I got back on the bike with my stabilisers and did a guided slo-mo walking meditation in the tangerine dream of autumn colours. I have a question:
Th guy says to place one foot entirely on the ground and rest there a moment before lifting the heel of the other foot. I found this difficult as for me the placing of the foot is what releases the other heel. Any suggestions?
I'm also not doing so well with the military planes but at the same time am aware that I am attaching a kind of terminal victimhood on them as I did on our very irritating ex neighbour who screamed all day. Am I just looking for a reason to be unhappy and distracted? there will always be one if I look.
Beth you poor thing. How ghastly....amazing that you still could feel the breath. Brava.
I dunno, I fall over a lot when I'm doing walking meditation, so I may not be the guy to ask :-)
It's less like walking than I had pictured. My guess is that you're going faster than your instructions are expecting. I was startled by how slow the people I learned from wanted me to walk. If you think of it as slowly transferring from one standing position to another, rather than as walking, might that help?
I would have a very hard time with the planes too. Are they on any kind of a schedule, which you can avoid?
I try to steer a middle course with distractions like that. I want to make sure I engage with them at least sometimes, but getting in a knock-down bitter fight with them every day may not be productive (and may result in me just giving up practicing.) Do they have a predictable schedule, so you can avoid them? Or are earplugs an option?
Sat last night. One thing I'm noticing, with consistency, is the return of a affectionate relationship with my shrine. (It isn't an elaborate affair, just a little wooden Buddha sitting on a shoebox-sized block of wood that's covered with blue and silver cloth, seven little offering bowls & a candle below around the block, and pictures of a couple of my teachers.) The moment I see it, now, I feel a twinge, sometimes a rush, of affection and comfort.
Yeah, I think that's it, Ruth, you need to take really tiny steps (like, half-a-foot long) and go really really slowly in order to deactivate the instinct to lift one foot as you put the other down. I was wondering, though, whether even then you might be habitually shifting your centre of gravity more automatically than the teacher envisages, because of your training in Alexander Technique etc. And of course you wouldn't want to unlearn that. When I'm in a room full of people doing walking meditation, I sometimes look around (yeah, I know, why am I doing that?...) and see lots of people who are really out of balance, tipping backward and forward and balancing tensely on one foot - not very meditative at all - and your body's knowledge of how not to do that is not something you'd want to go against. Test what others tell you against your own experience, as the Buddha would say - I'm sure someone here can come up with the quote...
Dale, photos of your teachers on your shrine? I don't know. I don't think I could ever find that anything but really creepy. Which is completely beside any point of course, as long as YOU find it useful and not creepy. I KNOW it's not about worshiping or deifying them, any more than the buddha statue is, but, oh gosh... It's the same problem I have with Indian gurus, I guess. Probably very Protestant, and since I don't really like much about Protestantism, not very logical.
I can think my way backwards and reconstruct what my responses would have been ten years ago, though, and they probably would have been that.
If anything I do counts as worship, I guess what I do with those photographs does. The pictures are of Michael and Sarah. Michael's the teacher at my center. I don't worship him any differently than I worship you, Jean :-) Sarah is a different matter; she's my "root lama" or "heart teacher," and part of my practice -- is to view her as the Buddha.
Yes, it's not something to make a protestant sensibility comfortable :-) I have found it hugely useful, though.
thanks everyone, that was very helpful> I was going extremely slowly (and did look a bit silly in the field as cars passed but hey), and I think you are right, jean, i was lookiing for fluidity of movement and being centred all the time in that fluidity. to stay in any position felt fixed yet again....i think i will stay with that feeling and not fight it. it took me a long time to locate it!
dale thanks for your jet-compassion. funnily enough I did ring up for exactly that reason - to see if I could find out a timetable but unfortunately we are in about 4 flying zones who have permission to fly twice a day for 2 hours so there's no getting away from it except in my MIND!!!
i understand about the teachers and I would feel the same as you Dale. I have photos of Sandor Vegh and Casals along with my little Buddha just as I have pictures of the waves in Cornwall and they are all my teachers. They all inspire a tremendous affection and bring me into a heart space more easily. No reason to me why a person should be creepy and a wave not. wonder what that's about, Jean? For me it is a spirit and a heart that inspire me, not that person's ego. Their image is a symbol to remind me of what they touched in me and which belongs to us all.....
