Wednesday, May 14, 2008
You Are Not What You Think
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Suffering, an Inconvenient Truth
Monday, May 12, 2008
Ice cream Sandwich
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
Concretize
I had to look this one up. It is to make something hard like concrete. I was listening to a Dharma (truth) podcast the other day and the lecturer used this word. I really like it because it gives such a strong visualization of what happens within us when we hold on too tightly to something. I was a construction worker during high school and I was responsible for mixing concrete and pouring it. You add water to the concrete solution and then it hardens and becomes solid and non-porous.
The human body is roughly 75% water depending on your age and the amount of water you drink. It is common for people to become more and more dehydrated as they age. Did you know our brains are 75% water? Most headaches can be attributed to dehydration. Lean muscle tissue contains about 75% water. Blood contains 83% water, body fat contains 25% water, and bone has 22% water. When the body is dehydrated it dries up and begins to concretize like concrete. Research has proven that severe dehydration creates havoc for our bodies in the long run.
Our minds work a lot like this: Just take a moment to sit back and watch your mind. A thought will come in and then it will turn into another thought and another, and so on, just like a story. You can think of the mind as flowing as water, moving from one thought to another. The mind can also latch onto a thought and concretize it. This means that this particular thought will come up again and again. It has hardened and becomes a repeat thought or part of your memory. This feature of the mind is what allows us to accomplish tasks and empower ourselves. Unfortunately, it can also keep us stuck in unhealthy and habitual patterns.
Here is a little exercise in awareness. The next time someone says to you “This is really hard,” look up and observe their facial expression. You will be surprised to see that their face is a face of anguish or stress. It is as if they are those negative thoughts and feelings and concretizing them. As they are pulled from their comfort zone, they freeze, like concrete. The mind tends to concretize around fear and the thought that produced that emotion. The more often we concretize around things we would categorize as difficult—the harder it is to deal with life’s ups and downs.
When you experience a task that requires you to sweat, think outside the box, or get your hands a little dirty, I refer to it as a challenge. Accepting a challenge requires courage. The word courage comes from the Latin root “cor” which means heart. It is within the moments that we are challenged that we need to stop and recognize the thoughts and emotions for what they are. It is a shift from identification to observation; the concretizing can subside with observation within minutes. Using identification however, we can many times become paralyzed like concrete for hours, days or even a lifetime.
This is something I am continually working on. I’m trying to recognize where I am hardening when I need to soften— lifetime contemplation for all those on the path to empowerment!
Monday, May 5, 2008
Seasonal Runner
Thursday, April 24, 2008
Basic Meditation Instructions
- Take a comfortable seat. You can be in a chair or sit on the floor. If you are sitting on the floor, ensure that your knees are not higher than your hips. Your spine should be aligned, with your shoulders dropped and relaxed. Your ears should be centered overtop of the shoulder.
- Find a point that you can rest your eyes on.
- If you are sitting on the floor, let that point be four feet in front of you. Make sure not to drop your chin when looking down at the floor.
- If you are sitting in a chair, focus your eyes straight ahead. Again, make sure your spine is properly aligned and you are maintaining an S-curve with your vertebrae. Poor posture will cause mental laziness and affect your alertness.
- There are many meditations that have you close your eyes, but for this one keep your eyes open. It will help you stay alert and reduce sleepiness.
- Now bring your attention to your breathing. Keep your mouth closed and breathe through your nostrils.
- Focus on the way the air comes through your nostrils and down your throat, filling the lungs. Follow the breath as it leaves your body in the reverse order.
- When your attention wanders from observing the breath—you have fallen into focusing on a thought – maybe even a stream of thoughts.
- No big deal. Just recognize that you have left the present moment—label the thinking as thought and come back to an inhale.
- Repeating this process of losing your focus on the breath and coming back is what creates a stronger and more stable mind.
- Judging yourself or being hard on yourself when you are lost in thought will only cause more thought. Learning to touch thought with your awareness and return to your breathing will cultivate the ability to let go.