Dear Yogis,

What happens for me in meditation you ask? It is not easy to write about… or even to analyse.

In the first  minutes a curious thing happens. First concentrating on the breath, back and forth sharpening the focus.  In the beginning it is a “grind” but it is a grind I know,  a strange place that depending where I am and the intention,  can last quite a long time.  I am the person sitting in meditation standing back from myself looking at the person sitting in meditation.  After a while all that remains is the energy of the person sitting in meditation, being inside the flow of meditation.  The breath breathes itself. A special place of unhindered oxygenation is what you are seeking.  Imperfect breath patterns cause stress even if you are oblivious to this.

Let everything drift into soft awareness.

Then comes clarity, you get deeper and deeper into the soul of meditation.  The concept of “I” is gone and all that exists is blissful engagement with the process, absolute flow.  You know what is happening but you experience it from inside what is happening.

As I have said many times, by systematically training yourself you can drop into this meditative state at will and avoid distractions.  Even from children.  If you are tense, trying not to listen, straining to be calm… this is a contradiction, and you will snap.  The harder you try to blanket it out, the louder if becomes.

Most of us are TRAPPED in a “mind bubble”.  The alternative is to be quietly focussed, relaxed, your face in the Buddhist half smile, integrating what comes into the experience, and detaching. Be at peace with the distraction.  If music is in the background integrate it, not denying the sound, or your emotion. If your knees ache, if your back is sore… Integrate it, channel it into higher focus, sorting your way through the chaos.  The mind is just like any other muscle, it needs to be trained and Vipassana meditation is the best training.  Concentrating on the breath, always coming back to the breath expecting NOTHING.

Read and understand the TaoTeChing.  Laotses’s focus is inward,  understanding the essence of things rather than the physical outward manifestations.  Some of his verses comprise the last modules in our course, but few understand beyond the physical.  The Tao’s wisdom centres on overcoming obstructions to our natural insight, seeing false obstructions for what they are and releasing them.

As in TaiChi and YOGA, the aim is not winning – the aim is BEING.

Like Chancy the Gardener, Have a great “*BEING THERE” day… (*A Peter Sellers movie from a book written by Jerzy Kosinski).

NAMASTE – JAHNE

(Watch this space for new take on small, small space,  high nutrition gardening, coming soon…)