything that is extreme and irritating. I want to get out, and I want to get out fast!

So in lies the question(s) of mediation, at least for me. How do I find calm in meditation? How can I find a meditation that I honor and find value in? Meditation is not always easy, more often than not it is hard. It is a flux of wonderful insight and silence. Mixed in with blahbha blhabhlha of the mind, ego, and self. I will be the first to admit, I prefer moving meditation. It’s not that I don’t find value in seated meditation. I do. However, I feel moving mediation can be more accessible; not as physically still but reaches the idea that the mind stills. I tend to use my bike as a moving meditation. This to me is finding calm. I find value in the silence of mind body and breath that I get when I ride a road bike. I honor this space by most of the time not listening to music but to my breath and what may be around me.  Alan Watts said: “ Mediation is the discovery that the point of life is always arrived at in the immediate moment.” Now however you get to that is up to you. My point, no one can tell you the best way to meditate. That is your job.

I read not too long ago, (but long enough that I can’t recall everything) an article in Elephant Journal on Meditation. It stated that yoga instructors don’t stress seated meditation enough or practice it enough. Now I will admit right away I am one of them that this writer was pointing his finger to. And it is not that I don’t see the importance of seated meditation, I do, and I should do it more…but I have a hard time with the idea that meditation should just be seated.  They’re so many different types of mediation! Why should mediation be limited to one type? That would be like saying you can only practice one type of Yoga/Asana….and what a shame that would be, and boring in my mind.  It is diversity that allows us to learn more about our selves.  Meditation to me is an inquiry, a looking inward and eventually a place to be silent. (This is me, stressing mediation for the growth and inquiry of your self…but not just seated.)

So here you have it, a list of a few different Meditations I have practiced over the years. Below you will find the names as well as links to information on them. I’m going to give one a go each week for 7 days. I suggest you do the same. See what works for YOU. .  I’ll let you know how they go…please do the same!

Big Mind Mediation: http://bigmind.org/

Zen Mediation: http://www.mro.org/zmm/teachings/meditation.php

Moving Mediation: This one is up to you. The key is mindfulness. Moving Meditation can be a, hike, walk, Tai Chi, Yoga, the list goes on…

I will leave you with some great words of wisdom on meditation:

“Many people feel that they can’t meditate because right from the start they are getting distracted. All they are sensing is what is happening below the surface all the time – they are just not aware that they are distracted. According to the Sufis, life is seductive and whatever the mind is most interested in, it pays attention to at any given moment, and that is always changing.” ~Rod Stryker

Much love,

Elisabeth