Coming to Our Senses



Looking up is a good start.
Mindoro, 2009.


Do you meditate?

I use to do it often before -- or so what I thought, to be meditation, because honestly, I don't even know then what it really means. I just stopped for a while and my young self thinks of all things bright and beautiful and readily receive the grace of a peaceful mind. Though it's not meditation per se, it's not to say that it was never beneficial. I somehow lost the practice, because life, and groceries, and endless bills happened. I'm always running, feeling that 24 hours aren't really enough to do all I have and want to do for a day.

Just recently, and after realizing a striking similarity between me and the control freak, bathroom floor slumped Liz Gilbert (yes, I'm a convert), I started researching on the proper way of meditating. After all, I owe it on my vow to pursue live a beautiful life, which is the whole point of this blog in the first place. I'm no coward to give up on the first note of depression. And meditation, I believe, is a silver lining.


Simply put, meditation is the practice and feeling of being HERE, NOW. Not thinking of past or future, but experiencing the present. It's a state of making your mind do nothing (will you tell me how to do this?) but just be present at the moment, while breathing, while smelling, while seeing. It's like a mental break but you aren't really sleeping. You're in a different wakeful state, where you only accept what's here, and what's now, and not argue with it. It's NOT relaxation, though it can definitely result to it. Most of all, it's constant practice and the absolute acceptance of what and where you are right now, your one little spot in the universe, without judging yourself, without arguing with yourself. It aims to let you feel different emotions, savouring one after another, and just let things be. Be scared, be happy, be anxious, be whatever you have to be in this state and time. Just let it be, let it go.


LET IT GO, the past, the future, and all anxieties with it. Stay focused at the present moment, it's what we do with this moment after all, that really matters anyway.

With some heavenly intervention, I came across Coming to Our Senses by stress management guru, Jon Kabat-Zinn.




"It is not the content of your experience that is important. What is important is our ability to be aware of that content, and even more, of the factors that drive its unfolding and the ways in which those factors either liberate us or imprison us moment by moment and year in, year out."

 "The astonishing thing, so counterintuitive, is that nothing else needs to happen. We can give up trying to make something special occur. In letting go of wanting something special to occur, maybe we can realize that something very special is already occurring, and is always occurring, namely life emerging in each moment as awareness itself."


"by sitting down and being still, you can change yourself and the world. In fact, just by sitting down and being still, in a small but not insignificant way, you already have."



This man can be a good friend; I can't wait to read the rest of his works.


From NeuroChiq's Nook,
Dang

Comments

  1. Wow, I need this. I don't know how to stop thinking. It's turned me into a night owl--and a morning zombie.

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  2. @ Ricademus: I guess one big problem of our generation is that we forget how to really do nothing and just rest. I'm guilty over thinking 24/7, and I loose sleep over some things, too. Information is avail anytime of the day, thus we tend to cope up. I hope meditation will work for both of us! =) We deserve some peace and quiet at times! We owe it to ourselves. =)

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  3. Hi! I do. :) And I chant (I started 4 yrs ago). I love Liz Gilbert even before the Eat Pray Love brouhaha. Great post, BTW! :)

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  4. @ JK: Wow, it's good to hear from someone who's doing it for a long time already! I do meditate, but not chant. I think I need a guru to do that, I'm just too restless. Thank you, and looking forward to more of your posts. =)

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