A longtime reader wrote that he is going through difficult times with a lot of stress and asked for tips on meditation. He remembered that I started meditating to lower my blood pressure. It proved to be so helpful that I have had a daily meditation practice for over 20 years.
My recommendation is that you make your life a meditation. Let me explain why I reached such a seemingly radical attitude.
I read an article by Zen teacher Shinzen Young recommending a slow-motion dishwashing practice. The idea is to intentionally wash your dishes at about half the speed you would normally wash them. It works. It forces the brain to slow down and relax. It put me right into alpha (pleasant) brain waves and was great fun.
The bottom-line purpose of meditation is to teach us how to control our minds, meaning our awareness or consciousness. My purpose was to lower my blood pressure at the start, and it achieves that goal by what some call a "relaxation response" but what I simply call alpha brain-wave creation.
If your head was hooked up to an EEG (electro-encephalograph), alpha brain waves would gently roll onto the EEG paper like the rolling hills of Virginia, in contrast to the sharp-spike beta waves of waking, chore-oriented consciousness.
Seeing that I could induce alpha waves by slowing down my brain in the dishwashing experiment made me aware of how powerful meditation can be. I realized that it would work in other life activities. It is not always practical to slow down our activities, but the reason slow diswashing works is that it sharpens our focus and concentration, putting us firmly in the present moment. We can always handle the present moment, no matter how troubled we may be, and as we remain in the now our awareness is much more manageable.
There are all kinds of meditation techniques we can add to our repertoire. Like using mantras (words that move our mind) and mandalas (icons of any kind that influence the mind). Even pictures of people who uplift and soothe us make wonderful mandalas. You can easily convince yourself of this powerful truth by simply getting quiet while holding a picture of someone whose presence feels very good to you. You will feel your mind slowing down and literally feeding on those moments.
Making the leap to enjoying all of life as a meditation only requires that you realize every experience has something good in it and that you can find that good. One of my aunts actually rejoiced at the funeral of her sister because she realize she was out of pain and believed she was in heaven. When you can find alpha waves at a funeral, you are well on the way toward making all of life a meditation.
Do not let my dramatic illustrations turn you off. Minimally, realize that you have your mantras, mandalas, prayers, poems and memories to call upon in any life situation.
It is not some hare-brained idea. There's a great body of research to demonstrate the efficacy of meditation and how exciting it is to realize you hold this power in your hand
The best news is that it gets easier every day to manage your mind and emotions through all the techniques you are learning. You will never be far from alpha.
E-mail Dalton Roberts at DownhomeP@aol.com