any bench is a meditation bench

Week One

A combination of curiosity and encouragement has brought me to the point where I will now begin my training in mind discipline. This will not be entirely new to me. Years ago, I had trained in a traditional karate dojo. My Japanese sensei saw some promise in me, although ultimately I am sure that I disappointed him. Perhaps now I can learn what he had been trying to teach me all along.

You have to agree to this process. I was asked to give my consent and silently, I did. It was not an easy thing to do. Later it occured to me that this was not about trusting the program or trusting my instructor. First, I had to trust myself. It may sound easy, but for me, that was a real step that needed to be taken. Eyes closed, lying down, we begin.

The initial guided meditation was enjoyable. I was not bored and I did not fall asleep. I was aware of my breathing. Several times I noticed that it had become suspended, perhaps for about twenty seconds until I realized what was going on, and finally took another breath.

Knowing that my instructor was guiding me to a deeper place, I amused myself by wondering if there would be any giant squid swimming by. I saw none, although I did see people from my recent life walking past. It seemed to be completely ordinary, and I didn’t think too much of it.

The traditional sound of a Tibetan bowl accompanied this meditation. Every five minutes there was a pause and a larger and deeper bowl would start to resonate. Six bowls, thirty minutes time and we were finished.

Sitting up, I felt quiet. Clearly I had been through something, but I was not interested in talking about it.

The next morning, I told my instructor that I was not feeling right. My throat was scratchy, my voice was rough, my eyes felt hot. I was coming down with a…

“You do not have a cold” was the absolutely emphatic answer.

Apparently there is a physical response to this mind work. My mind was clearing itself out and my body was paying the price. I began the homework, the five minute solo meditation. It was not easy. My back hurt, my legs refused to relax, my mind wandered. Thankfully, I was alone and my poor performance could not be observed.

Every morning I do the solo meditation. I had disappointed my Japanese sensei. I would not disappoint this instructor. Maybe that’s the whole idea.

This article was considered, prepared and written by a student of

Mind Body Performance Management

The post A Nine Week Diary In Mind Discipline – part one first appeared on Mind Body Performance.

any bench is a meditation bench

Week Two

I was struck with how easily I moved through the second session. The process was familiar. Lying down, eyes closed, relaxed breathing, the resonant sound of the Tibetan bowl and we begin. Every five minutes, the sound faded away and a deeper bowl started. The process continued and then it was over.

I sat up, thanked my instructor and wondered if anything had happened.

The next morning, I prepared to meditate on this second level of connection. I followed what is becoming my meditation routine. I light the stove, place the stainless steel pan over the low flame, add the olive oil and the cracked pepper. As the pan heats and the pepper sizzles, I can smell the olive oil. In goes the sliced bagel, the cover is on and I am ready.

It has only taken a very few days for this routine to take shape, but I now link the smell of olive oil to the beginning of the meditation. There is no feeling of obligation, it’s just part of the morning.

The sitting position I use continues to be a challenge. My instructor has told me that I can choose a more relaxed position, but out of stubborness , I stay with the traditional posture. I expect that at some time it will feel right.

I have started to count my breaths. It gives me something to focus on while my legs are complaining. I inhale up and in while counting to five, pause, then down and out for the count of ten. I picked this rhythm because it felt about right.

On one of the days when the breathing was going fairly well, I had a memory from many years before. I had been working on a farm in the heat of the summer. After loading the hay into the barn, I went to the well for a drink. It had an old style hand pump. By pumping the lever, the water was lifted up through the pipe and came surging out the head. I remembered the weight of the water being raised out of the earth. In my breathing, I tried to feel that same weight. I tried to feel the pump handle lifting the air up into my lungs and then free from the pipe, letting it fall down to the ground. In for five, out for ten.

If this image is useful, I can’t tell, but it is satisfying and the memory is a good one.

Near the end of the week, I did notice something. It was not part of a meditation. In the middle of the day, while working, I realized that I had just taken a really nice breath. My mind was focused on work, but something alerted me to that breath. I took another one. It was easy and deep and complete.

I have taken millions of breaths. I have raced bicycles for thousands of miles, breathing in for one and out for two. I have been in the pool, swimming thousands of laps, breathing in for one and out for three. I can not remember any of those breaths. Now I have the memory of two breaths that, in the middle of the day caught my attention.

