Increasing your Zen - here's a 2 minute exercise you can do right now.

Dear All,

Following on from what was said last week about aiming for mental silence in our meditation and getting all the benefits of that, here's a simple 2 minute  exercise you can do any time and anywhere.

​1. Close your eyes

2. Look upwards a little and focus attention on centre of top of head.

3. ​Can you feel any sensation at top of head?

4 Now open your eyes and look at something but don't think.

5. Try it a few times, looking at something different every time you open your eyes.

How well could you do the exercise without thinking?

Mental silence/ thoughtless awareness is like a muscle. It grows stronger, the more you work it. Being in a meditative state is possible with the eyes open or shut ie you can be meditative whatever you're doing. This is the Zen of  'being in the flow'. It helps you enjoy your day better, without stress and you'll be able to achieve more.

Further explanation below.

See you at group meditation on Tuesday.

Regards

Explanation:

In the photo above, that could be what you look like when you're meditating :o) . It would be hard to find a more perfect illustration of being 'in the moment' : the baby is unlikely to be replaying in their head that earlier incident with the teddy bear or wondering what's for lunch. Which is the mental wandering that may sometimes happen when trying to meditate.

The baby is poised in effortless mental silence. It is effortless because the baby is not yet speaking ; she doesn't yet have language and is in a state (whether eyes open or closed) called pratyaksha . This corresponds to the sensorimotor stage in childhood cognitive development*  - the putting toys in their mouth stage. There is no 'mental chatter' or inner verbalisation which requires language.

Turning off this mental chatter consciously could be like trying to get the toothpaste back in the tube. Howvever, the kundalini can stop the mental chatter without any effort required from yourself.

The state of pratyaksha or ' just seeing/witnessing' without any accompanying thoughts  is where we want to be, because this is when the fruits of your meditation practice, such as the feeling of being relaxed even when you're very busy, start to show up.

And this is the change in you that your work colleagues will probably notice first. Followed by the sparkle in the eyes and the shine on the face  as a result of the kundalini awakening.

​

* See Jean Piaget

How the Kundalini works - your eyes start shining