Who else wants to learn the Real Secrets of Meditation?

 

[dropcap]I[/dropcap]f you want to get better fast… you have to be able to look beyond technique.  Techniques are useful, but learning to live the Principles behind the techniques is where you will find the truly transformational power of meditation.

There are a variety of meditations you can play with, and just a little practice can go a long way… but always keep in mind the principle you are developing.

The Powerful Principles Behind Meditation Techniques

…So you can learn how to meditate… quickly and easily

There are many principles, but the 3 most important are:

1. Relaxation
2. Focus
3. Acceptance

All 3 of these principles can be meditations of their own… and increasing any one of the three can be the goal of many years of meditation (and when the practitioner looks back after those many years of devotion, the realization arises that the investment has been more than worth it…)

Meditation Techniques for Beginners…

All of these principles can be developed in virtually any meditation, if you know how… but here is a powerful and enjoyable meditation that will help you improve all 3 core principles… this one is great for students at any level.

Meditation Techniques:  The Secret Smile

(watch this taoist meditation techniques video on youtube)

The Secret Smile is a very enjoyable technique for developing the 3 principles!

The other method I frequently recommend for beginners is…

Vipassana Meditation Techniques

Vipassana is another simple meditation method for beginners.

The backdrop of Vipassana (and in my opinion, all meditation) is awareness.

“Awareness is the first principle.” -Dr John La Tourrette

In this style of meditation, you are typically holding one or more forms of sensory input in your awareness… doing your best to avoid adding anything, taking away anything, or resisting anything.

4 Ways of Focus for Instant Vipassana Insights…

1. Sensory Modality:  These are the classic 5 sensory modalities… Sight, Sound, Touch, Scent, & Taste (they all have an internal and external component as well).  Particularly for beginners, one of the challenges is having a sea of information arising in all of these at once… so the solution is to start by focusing on only one… preferably sight sound or touch… and touch (all the physical sensations arising in the body) tends to be the easiest.
2. Quality:  The quality of the sensory input describes the more specific characteristics of it (described as sub-modalities in Neuro Linguistic Programming).  For sight, it might be an image or a movie… or it might be an isolated picture or a panoramic view.  For sound, it might be raw sounds vs and actual voice.  For touch it might a warm sensation vs a cold sensation… or a sensation of tension vs a sense of relaxation (keep in mind that none of these lists of examples are exhaustive… they are just a few instances to give you the general idea).
3. Location:  This is where (in or around the body… or occasionally from everywhere or nowhere) the sensory input seems to arise.  Do they arise in just one place, several places, or everywhere at once?
4. Intensity:  How intense is it?  How bright/dim are the images… or how small/large are they?  How loud/quiet are the sounds… how clear/distorted are they?  How strong/soft are the physical sensations?

Just going through the above list will begin to change to way you look at experience…. because in some way all of those things are happening already… you just have to direct more of your awareness to it to achieve the deeper insights…

(my understanding of Vipassana is strongly influenced by Shinzen Young)

Zen Meditation Techniques

There are three critical principles of Zen…

• Practice:  This is pretty obvious, I suppose… but there has to be some form of consistent practice.  Find a way to do something every day if you are serious about learning.
• Technique:  There are a variety of techniques… and it is very difficult to get better if you aren’t using at least one.  Keep your technique as simple as possible, and you will transform your understanding much more quickly.  Zazen, Koans, asking “Who/What am I?”… are all useful techniques if kept simple and practiced consistently.
• Essence:  The technique is what you might look at as the moving part or process.  Essence is the background within which it operates.  Zen can be described as the recognition of the basic nature of all that is… knowing that this is already there and all you need to do is remove what stands in the way of your clear vision of this… will vastly quicken your progress in Zen.  The technique is useful… but ultimately it is only cloth you use to clean the lens of consciousness.

 

Chakra Meditation Techniques

<coming soon>

 

keep smiling,