Upasik

Try this next time: Ask yourself a question, one you don't redily know the answer to. When i started in meditation i was told to ask myself the question "Who am I?" Then observe what happens...If your mind is anything like mine then your brain starts to try to define who you are, thats ok. But its not the point, your not suppost to answer the question, just to observe. Now, ask again...just after you ask the question, and before your brain kicks in to try and answer, there is a pause, a nothing, a vastness, if only for a second there was a moment when you where just being aware, not asking and not answering. My exercise in meditaion is to try to elongate that moment, that awareness, streeetch it out so that threw time maybea i can simply be aware for maybea 2 min, 5 min, 5 years... Everyone meditates for different reasons, and there are many things to focas on, this is working for me. Keep it up!!

I train in a traditional, non commercial school, and i don't think that my teachers would want me to say there names or talk about their lineage. Please don't take offence, I'd be happy to talk of other things, my art, training styles, revilations....

In my school its not manditory that anyone teach or help teach. But as an instructor, i've learned things i only would have learned by teaching. If have someone turn their foot, in my head i know that my foot must also always be turned for their example. I love to teach, and as an instructor you always need to have your stuff together and current. I belive that the higher, or highest levels can only be attained teaching.

Teaching tech. will vary based on the size of the class. Its great when you have the opertunity to work with each student on there individual questions of hangups. The way i was brought up was that the pace of the class is always set by the "slowest runner". What is advanced for a novice will be basic for the experianced, but we all need to go back to basic now and then and plug in all of our advancements. Also everyone in class should be encoureged to help those under them to assist the development of the student body as a whole.

I practice a traditional martial art, so i am lucky when the Grand Master sits with me. If my Grand Master saw that i was doing something that would hinder my training or well being, then he would, without a dought, point it out to me. I would hope that anyone of experiance would do the same.

An instructor or master can not ask anything of his or her students that he/she is not prepared to do themselfs. If i require my students (for example) to practice stance training for 30 min. a day, i make damb sure i'm doing my 30 min. too. Same goes for no no's...if i say, for example: "No smoking, no drinking, no meat, no whatever" then i can't smoke, drink or eat meat eather. Now your grand master may not require you, or any of the other students not to smoke. But if he dose, that is the only way i can see a prob. with it.

A Master is someone how has made there art (while keeping the tech. and spiritual asspects true and intact) better then it was when it was passed to them. The art must always improve and evolve threw each generation (with out changing it, or makeing things up) or it will die out. ...and that can never happen.

You can not "Try" to meditate as soon as you "Try" you start to do what you "think" meditation is. Thats when you'll lose it. Don't stress over the thoughts that come into your head, instead just aknowledge them and let them pass. Don't hold onto any one thought, and dont try to keep them out, that requires "trying" and "thinking". Simply be aware. (anyone who practices meditation will know that my last sentence, although only 3 words, says quite a bit lol)