Simply Meditation
1. Before you can meditate all day long, you must first practice by sitting quietly - to get the idea. Try to sit every day at the same time, once in the morning and once at night. Sit for about 15 minutes to begin with, longer if you prefer but not too long. If you sit for too long a period when first learning, meditation can become a chore and you might easily get discouraged.
2. Set a digital kitchen timer for about 2 or 3 minutes, then relax with your back straight and your eyes closed. Now anticipate the timer going off. Try to "ambush" it and be completely present at the exact moment it goes off. This will require your utmost attention without thoughts interfering, a wide-awake, bright anticipation. Do this for the entire meditation period, resetting the timer every 2 or 3 minutes. If you find yourself bogged down in thinking and the timer surprises you, simply reset the timer and try again.
3. Try to extend the periods of bright awareness, waiting for the timer, and reduce the time spent lost in thoughts. As you learn to do this, eventually you will be able to maintain the bright awareness for the entire meditation period with few thoughts arising. Then you will be able to take this bright awareness out into the world and remain in a constant state of meditation, using thought only when necessary. This bright awareness is where light bulbs go off -- the creativity that occurs in flashes, having nothing to do with mechanical thought. It is the intuitive insight accessed by all true artists and seers; it is the portal to spiritual enlightenment, and it changes your life from one of fear and worry into one of unconditional love.
Related Tags: meditation, awareness, enlightenment, unconditional love
E. Raymond Rock is cofounder and principal teacher at the Southwest Florida Insight Center in Fort Myers Florida. His 28 years of meditation experience has taken him across four continents, including two stopovers in Thailand where he practiced in the remote northeast forests as an ordained Theravada Buddhist monk. He has practiced with Ajahn Chah, Ajahn Maha Boowa, Ajahn Sumedho, Ajahn Tui, Bhante Gunaratana, Roshi Kennett, Seung Sahn Sunim, Trungpa Rinpoche, the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts, and the Zen Center in San Francisco. His new book, A Year to Enlightenment (Career Press/New Page Books), is available at major bookstores and on-line.
Personal Transformations Copyright © E. Raymond Rock 2006. All rights reserved.
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