Why those two breaths? I really don’t know what to make of it.

This article was considered, prepared and written by a student of

Mind Body Performance Management

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any bench is a meditation bench

Week Three

The third session must have triggered something because from the start it was emotional. My instructor introduced the topic that we would focus on, the heart, and like a trigger was pulled, I could feel it. She encouraged me to open those doors and clean out the past hurt. It sounds simple and formulaic, but maybe that’s why it is so effective. I am beginning to suspect that keeping secrets from our self is a common and well practiced tradition.

For the third time, I am lying down, eyes closed, palms open and facing up. We begin.

The resonant pulse of the Tibetan bowl sounds like a horizontal landscape. I try to expand into it, but my breathing is uneven. When I inhale, it is notchy and rough. I try to smooth it out with calm perseverance. Later, I am told that I should not hide behind a well regulated breath. Release means letting go.

Three times the emotions roll in and then wash away, taking half a minute at the most. It’s good to hear the last and deepest bowl. It was an intense session.

During the week, I practice the focused meditations. They are becoming a little bit longer. I stay with it until I notice some change. Is my breathing deeper? Has my mind settled down and stopped thinking about all that needs to be done? Is anything different now, compared to when I started?

Day four, and I felt something new. Halfway through the meditation, my breathing started to do something different. Each inhale pulled in a feeling of strength. From the bottom of my feet, into my legs and then curiously into my two little fingers. It never got to my full hand. I wondered about that.

The feeling was not warm, it did not tingle, it just rose up. It was quiet, like a cloud. It took shape in my lower legs and the edges of my hand and then faded away. I continued breathing. After another minute or so, I released three deep long breaths, expressed my appreciation and opened my eyes.

Does this mean that things are starting to move?

I have decided that if I could find it once, I can find it again.

This article was considered, prepared and written by a student of

Mind Body Performance Management

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any bench is a meditation bench

Week Four

Fortunately, this is just a personal diary. My only responsibility is to be honest with myself and observant of the process. Whatever happens…happens.

The fourth session started with a slightly different format. Instead of lying down, I was seated on a folding chair. My instructor was seated opposite, facing me from about six feet away. I was instructed to have my feet flat on the floor, feeling the ground, hands open and facing up. It felt like a solid meditation position. Compared to the previous sessions where I was lying down, this felt like I was actively engaged in the training.

We begin. The first bowl starts to resonate and already I feel the emotions. They are not connected to anything that I can identify. I don’t even know if they are happy or sad emotions. They are intense. They come and go in thirty seconds. This happens several times as we pass through the second bowl and the third bowl. My head feels like it is buzzing.

The fourth bowl begins. My eyes are closed, but slowly I realize that I am actually seeing. There is something really out there. Like looking out into a night sky, it is dark, but it is not empty. There is no color, but I understand what color I am seeing. There is a form which is quite clear, but it has no detail. I realize that this is all very peculiar, but I am fascinated. I know where I am, seated on a chair in a room, looking out into what seems like deep space, that is only an arm’s length away. This lasts for about five minutes.

The session ends. We disconnect. My instructor asks a few questions. I don’t really remember what they were except for…

“Did you see anything?”

I answered that I had. I described it briefly.

“Was there a color?”

I answered that even though I could not see a color, I somehow knew what it was.

“Purple?”

Yes, that was it. Apparently we were in the same place seeing the same thing.

My instructor had seen more, describing two cats that were playfully visiting. They were petted and enjoyed, but finally sent away as they were distracting. My instructor was confused by their presence. What were they doing there?

I had been doing my best to engage a deep state of awareness, and my instructor, also in a meditative state is fooling with two cats, presumably my cats Watson and William who died over thirty years ago.

I practiced during the week. Every morning, the five minute meditation stretches to ten or fifteen minutes. By about the third day, my instructor calls, feeling under the weather with a fever. I am asked if I will meditate, engage my strength and share it with my instructor who is eight miles away. I do not feel qualified. I am not ready. I don’t have the training, but I agree to give it a try. We hang up. I fuss around a little and begin.

I take this request seriously. I breath. I focus. I engage. Whatever the outcome, I am trying to make a difference. My head starts to buzz. I have the feeling that I am swimming in the ocean, against the swells. I am outmatched on every level, but I keep going until I have the feeling that I have finished.

