Meditation for the Body
17 March 2007My Favorite Zen story goes like this:
A student of Zen asks the master: “What is the secret to a peaceful life?” To which the master replies: “Eat when you’re hungry, and sleep when you’re tired.” “What? How is that not what we do every day?” “Actually, most people entertain a thousand desires while they eat and think about a thousand plans while they sleep.”
I know this to be very relevant in many of our lives…because I know who all of you are and what you think about when you eat…
Many of us are familiar with the concept of meditation: dismissing all the persistent thoughts of the day in order to clear the mind. Once the mind is clear you can use that capacity for whatever you choose.
When your mind is tired from constant use you may notice muddleheadedness, mental fatigue, lack of clarity of thoughts and speech, forgetfulness, nervousness, overwhelmed feelings, and other things that slow us down. Imagine how well you could attack a problem if you could only get calm and rational about it.
The body gets panicked sometimes too. Especially after an injury or trauma of some sort. The autonomic nervous system kicks in and the body prepares for a mad dash to save itself. So imagine how much faster you’d recover from a trauma if you presented the body with a clear and direct plan to get out of danger. To focus the body’s attention on the specific area or task that needs to be done to produce a healing result would prevent the waste of energy that would otherwise be spent physically panicking.
Practice meditating for a few minutes each day and you’ll find that not only will your mind feel clearer, but your body will feel much better too.
Brett
Excerpt from “How to Meditate & Visualize” [go to article]
Contrary to popular belief, meditation is very easy and it isn’t just reserved for granola eating Trader Joe’s shoppers or little bald Asian men wearing orange robes and living in grand monasteries atop the ice capped mountains of China (or what ever Asian country you visualize when you stereotypically think of meditating monks; some people go with Japan, others Korea). Meditation is so easy, you may already be doing it regularly and not even knowing it. […]
