Alternative meditations
lobster
Crusty Veteran
When I first started 'meditation', it very much had a physical form. Initially this was yoga and then chi Kung exercises.
Then kempo kata forms (martial arts) that corresponded to the physical enactment of elemental forces. In other words a pattern of movement done in an earthing, water, fire, air and spirit manner, then repeating the earth form with the new knowledge from going through the elemental series.
I learned a savasana pose that involved crossing the ankles and placing the hands one on top of the other on the belly. Very much more sealing, protective and just felt more appropriate for martial artists.
For those not inclined to be still; movement, study, rituals, craft activity, daily life etc are potential ways of stilling the incessant hatter chatter.
What is your alternative to sitting meditation?
Comments
Yoga is the ideal chatter husher. One has to concentrate so much on breathing and not getting hurt that it works even better than meditation for me. I love to hold the asanas very long and feel the body stretching freely into the posture.
Painting mandalas is also an excellent exercise in present moment awareness.
Both dowsed with a good mug of matcha tea...
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Washing up, doing the laundry, carrying the shopping.
Within the action of the mundane exists the supreme quality of stillness.
More sitting meditation.
I do cycling meditation - I'm doing a 103 mile cycling meditation next week in a charity sportive - seven hours in the saddle really causes a sore butt! I suggest sticking to the cushion if you like to be comfortable when you meditate, but I like a good pain in the butt! lol
I have calculated that my legs will perform between 35-36 000 revolutions, give or take a 1000. I am going to try and see if I can count each and everyone of them! Become one with the machine - yeah!
You give seasonal caravaners a good name, you do.....
Sitting meditation.
It's walking...crafting....working in the rose garden...and dancing.
Out of all my housework....mopping the floors is the most meditative for me.
@ Lobster
I think of it as just a question of priorities.
The degree to which one takes refuge in meditation above anything else,
is the degree to which life itself manifests as your alternative to sitting meditation.
Yeah. Right on....
I think...
I love walking meditation, drawing, painting, and sitting meditation outside at night.
Whatever I undertake and hold in awareness. Grocery shopping, dishes, cleaning, gardening, driving(difficult for me), playing guitar, anything really. Ive noticed when I am tired it seems harder for me to remain mindful. Bob
Mountain climbing meditation - being so physically exhausted and relying on nothing but the breath for energy to take the next step.
Thanks guys.
Seems like a plan. @how has mentioned a similar idea.
I was at a dervish meeting. We had finished a formal sitting. This involved a heart based meditation roughly equivalent to metta bhavna. Afterwards we were having tea and cake, in the Friends Meeting House (Quaker Christian group) where we met.
A varied group, mostly Westerners, only one practicing Islam, she kept night vigil (praying all night). One person discussed the idea of being mindful as a practice, from now on. What if we tried to be 'in the present moment', how long would it last? As is usual, in some Buddhist or other groups, people thought it a good idea but carried on chatting, meditation after all was over. This man began pouring tea mindfully. Nobody seemed aware of this but it is easy to discern when you are being mindful.
I went to a few more meetings of this group but never saw the mindful tea pourer again. How long had they maintained the awareness? Who knows. Life can be a distraction or a practice.
Shall I be Mother?
http://www.effingpot.com/people.shtml
Crocheting (or knitting), there are actually 'mindful knitting' groups which have impressive mindfulness 'teachings'. Of course it isn't sufficient to be an ONLY mode of meditation.
I do artwork/craftwork as a kind of compulsion when the creative muse strikes. It is kind of exhausting actually . . . but there is great peace in mindful yarn spinning, yarn dyeing, crocheting, refinishing a desk, reorganizing my storage of craft/art items. That is, when I remember to do it, which might be a couple of times a day.
I very mindfully changed a complex dressing on a patient at work. I don't know about you, but I really got into it. The benefits were the patient and I really got to know their wound, we talked about it like it had a personality, and the careful cleaning and application of layers of various dressings was quite fulfilling. Most of the time RNs are running like cats with their tails on fire and miss out on a lot of genuinely fulfilling opportunities. It's a shitty job about 78% of the time (pun unintended) but creating a quiet, concentrated space that moves WITH you improves that.
The point I take is that meditation is meant to escape the confines of the cushion. Not abandon the cushion entirely, of course.
I don't think I would have got anything done today if I had not smoked a joint.
EDIT,
And I don't mean that in the sense that I lacked motivation to do things I don't enjoy. I suffer from depression and I think I probably would have been bed ridden today.
I think Jon Kabot-Zinn describes mindfulness eloquently
"The key to this path, which lies at the root of Buddhism, Taoism, and yoga, and which we also find in the works of people like Emerson, Thoreau, and Whitman, and in Native American wisdom, is an appreciation for the present moment and the cultivation of an intimate relationship with it through a continual attending to it with care and discernment. It is the direct opposite of taking life for granted.
Walking by the sea ( mindfully of course! )
^^ oh yeah, that is a great thing to do!
The other day I was walking on the common (green space) when I came across two single file Christians with hands held at waist in 'prayer walking'. Next time I may join them, then we would have us an interfaith convoy . . .
. . . maybe a bit too ostentatious for me. Slow walking does not require a look of glum sanctity as these two had. Too critical? Ah well.
Walking is a good one, dancing I like. dervishes have different dance forms, not just whirling . . .
Most retreat centres offer some form of mindful cleaning, dish washing, gardening etc. Housework your way to enlightenment. Seems like a win-win situation . . . the key for me is a steady relaxed and attentive pace . . .
Thanks guys . . .
Meeting with the cat with awareness too! Bob
Folding the clothes and walking to and from the station daily are my alternatives.
In metta
Do you walk in rain? Cycle through urban landscapes? Stare at the clouds? Mindful Ipad your words? Phone your children?
Wait . . . is it all meditating?
(Obviously) it depends on how it it encountered , held in awareness....or not.
No, it's mindfulness ( hopefully )
Chanting, walking, prostrations. But they are complementary practices, rather than "alternatives".
OK Something a little more formal. Chan moving meditation . . .
http://chancenter.org/cmc/chan-practice/moving-meditation/
^^^ Thanks for that link. I got some good reading from it.