Archive for December, 2009
Posted on December 20, 2009 - by Jennifer
30 Day Meditation Challenge: Day 14
Saturday December 19, 2009: Again today I meditated immediately following a yoga practice but this time it was a flowing sun salutation practice. So, when I finished and sat for meditation, my heart rate was up and my body was warm. My mind felt relatively steady. I decided to meditate in the style that came naturally in the moment and, after a few minutes, began the ham sa/so ham mantra practice. As I have described in earlier posts, I sometimes get kind of “stuck” in the ham sa practice when I try to move the energy up my spine. Sometimes I start to get slightly anxious, sometimes breathing seems more labored, and sometimes I feel a very slight choking sensation. But, in this meditation, the breath seemed to flow very freely and I could really feel energy traveling upward. Again, in past meditations, the energy seemed to radiate out from my center in a sort of wing-like fashion, rather than up to the crown of my head. But yesterday I could feel a very steady, strong pulse rising up to the crown. It was pretty intense, almost like this energy was trying desperately to escape through my skull and rise further. It was an exact counter to the previous day when it felt like there was a force trying to really pin me to the ground. I decided to just sit with the sensation for the remainder of the meditation. I do wonder about the effects of both yoga practices – so different in style – on the meditations that followed.
Posted on December 20, 2009 - by Jennifer
30 Day Meditation Challenge: Day 13
Friday December 18, 2009: Today I meditated after a combined martial arts/Yin Yoga practice. The martial arts workout was long and fairly intense and my energy was very up. But, I did about half an hour of Yin immediately after so my heart rate slowed and my body heat dissipated. Because Yin Yoga involves long-held postures and because I finished the Yin practice with a 10-minute saddle pose, my mind was already fairly calm and my breath already fairly slow and steady. Although I had decided to use the bija mantra this week, when I sat to meditate I decided to return to ham sa/so ham instead. It just felt more right in that moment. As I moved the energy up my spine, it again seemed to radiate outward from my center rather than upward. As I moved it back down, I felt a very strong downward pressure that seemed to encompass my entire body, as if I was trying to dig in and grow roots. It wasn’t like the gentle pulses or even steady waves I had experienced before. It was more like a one big force.
Posted on December 18, 2009 - by Jennifer
30 Day Meditation Challenge: Day 12
Thursday December 18, 2009: I have to admit that yesterday I failed to make my daily meditation enough of a priority. As a result, I ended up meditating after seeing a performance of Handel’s Messiah at the Kennedy Center and a long dinner over a bottle of wine with my mother and my husband.
Although our home was not particularly religious, my mother loved classical music and I grew up listening to her play the Messiah on our record player during the holidays. Even as a child, for reasons I cannot really explain, it resonated with me. But, that did not translate into a greater appreciation for classical music and I don’t go to operas or the symphony often. However, this year, I had the opportunity to get tickets to the Messiah and to take my mother. I hoped it would be magical for her and I was curious about the power of a live performance since I had only ever heard recordings. Listening intently to a 2.5 hour performance of that magnitude is sort of like learning to meditate. Sitting in the Concert Hall at the Kennedy Center, with the entire National Symphony Orchestra arrayed before me, I wanted to be transported, to feel ecstatic. I was ready to be a good and attentive listener. But my body and mind sometimes rebelled! I would focus at times but then my attention would drift. Different emotions washed over me. At times, I was genuinely delighted by something I heard. But, there were also moments when my mind got bossy and insisted there was something I “should” be feeling or noticing or appreciating and I kind of stopped hearing the music. When my mind was quiet, my body would grow restless. Like my early meditation practice, I felt the effort more than the experience.
After the performance, we went for dinner and shared a bottle of wine. I thought that perhaps the combined effects of music on such a scale and a few glasses of wine would make for a colorful meditation! But, I think instead I was just kind of depleted from the concert and dulled from the wine. As a result, the meditation was sort of flat. I didn’t feel a lot of energy moving and what I did feel was much less vivid and powerful. I was grateful to have the bija mantra practice as a structure to work with. And, although I wasn’t “transported”, the meditation has become less of an effort and more of a familiar and comforting ritual.
