mindfulness basics: sitting

Written by brian

Why are the asanas a part of yoga? For those that don’t know, asanas are the positions that are held in what is typically referred to as yoga in the west, though it is originally just one part of a yoga practice.
mindful sitting buddha
Anyway, what purpose do they serve? Beyond the basic helpfulness of exercise for general well being, their primary value is in strengthening the core muscles of the abdomen and lower back and in improving flexibility.

Why is this important? So you can sit comfortably for extended periods.

Yeah, that’s pretty much it.

The traditional meditation pose people associate with yogis, sitting with their feet crossed up over their knees, isn’t necessary for meditation. It does happen to be a very good pose for meditation because it gives you a solid base on your buttocks from which you won’t need to move, but it’s not necessary.

What is necessary is finding a pose that allows you to not move for the duration of your meditation. It’s also best to be upright, though sometimes a bit of meditation before going to sleep can be done on your back (and can be very helpful in allowing you to fall asleep very quickly).

Why is it necessary to find a pose that has you not moving? Because if you’re compelled to move, then you’re distracted. Being distracted is unproductive for meditation. Also, having a solid base allows you to “center” more easily, which is very important for many meditations (and eventually becomes crucial for all meditations).

Ideally, you’re also going to want to sit as if a force was pulling your head straight up. This forces you to straighten up the spine, which is healthy in the long-term for people without a medical condition that prevents it.

Popular postures including sitting on your knees with a pillow underneath you for support, sitting indian style, or simply sitting in a chair with your hands clasped in your lap.

In conclusion, find a way to sit upright if possible. It doesn’t have to be like a yogi (though if you can do that, try it, it’s a great posture), but you do have to be comfortable and preferably upright so you can center.

Good luck!

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mindfulness and poetry friday! crossing brooklyn ferry

Written by brian


Walt Whitman is one of America’s most important poets (no he doesn’t rhyme) and one of the important missionaries of eastern wisdom in this country. Below is a portion of one of his most important poems, “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry:”

It avails not, neither time or place--distance avails not;
I am with you, you men and women of a generation, or ever so many
generations hence;
I project myself--also I return--I am with you, and know how it is.	 

Just as you feel when you look on the river and sky, so I felt;
Just as any of you is one of a living crowd, I was one of a crowd;
Just as you are refresh’d by the gladness of the river and the
bright flow, I was refresh’d;
Just as you stand and lean on the rail, yet hurry with the swift
current, I stood, yet was hurried;
Just as you look on the numberless masts of ships, and the
thick-stem’d pipes of steamboats, I look’d.

The idea of common experiences uniting people through time and space is similar to the idea behind some of the unity ideas that spring up in meditation. Next time you sit for meditation, think about projecting yourself out to loved ones who are separated from you by geography. Draw strength from them and project yourself out to them. Connect.

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mindfulness, planting thoughts, and fearing the mind

Written by brian

Thich Nhat Hanh became famous during the Vietnam war as a beacon of culture from the hell Americans saw on television every day. I’d like to present two quotes and discuss them here.

"Attachment to views is the greatest impediment to the spiritual
path."

"Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile, but sometimes your
smile can be the source of your joy."

There are two points to make here: the first is that, when you are attached to thoughts, you are also afraid of being unattached to those thoughts and perhaps having different thoughts. When you are afraid of having a thought, your mind processes an input up to a point and then loops around, causing anxiety because it has nowhere to land. This is tiring and frankly unhealthy.

The benefit of a truly open mind is a truly open self-discourse and an honest life. With an honest life comes a better chance at a life free of crippling anxiety and full of loving relationships and fruitful labor.

Another boon for happiness is planting moods through conscious efforts such as smiling and repeating positive thoughts. I’ve already written here about affirmations. But even a smile, enjoyed, can make a day. Take a moment to enjoy beautiful weather, or the coming of spring, even a favorite song, and enjoy it with a smile; this is mindfulness.

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well, what about affirmations?

Written by brian

People who have a negative attitude are probably going to fail in life. It’s not rocket science; if a person’s mind is used to processing negative thoughts, it’s going to be easier for it to continue down that path. Self-fulfilling prophecies end up fulfilled.

But why is it such a big deal if you don’t mean it?