There was a time when I would definitely have found the use of photographs "creepy." I associated such use with icons and religion and worship and couldn't relate at all. More recently, though, I've begun (I think) to understand, because I've noticed my feelings when I look at a picture of the Dalai Lama. I relax and little and there's a little smile that curls at the corners of my mouth. I feel comforted, affectionate, more open, safer, loved. It's because of my associations, my memories of him and what he has said and what he teaches and stands for. So I could see how having a picture of him or another teacher as part of a shrine might add to a helpful mindset, without involving worship. I guess I can see both sides now.
Ruth, my experience is that walking meditation is not at all like walking. As others here have said, if you are actually walking, you are going to fast. Small steps are necessary to keep balance while I make the gradual shift. To me, it's more in the realm of yoga or dance, and I find thinking of it that way helpful to doing it.
I am both surprised and not surprised at how difficult it remains for me to maintain daily meditating. We're on day 37? I did sit for 10 minutes this morning. Why do I resist something that can feel so good? So many things pull. All the more reason. But I'm wondering if 100 days is even going to be enough for me...
Oh, I can already answer that, Moose. No, 100 days won't do it, if by "do it" you mean settle that resistance's hash. I can pretty much guarantee you that. Sorry.
Hi. Thank you all for your thoughts and support, and yes it does help.
Jean, I probably couldn't have pictures either. I understand the Buddhist reasons for them, and I understand where we Protestants are coming from too! But Dale's description of his shrine made me think of my own meditation space back in Vermont, and it brought tears to my eyes. I don't need to actually be there to feel the peace of that space or to feel grateful for what it means to me. It's not the space itself, but the associations, the time spent there working on the most difficult aspects of my life. It's much more "sacred" to me than any church ever was.
I'm recuperating. It's going to be slow, which is the hardest thing to come to terms with. Trying not to think too much, although it feels good to think of each of us doing our meditating, each so unique. Listening to music has been good too.
11 Comments:
I got back on the bike with my stabilisers and did a guided slo-mo walking meditation in the tangerine dream of autumn colours. I have a question:
Th guy says to place one foot entirely on the ground and rest there a moment before lifting the heel of the other foot. I found this difficult as for me the placing of the foot is what releases the other heel. Any suggestions?
I'm also not doing so well with the military planes but at the same time am aware that I am attaching a kind of terminal victimhood on them as I did on our very irritating ex neighbour who screamed all day. Am I just looking for a reason to be unhappy and distracted? there will always be one if I look.
Beth you poor thing. How ghastly....amazing that you still could feel the breath. Brava.
I dunno, I fall over a lot when I'm doing walking meditation, so I may not be the guy to ask :-)
It's less like walking than I had pictured. My guess is that you're going faster than your instructions are expecting. I was startled by how slow the people I learned from wanted me to walk. If you think of it as slowly transferring from one standing position to another, rather than as walking, might that help?
I would have a very hard time with the planes too. Are they on any kind of a schedule, which you can avoid?
I try to steer a middle course with distractions like that. I want to make sure I engage with them at least sometimes, but getting in a knock-down bitter fight with them every day may not be productive (and may result in me just giving up practicing.) Do they have a predictable schedule, so you can avoid them? Or are earplugs an option?
Sat last night. One thing I'm noticing, with consistency, is the return of a affectionate relationship with my shrine. (It isn't an elaborate affair, just a little wooden Buddha sitting on a shoebox-sized block of wood that's covered with blue and silver cloth, seven little offering bowls & a candle below around the block, and pictures of a couple of my teachers.) The moment I see it, now, I feel a twinge, sometimes a rush, of affection and comfort.
Yeah, I think that's it, Ruth, you need to take really tiny steps (like, half-a-foot long) and go really really slowly in order to deactivate the instinct to lift one foot as you put the other down. I was wondering, though, whether even then you might be habitually shifting your centre of gravity more automatically than the teacher envisages, because of your training in Alexander Technique etc. And of course you wouldn't want to unlearn that. When I'm in a room full of people doing walking meditation, I sometimes look around (yeah, I know, why am I doing that?...) and see lots of people who are really out of balance, tipping backward and forward and balancing tensely on one foot - not very meditative at all - and your body's knowledge of how not to do that is not something you'd want to go against. Test what others tell you against your own experience, as the Buddha would say - I'm sure someone here can come up with the quote...