Posted on December 16, 2009 - by Jennifer
30 Day Meditation Challenge: Day 11
Wednesday December 16, 2009: This is the first time I’ve actually posted the same day as I meditated. My usual process is to mediate and then record my experience the following day. The “rule” that I established for the challenge is that I could not wait more than one day to record the experience because I think it becomes harder to recall details the more time passes. Today I decided to meditate as soon as I woke up, thinking my mind might be more empty. But, since the whole day was ahead of me I found that as I sat quietly, my mind went to work on a “to do” list for the day. I decided to indulge my mind for a few minutes (it doesn’t always feel this gung ho and productive and I hate to discourage it!) But, it became clear that I needed to shift the focus so I began to chant the bija mantras and my mind was pretty easily led from “must find recipe for cinnamon vinaigrette” to the sound of “Lam”. I felt energy move up my spine and into my throat and head but it did not stay there. Instead, it settled again in my middle and upper back, radiating out like wings. The movement of the energy was gentle and steady. Then, I returned to chanting the mantras and moved the energy back down my spine. As I reached the root chakra at the base of my spine, the energy flow changed pretty radically. Now it felt like I had this giant, internal faucet. And it was like a curious child, who didn’t really know what she was doing, kept twisting the faucet one way and then the other, turning the faucet on and off, on and off, on and off. It actually had this steady beat – on, off, on, off, on, off- and the energy always felt like water streaming down. I sat with that for a little while and then concluded the meditation.
People have been asking if I’ve noticed any changes now that I’m more than a week into this daily practice. It’s hard to say what is directly a result of meditating daily and the process of writing about, and therefore reflecting on, those meditations. But, I will share this experience. In the evening, I had a conversation with someone I am very close to but don’t have an opportunity to speak with very often. We had a long talk and when the call ended, I was in a good mood and began to prepare a meal. As I worked, I listened to a recent episode of RadioLab called “Numbers” (anyone who doesn’t already listen to this podcast should start, IMMEDIATELY. But, I digress…). The final story in the episode was about the relationship between a math teacher and his student and the story was really engaging and very touching and I was adjusting the seasoning in a dressing I was making and listening intently when my mood shifted quite profoundly and I just felt this overwhelming sense of sadness and loss. Here I am in my warm kitchen, smelling cilantro and tasting sea salt on my tongue and I can see my christmas tree with bright red ribbons and sparkling white lights and yet I’m suddenly overwhelmingly sad. But, instead of pushing that emotion aside or asking, “Why am I so sad?”, I decided to go and rewind the end of the story and sit in a chair that is right in front of my beautiful, sparkling tree and listen to the ending again and just feel sad -to be really, fully present with this emotion. And then, after a few minutes, I was able to get up and continue mixing my salad.
Posted on December 16, 2009 - by Jennifer
30 Day Meditation Challenge: Day 10
Tuesday December 15, 2009: Okay, so, in yoga they say “adapt, adjust, and accommodate”, right? Well, somehow the day got away from me and I found myself “adjusting” my meditation schedule to the evening once again. I practiced 2 rounds of the bija mantra, chanting out loud both rounds. I hate to go all Yoda, but I did notice that the force was not as strong as the previous meditation. That said, I experienced some similarities to the previous day’s meditation. Again, energy seemed to radiate from a point between my shoulder blades. So, it felt sort of like wings. I did not experience anything that felt like flying up or leaving my body. But, at the conclusion of the meditation, when I opened my eyes, I did again experience that sense of being an observer of my own body. I wasn’t hovering above it or anything dramatic like that. I just didn’t quite feel like the arms and hands and legs I saw when I opened my eyes were “mine”. It’s a strange state of mind, perhaps because we don’t often consciously examine our relationship to our various moving parts. We don’t typically exclaim, “Why, yes, that’s MY hand moving that cup or typing on this keyboard!” And, yet, we do feel like it’s ours. So, when I open my eyes, I guess what I feel is a momentary sense that while the arms and hands and fingers and toes I am seeing as I look down are real and tangible, they don’t necessarily contain me. It’s a hard feeling to express. But we do sort of experience our bodies as containers, as this tangible, physical thing that is both our way of experiencing the world and a boundary of some sort, a separation between us and other beings or other objects. And for a moment, when I open my eyes, instead of feeling like I’m inside this container, I just see the container.