How important is intuition to your day to day life? How important could it be? The unconscious mind is capable of more than we often give it credit for. When you’ve forgotten something and then remember it later, did you remember it through conscious effort?

No. You figured it out because the unconscious mind came up with the answer and gave it to your conscious mind on a platter.

What about moments of inspiration in the shower? What about Archimedes in the shower with his Eureka moment? What about waking up in the middle of the night with an idea, like Larry Page did when he realized they could download the internet and SEARCH IT.

All this talk about the unconscious mind is another way of saying it’s important, and affirmations are for that part of the mind. If the language component of your brain is constantly processing positive thoughts, like “I can do this” and “I will be successful today,” it will have an easier time getting there. In fact, it often will work backwards from the moment of celebration to fix the problem at hand, always with the goal of that thought in mind as its reward.

In the future I’ll post some more detailed techniques surrounding affirmations. For now I’ll just say they’re important. Always keep ‘em wanting more! :)

Positive Thoughts! With consistent work, you will be successful!

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Audio Meditation Supplements: White Noise

Written by brian

One of the most common technology supplements to a meditation practice is an audio track. These comes in various forms, including guided meditations, nature sounds, and the subject of this post, white noise.

What is white noise?

White noise is essentially a uniform, blank noise, that sounds a lot like the “static” of older televisions (can you believe many of the children of today have no idea what noise I’m referring to?). Variants on different spectrums include “pink” and “brown” noise.

What is the use for meditation?

You may not realize it but it’s a pretty loud world out there. A lot of those sounds are distracting. White noise is an innocuous way to drown them out.

For many people, white noise also helps to “drown out” their thoughts. Have you or do you know people who always have the TV on for at least background noise once they get home. Do you know people who are uncomfortable with silences. Are you one of these people?

White noise gives these people something to help occupy their minds. While it’s not ideal, it’s a perfectly good crutch to start off with.

What about oscillation?

With oscillation (which moves the volume in and out) the noise can be made less oppressive than many people find it initially. It is less uniform and therefore attracts the mind more.

Oscillation also brings back memories of ocean waves, often cited as a calming ambiance.

Where can I try it?

The best is always going to be produced tracks, but when I’m at the office I like to use http://www.simplynoise.com.

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5 Benefits of Meditation Practice

Written by brian

This list couldn’t possibly list the top 5, but here are five benefits to a meditation practice. Note that this isn’t the more general mindfulness practice; this is simply for meditation practice specifically.

1. It is a healthy form of “escape”

It really isn’t escape at all, but a lot of the same feelings that cause people to reach for a drink or a cigarette when they are at their wit’s end and need a change of pace can be handled much more healthily through meditation. Your perspective will be different coming out of even ten minutes of meditation, and in a very good way.

2. Regenerate and invigorate

Speaking of coming home, for a lot of people the end of the work day is the end of productivity. Time to grab a beer, have dinner, have another beer, and watch TV until it’s time for bed. With 20 minutes of meditation, that doesn’t have to be the case.

Do more with your day. Feel better about it.

3. Improve your health

Meditation helps your health by reducing stress. Stress does bad things to your body. Take just about any symptom you could experience (nausea, pain, heart trouble, skin trouble, mouth trouble, etc) and it could be caused or exacerbated by stress and anxiety.

Failing to deal with stress can and probably will kill you. This isn’t fear mongering; if meditation and this system aren’t for you, then do something else like exercise or some hobby you enjoy. Just do something to control your stress.

4. Insight and perspective

When you free your mind from the noise of the day-to-day, the results can be enlightening. Your mind is busy trying to process a lot of information it’s not able to process that it just doesn’t have time to get to some of the issues most pressing in your life.

Is your mind supposed to wander during a meditation? Of course not. But if you have a great insight, write it down before you go back to your meditation!

5. Me time

We’re told about how self-centered we are as a society every day. Care more about others. Stop buying things you don’t need. Think about society as a whole and not just your own concerns. The list goes on.

Newsflash: if people had a good sense of self-identity they wouldn’t be reaching out to materialism, entertainment every waking hour of the day, and lashing out with selfish actions.

A meditation practice allows a person to focus on their sense of self and their direction moving forward every day in a healthy, productive way. Don’t discount that.