Three deep breaths, slowly exhaled, I cut the connection and open my eyes. The phone rings.

“Don’t forget to wash your hands”.

Actually, I had forgotten to wash my hands after finishing the connection, but how did my instructor know? The fact that her fever was gone could be related to almost anything, but how did she know to call the moment that I finished and opened my eyes?

My instructor was actually relieved that I was able to successfully make some kind of connection. Apparently there was some real concern that I might be a frozen life form, something between an alien and a piece of stone. Perhaps there is hope. Fortunately, this is only a diary.

This article was considered, prepared and written by a student of

Mind Body Performance Management

The post A Nine Week Diary In Mind Discipline – part four first appeared on Mind Body Performance.

any bench is a meditation bench

Week Five

The fifth session took place in the middle of the day. I took advantage of the 45 minute train commute to do some warm up meditation. It was surprisingly easy. For a beginner, it felt deep and engaging. It was three times longer than my usual meditation and in retrospect, was maybe not the right thing to do.

For some reason, when the session started, I was having a hard time focusing. My mind was busy, going from one topic to another. Each time I noticed this, I tried to reset and continue with purpose. Apparently, I was not that successful. When we had finished, my instructor wanted to know why I had been so chatty. We considered that my warm up meditation may have been too much and that I just needed a little more time to recover my focus.

I did notice one thing more, about halfway through the session. Three times I felt a firm nudge pushing me backwards about an inch. The first time, I wondered if I had been drifting into sleep, but that wasn’t the case. My posture was good, my breathing was OK and I knew that we were in the third bowl. I was not falling asleep. A minute later, it happened again. I could feel the momentum of my head moving back. This focused me back into the meditation. It happened again, three times in a minute and a half.

I felt like a school kid being scolded for not paying attention, which was true.

My instructor asked about the dogs. She was aware of two fairly large dogs. They were not close by, but off a little ways. It was an easy question to answer. Misty and Penny, the two Collies we had when I was in grade school. I remember them running through the fields, coming home with burrs stuck in their coats, which I would pull out one by one.

Maybe it’s appropriate that they would come back for a visit. The fifth session is about releasing the grip that we have, holding onto past pain. I feel nothing negative about the two Collies, but the time frame is right and even now, almost a week later, I can not dismiss the feeling. Two protective Lassie dogs? I am thinking about it.

Several times during the week I have been asked by friends “is it working?”

With a biologist mother and and electrical engineer father, it is not an easy question to answer. There is no qualitative yardstick that “proves” that I am one inch improved. Subjectively, I am seeing things differently.

In a social situation, some words were said and I felt disrespected. Friends could see it in my face. They asked about it, I brushed it off, but inside, I was burning. After my typical beginner grade meditation, it was gone. I saw it for what it was, not much of anything. I saw it from a distance, like an impartial observer, and that was it, the inner burning feeling was gone.

I wonder if I am becoming a better problem solver. After thirty years experience, I can pound through almost any creative challenge, but I am beginning to see a different approach come into play. Instead of seeing a problem right in front of me, I see it more from a slightly removed 360 degree perspective. Moving all around it, one approach usually offers the best advantage. This is where the solution will be found. Previously, I would stake out an approach and move forward to completion with what has been described as stubborn perseverance.

Is my instructor showing me how to become a flexible stone?

This article was considered, prepared and written by a student of

Mind Body Performance Management

The post A Nine Week Diary In Mind Discipline – part five first appeared on Mind Body Performance.

any bench is a meditation bench

Week Six

This was a quiet session. The process was familiar. My breathing was OK and my focus was not any worse than during the other sessions. When we had finished, my instructor let me know that gratitude, would be the focus of my meditations. That was unexpected and has turned out to be more than I would have guessed.

Meditation has become a place where I try not to hide. Doing so is a waste of time.

Gratitude would be the focus. This was the second time that agreeing to do something was all it took to start the process.

At the first meditation, I noticed that stating the initial intention was easier and more clear. It was the first time that I had a sense that I could visualize the intention. When I was finished, the appreciation was real. It was not there because of politeness. It was there because I had it to give.

It has been a few weeks now and looking back, I see gratitude as being an unexpected link to a lot of good things. Not surprising, the conclusion of the meditations have become a little longer. There is a growing enjoyment in giving that acknowledgment.

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