Posted on December 15, 2009 - by Jennifer
30 Day Meditation Challenge: Day 9
Monday December 14, 2009: Since it’s Week 2 of the challenge, I decided to change a few things to see what effects the changes might produce. First, I am going to meditate during the day. Secondly, while I will continue to use chakra meditation techniques, I am using different techniques. My Monday meditation was about mid-day which is a nice time of day in my home yoga studio since light streams through the window making the room feel bright and airy. And it’s in strong contrast to last week’s meditations, which were all done in the dark. I practiced a bija mantra meditation where you use different mantra sounds for each chakra. The particular mantra you chant for each chakra actually creates a physical sensation at that chakra. So, for example, you chant “ham” when you focus on the throat chakra and when you make the “ham”sound, it causes you to slightly contract your throat muscles, facilitating a connection to the physical space where that chakra is located. I decided I would go through 2 cycles of the bija mantra, raising the energy up the spine, bringing it back down, and then repeating. On the first round, I repeated the sound mentally rather than chanting out loud. One thing I noticed right away was that the energy in my body seemed eager to rise. In the evenings, I had sometimes encountered a resistance to moving the energy up my spine while drawing the energy down was relatively simple. But now my energy seemed ready to fly up. I encountered no resistance as I moved past the throat chakra (a point of blockage in last week’s meditations) and when I got to the point between my brows and the crown of my head, I could feel a very strong pulsation in my entire head and face. As I held the energy there for a sort time, I began to feel a very strong pulsation behind my eyelids. It almost felt like a tic, an uncontrollable blinking. But, my eyes were closed and I was not actually blinking them. The sensation was very intense (similar to what I had felt at my heart chakra in Sunday’s meditation) so I sat with it for a few minutes and then began to descend the energy. As the energy moved down my spine, I felt an intense pulsation in my mid-back. The second round I chanted out loud so I could really notice how each sound activated the area around each corresponding chakra. Again, my energy was quick to rise and this time when I reached my uppermost chakras, the sensations were even more intense. The feeling was concentrated in the space from my shoulder blades to the crown of my head. In between the crown and the shoulder blades, energy seemed to start at my midline and radiate out in opposite directions, almost like wings. Then, after 5 minutes or so, the energy shifted and instead of radiating out from the midline of my body, it started to pulse in towards my nose. The physical space in which I was experiencing the sensation also shrank to just my face. So, I felt waves on energy pulsing in towards the point between my brows. And then it seemed that I could bounce or shift the energy from the right side of my face to the left side of my face and I began mentally repeating “left, right, left, right”. As I said left, the energy went left and vice versa. After playing with this sensation for a few more minutes, I moved the energy back down my spine and then just sat still for a little while longer.
Posted on December 14, 2009 - by Jennifer
30 Day Meditation Challenge: Day 8
Sunday December 13, 2009: This was another evening meditation at the end of a full day. I taught a Yin Workshop and, immediately following that, my regular Sunday class. Then I took a 2-hour arm balances workshop. At the beginning of the workshop, the teacher connected the practice of arm balances to the anahata or heart chakra. Interestingly, this chakra later took a starring role in my meditation! I started my meditation with the ham sa mantra, moving the energy up my spine. In the lower chakras, my breathing was very free and easy. I had little difficulty resting between breaths and observing the flow of energy. But, when I reached my throat chakra, my breathing began to feel tighter and more constricted. I could not comfortably pause between breaths. I experienced a very slight choking sensation. But, I pushed through and finished ascending the energy to the chakra at the crown of the head. Then, I began the so ham mantra and the process of moving the energy back down my spine. On so ham, I relaxed a little bit again. After I had moved back down from the crown to the root chakra, I sat quietly. With my eyes closed, I couldn’t really seem to dive deeper. But, when I opened my eyes, and remained seated and still, I experienced an intense surge of energy. Normally, when I feel prana, the sensation is like waves. It’s kind of wide and deep and undulating. But this was more like little fireworks, little burst or sparks. And it was very concentrated, just at my heart center. The sensations were invigorating but also produced some anxiety. I tried to examine why -did the sensation remind of the heart-pounding I associate with fear? Was I concerned that something was actually physically amiss? (I have had a heart murmur since I was very young) I wasn’t able to answer the questions through the meditation so I just sat with the sensation for 10 minutes or so, eyes open but focused completely on these sensations in my chest. Following the meditation, although I was physically tired, I was mentally very awake and had difficulty falling asleep.
