Meditation Routines

[Shugyosha]

For those who may have trouble calming themselves enough to be able to reach a meditative state in your home or maybe elsewhere, I recommend searching and trying at your local parks or more isolated forests surrounded by trees (especially pine trees) or near water. Nature helped me focus my energy more precisely and if it could help anyone else focus better I would have been glad to help.

Meditation can be a forgotten gift for many.

[ichigotora]

If we do sitting bows we meditate at the start and end of class. Before kata we meditate briefly. My teacher says clear your mind, in vision your thoughts, worry's everything that's clogging your mind as water in a cup, imagine the cup knocking over and all the water soaking into the ground. This is just what I think of. Happy meditating.

[HiyaaMartialArts]

Here's two methods that are simple (not easy-but simple), but old, that I teach my beginning students in Northern Shaolin.

1) Walking Meditation

Walk around with body, breath & mind united.

You achieve this by slowing everything down.

Walking extremely slowly, heel-to-toe (set heel down with zero weight and very slowly add weight and "roll" the bottom of the foot as you add weight).

As the back foot comes from behind, to the middle or area where your front foot is, you Inhale, and as the foot continues to move forward - all the way til weight is finally & fully transferred, you Exhale.

You don't bob up and down as you walk. Don't lean. Keep spine erect as though a cord pulling you up by the crown of the head and perhaps one pulling lightly down by the tailbone.

Place the tip of your tongue to the roof of your mouth, contacting the gums just behind where the top row of teeth connect to the gum. Breath through the nose.

There is no speed. The movement must match exactly your breath - so if you're not hyper-ventilating, you should not be moving quickly at all.

The mind must be on the connection of the breath and body the whole time, paying attention to all of the details, including sinking the weight, fluidity, full deep breaths and...if you can...paying attention to the sensation you feel of the air going in and out of the nose; the way it feels on the tips of the nostril edges...

2) Sitting Meditation

Sit, Sink, Breathe and implement Single-Focused-Attention.

To do this, sit - either relaxed cross-legged or single lotus/double lotus etc. Follow the same above points for posture - erect spine, tongue to roof of mouth, breath through nose, sink and relax. Hands may be in various postures.

For a few moments just relax and breathe deeply.

Next go inward and simply take note of the thoughts that arise. Don't force them to go away or to change into something else. Just note them.

Then after a few moments try to focus your attention simply on the sensation of the air going in and out of your nostrils - the way it feels. Take note of the slight pause between inhale & exhale and vice versa.

The thoughts will continue to come. Do not try to force them. Just gently remind yourself what you should be doing and get back to it.

And that's it!

_______________________________________________________

These are simple but not easy at all. The "monkey mind" as someone mentioned here earlier, doesn't give up easily and it will take quite a while of practice to get pretty good at.

However, the cool thing is that you will be seeing the positive benefits of it along the way - both in your martial arts training as well as outside of it in other parts of your life.

[HiyaaMartialArts]

Accidental Double-Post - so this one I erased (how do I just delete it?)