Dale, photos of your teachers on your shrine? I don't know. I don't think I could ever find that anything but really creepy. Which is completely beside any point of course, as long as YOU find it useful and not creepy. I KNOW it's not about worshiping or deifying them, any more than the buddha statue is, but, oh gosh... It's the same problem I have with Indian gurus, I guess. Probably very Protestant, and since I don't really like much about Protestantism, not very logical.
Creepy? That startled me!
I can think my way backwards and reconstruct what my responses would have been ten years ago, though, and they probably would have been that.
If anything I do counts as worship, I guess what I do with those photographs does. The pictures are of Michael and Sarah. Michael's the teacher at my center. I don't worship him any differently than I worship you, Jean :-) Sarah is a different matter; she's my "root lama" or "heart teacher," and part of my practice -- is to view her as the Buddha.
Yes, it's not something to make a protestant sensibility comfortable :-) I have found it hugely useful, though.
thanks everyone, that was very helpful> I was going extremely slowly (and did look a bit silly in the field as cars passed but hey), and I think you are right, jean, i was lookiing for fluidity of movement and being centred all the time in that fluidity. to stay in any position felt fixed yet again....i think i will stay with that feeling and not fight it. it took me a long time to locate it!
dale thanks for your jet-compassion. funnily enough I did ring up for exactly that reason - to see if I could find out a timetable but unfortunately we are in about 4 flying zones who have permission to fly twice a day for 2 hours so there's no getting away from it except in my MIND!!!
i understand about the teachers and I would feel the same as you Dale. I have photos of Sandor Vegh and Casals along with my little Buddha just as I have pictures of the waves in Cornwall and they are all my teachers. They all inspire a tremendous affection and bring me into a heart space more easily. No reason to me why a person should be creepy and a wave not. wonder what that's about, Jean? For me it is a spirit and a heart that inspire me, not that person's ego. Their image is a symbol to remind me of what they touched in me and which belongs to us all.....
There was a time when I would definitely have found the use of photographs "creepy." I associated such use with icons and religion and worship and couldn't relate at all. More recently, though, I've begun (I think) to understand, because I've noticed my feelings when I look at a picture of the Dalai Lama. I relax and little and there's a little smile that curls at the corners of my mouth. I feel comforted, affectionate, more open, safer, loved. It's because of my associations, my memories of him and what he has said and what he teaches and stands for. So I could see how having a picture of him or another teacher as part of a shrine might add to a helpful mindset, without involving worship. I guess I can see both sides now.
Ruth, my experience is that walking meditation is not at all like walking. As others here have said, if you are actually walking, you are going to fast. Small steps are necessary to keep balance while I make the gradual shift. To me, it's more in the realm of yoga or dance, and I find thinking of it that way helpful to doing it.
I am both surprised and not surprised at how difficult it remains for me to maintain daily meditating. We're on day 37? I did sit for 10 minutes this morning. Why do I resist something that can feel so good? So many things pull. All the more reason. But I'm wondering if 100 days is even going to be enough for me...
Oh, I can already answer that, Moose. No, 100 days won't do it, if by "do it" you mean settle that resistance's hash. I can pretty much guarantee you that. Sorry.
Sat this morning, 10 minutes.
Ruth: "Am I just looking for a reason to be unhappy and distracted? There will always be one if I look." Thank you, I needed to read that today.
Beth: Wishing you lots of rest and relaxation. Do take care, and I hope the good thoughts wafting your way help to sustain you a little.
Hi. Thank you all for your thoughts and support, and yes it does help.
Jean, I probably couldn't have pictures either. I understand the Buddhist reasons for them, and I understand where we Protestants are coming from too! But Dale's description of his shrine made me think of my own meditation space back in Vermont, and it brought tears to my eyes. I don't need to actually be there to feel the peace of that space or to feel grateful for what it means to me. It's not the space itself, but the associations, the time spent there working on the most difficult aspects of my life. It's much more "sacred" to me than any church ever was.
I'm recuperating. It's going to be slow, which is the hardest thing to come to terms with. Trying not to think too much, although it feels good to think of each of us doing our meditating, each so unique. Listening to music has been good too.
{{{Beth}}}
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