Posted on December 14, 2009 - by Jennifer
Meditation Challenge: Day 7
Saturday December 12, 2009: This was another late evening meditation after a long, activity-filled day. But, as I reflected on the meditation the next morning, I realized that it did have a profound effect, just not in the expected way. I had arrived home late and had to be up early to teach a Yin Yoga workshop. I was tired and full from a rich meal, shared with a good friend. Our conversation was enjoyable but intense. All in all, when I arrived home, I was pretty spent. Normally, in such a state, I would put on comfy pajamas, sit on my very comfortable couch, and snuggle beneath my warm blanket. My last waking moments would be spent staring at a television screen, watching something I wasn’t particularly interested in or excited by – just some sounds and colors to fill the silence, a distraction to help me shift from being out at a restaurant, engaged with the people around me, to alone at home. But, instead, I knew that I had to make time to meditate. So, I could not turn on the television and settle into the couch and let my eyes (and brain) glaze over. Instead, I wrapped myself in my meditation shawl and sat and went through the process of moving through the chakras. So, my last act of the day was to very consciously perform a task that requires engagement and focus rather than ending my day with a weary body and a disengaged mind and the sounds of “it’s not just TV, it’s Direct TV” ringing in my ears. Did I accomplish profound things with this particular meditation? No. But, I did alter a pattern of behavior.
Posted on December 13, 2009 - by Jennifer
Meditation Challenge: Day 6
Friday December 11, 2009: I meditated around 11pm, after returning from a holiday gathering. I worked with ham sa/so ham. My body felt restful and comfortable but my mind was sort of all over the place. Eventually, I was able to stop “hearing” thoughts but instead I sort of began to see them. Little sketches of people and places appeared in my field of vision. And then these little squares that reminded me of postage stamps or film strips began to appear, with animals on them. Perhaps I’ve been opening too many Christmas cards! My breathing was more effortless. The meditation was definitely a useful transition from a stimulating party to preparation for sleep.
Posted on December 11, 2009 - by Jennifer
Meditation Challenge: Day 5
December 10, 2009: I sat down for meditation in the evening around 8pm. I decided it would make some sense to continue with the same technique as the previous 4 days, maybe even using the ham sa/so ham approach through to Sunday so that I could get a full week’s observation of the impact of a single technique before switching to a second technique for week two. It seemed like a vaguely “scientific” approach. So, I proceeded. And, in the spirt of accurate reporting, I have to admit I struggled to meditate last night. Physically, I never quite settled in. My foot fell asleep about 10 minutes in and I felt a slight ache in my back about 20 minutes in. Mentally, I was a little better off. I concentrated on each chakra diligently and dutifully noted the sensation of energy but I didn’t feel entirely present. It felt more like an intellectual exercise or discipline, as if I were going through the motions. Brief but distracting thoughts appeared like little thought bubbles- things like, “Will the yogurt/cilantro dip be okay without fresh lime?” At about 25 minutes, I decided to end the meditation. And, actually, as I came out of the meditation, I felt strongly compelled to sit still with my eyes open. At this point, my body did relax and my mind did sort of empty. Perhaps it was the release from the discipline of repeating a mantra and trying to focus? Now that I was not trying to focus, I suddenly felt quite willing to remain seated and to observe. What I noticed was a weight or heaviness pressing down on two specific points – the crown of my head and my heart. It was a very tangible sensation and I just sat with it, eyes open, for probably 3-5 minutes. It was not an unpleasant sensation, like being held or suffocated. It was just a weight.
