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So I’m pondering the role of quiet sitting in my practice life.
I practiced it for 14 years but then quit in disgust at my slow progress.
Since then, I’ve discovered sungazing which is a good way to collect enough energy to invigorate my sitting practice.
Here’s a cool Bodri overview article at: [url=http://www.meditationexpert.com/Articles/SpinYourChi.htm]http://www.meditationexpert.com/Articles/SpinYourChi.htm[/url]
This is a good overview of Plato’s ‘quiet sitting’ argument.
While I’m starting to appreciate this perspective again, I’m a believer in doing anything (yoga, exercise, pranayama, sexual cultivation, gazing practice, herbs, a passionate hobby, happy thoughts etc) that’ll collect enough chi to make quiet sitting more powerful.
-Yoda
Still standing stands in well for quiet sitting,
better in some ways.From your previous descriptions of practice, you’re doing that.
I haven’t done any straight up, yiquan style standing for a number of months. My mind seems to wander more. I’m thinking that standing brings in more energy, but that I’ve got that covered through sungazing. I’ll keep experimenting, of course.
Yoda
Thanks Yoda for that link. I wasn’t in the discussion’s roots until I read this.
I can see how Bodri appears to be encouraging us to move away from the focus on the body, when I have found it a fine vehicle for approaching emptiness.
I practiced a yoga based meditation for years…mantra , breath, third eye, mindfulness…and came to the conclusion that for myself, the emphasis on the ’emptiness’ underneath as the ‘goal’ fed into a field of denial of self.
How many of us as children met problems with the desire to disappear and push them away. The wonderful opening of inner channels that followed these practices were never followed skillfully in order to preserve ’emptiness’, and created mucho shadow. My guru was a wonderful example of how the best of them are dragged down not by ‘dirty chi’, but the chi that grew demonic in the dark.I wonder what you mean by, ” quit in disgust at my slow progress. ”
What is it you want from your sitting meditation? It sounds like you are approaching it now from a place of fullness. It sounds like a creative experiment. I’ll be interested in your results.
One approach to a sitting med. I used for a couple years that I found very settling and kept me on the edge of fullness and emptiness is the technique that Eknath Easwaren proposed.
He was an English lit professor from India who was transformed into a spiritual teacher by the Ghandian movement and his grandmother, his life teacher.
His technique is to take a spiritual text that appeals to you– I used St. Francis’ prayer for a while among others- and repeat it internally very slowly, like a very mindful chi kung movement. The words echo deep inside and provide the mental focus. The repetition gave me enough substance but also enough space. It was a modern appraoch to Vedic mantra and appealed to my musical nature as the vowel sounds resonated like an inner massage.
It seems all these techniques appear in our lives for specific purposes and than leave just as mysteriously as if the prescription doesn’t need refilling. Don’t you think?Thanks Yoda for that link. I wasn’t in the discussion’s roots until I read this.
I can see how Bodri appears to be encouraging us to move away from the focus on the body, when I have found it a fine vehicle for approaching emptiness.
I practiced a yoga based meditation for years…mantra , breath, third eye, mindfulness…and came to the conclusion that for myself, the emphasis on the ’emptiness’ underneath as the ‘goal’ fed into a field of denial of self.
How many of us as children met problems with the desire to disappear and push them away. The wonderful opening of inner channels that followed these practices were never followed skillfully in order to preserve ’emptiness’, and created mucho shadow.
My guru was a wonderful example of how the best of them are dragged down not by ‘dirty chi’, but the chi that grew demonic in the dark.
I wonder what you mean by, ” quit in disgust at my slow progress. ”
What is it you want from your sitting meditation? It sounds like you are approaching it now from a place of fullness. It sounds like a creative experiment. I’ll be interested in your results.
One approach to a sitting med. I used for a couple years that I found very settling and kept me on the edge of fullness and emptiness is the technique that Eknath Easwaren proposed.
He was an English lit professor from India who was transformed into a spiritual teacher by the Ghandian movement and his grandmother, his life teacher.
His technique is to take a spiritual text that appeals to you– I used St. Francis’ prayer for a while among others- and repeat it internally very slowly, like a very mindful chi kung movement. The words echo deep inside and provide the mental focus. The repetition gave me enough substance but also enough space. It was a modern appraoch to Vedic mantra and appealed to my musical nature as the vowel sounds resonated like an inner massage.
It seems all these techniques appear in our lives for specific purposes and than leave just as mysteriously as if the prescription doesn’t need refilling. Don’t you think?
Yes, I do.
As to my quitting… I’m more chilled out now. I was a pretty serious Buddhist then who needed to save all sentient beings from bad rebirths and I felt that I wasn’t making much headway on that front. It was depressing. Since then, I found a new age feel good philosophy where nobody needs saving–so the heat is off!
Still, I’ve always craved growing in joy, love, etc. so I’m still banging around in the lab.
I used a song as a meditation for a year or two, like your prayer. Pie Jesu by Andrew Lloyd Weber–it’s very sweet. Of course, the underlying philosophy is a bit gnarly in that prayer too, but it fit my Buddhist mindset at the time.
-Yoda
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