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mindfulness and poetry friday! tea at the palaz of hoon

Written by brian 
Not less because in purple I descended
The western day through what you called
The loneliest air, not less was I myself.

What was the ointment sprinkled on my beard?
What were the hymns that buzzed beside my ears?
What was the sea whose tide swept through me there?

Out of my mind the golden ointment rained,
And my ears made the blowing hymns they heard.
I was myself the compass of that sea:

I was the world in which I walked, and what I saw
Or heard or felt came not but from myself;
And there I found myself more truly and more strange.

-Wallace Stevens

This poem is Wallace Stevens catching himself living as in a dream. Look at the last line. Have you ever felt yourself feeling like that after a meditation? If you have not, you should learn how to get there. It is a wonderful awareness.

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why breath is used in mindfulness exercises

Written by brian

If you’re at all familiar with mindfulness exercises or meditation, you have seen techniques centered on the breath. Why?

1. The brain likes oxygen.

This isn’t rocket science, but it turns out that when your brain is low on oxygen, like when you’re taking short breaths because you’re stressed, it doesn’t work as well. That means it doesn’t process thoughts, which means the mind’s basic effectiveness goes down. Oxygen is good.

2. Breathing is something we do all the time, but only need to pay attention to sometimes, and when we need to pay attention to it that means it’s really important.

Ever notice that it seems like commercials, movies, and television are getting louder and louder to get your attention? That’s because it takes more and more to stick out enough to get the mind to pay attention.

Breathing fits a happy medium of something that is relatively easy to pay attention to even though it’s perhaps one of our most basic functions. This is because when breath becomes important enough to pay attention to, it’s very important. For instance, when you’re drowning. However, outside of those scenarios, it’s not much more noticeable than your heartbeat.

3. We are all breathing in the same air.

The third reason is kind of more spiritual than we tend to get here, but when people focus on the air around them a lot of them feel more connected to the world. You could be breathing in some of the same air molecules as someone else in the room had in their body just a little while ago. Extrapolate that out. Feel connected yet?

If you do, or even if you don’t, take a few deep breaths. It’s good for you.

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what monks didn’t know about mindfulness

Written by brian

I got 104 emails yesterday.

104. 104 times my day was interrupted to read an email to see if it was important. I either added it to my to-do list, did whatever it asked right away, or deleted it.

My phone rang 12 times. Someone came by to my office 3 times (not too bad).

Then I came home and sat on my laptop with GChat open talking to friends on and off while I watched basketball and did work.

I had Twitter open for a large portion of the day too. And I guarantee a lot of people who read this will think “pfft, those numbers are WEAK.”

People living today are asked to deal with more stimuli than at any point in history. Organizing it all is tough, and also crucial.

Often when I’m teaching people some basic mindfulness techniques they have a hard time because they have so much going on in their life.

I tell them, “write down a quick to-do list for your entire life.” They don’t want to. It will scare them, because they have so much.

Here’s a nugget of truth for the day: people haven’t found a better way to put thoughts in order than doing so via language, whether that be on paper, the computer, or tape.

If you’re trying to meditate and can’t, or trying to focus and can’t, do yourself a favor and free write about whatever is on your mind until you have nothing left. Get it all out. If things are too congested, try another way to calm your mind before you come back to a more traditional method.

The truth is monks did know this. They knew (and know) that different people require different techniques at different times. They just didn’t know how crazy modern life would get!

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is poetry the most mindful art form?

Written by brian

Is poetry the most mindful art form?

In a way, yes. In a way, no. For the people of the monkey mind, it could be argued, poetry promotes mindfulness. For those experienced with mindfulness?

Let’s take a step back. What is any art form, as relates to consciousness? I would argue that it is a packaged dream. Many people live constantly as in a dream, touching back with reality but living much of their life in their mind. Art provides another, odd sense of reality.

It stimulates a dream state and pulls people away from their normal reality. It is like a packaged dream.

Now, if mindfulness is about constantly bringing oneself back (which is certainly one way of looking at it) then what medium requires the reader to do this more than poetry? Visual art, music, movies…all make it easy lose yourself.

In poetry, you engage. It is enforced. A mindful person will engage with all art as they engage with the world. But poetry enforces the attention or there is no art experience.

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