Meditation

I recently stumbled across a powerful meditation technique that uses a three-dimensional mandala as the point of departure for an amazing visualization exercise. As you read it over, I invite you to guess the time and place this technique comes from:

• Imagine the entire universe. Hold it as clearly and distinctly in your mind as you possibly can. See the whole cosmos as if it’s inside an unimaginably vast transparent sphere.
• Visualize our sun and the stars in our sky. Then picture all the living beings on the earth or in the sea. Observe them calmly.
• Call to mind the limitlessly vast Supreme Intelligence who created this universe. Ask it to enter your awareness, bringing with it all the divine forces that exist inside it. Notice that the Supreme Being and all its divine energies and all the creatures and objects and worlds it has created exist together in seamless unity. Imagine the Supreme Being’s unlimited power and awareness extending to all infinity.
• Now bring this vision inside yourself, as if you are that all-pervading Supreme Intelligence. Hold the entire cosmos and all its powers and all its creatures inside your own all-pervading awareness.
• Then let go of the visual images you’ve been imagining. Simply let all the scenes you’ve been visualizing dissolve completely. Instead, focus only on the living reality of the all-pervading Cosmic Intelligence who is silently present.
• Don’t allow any sense of separateness to enter your awareness. Just immerse yourself totally in the divine presence.
• Surrender yourself completely to the Supreme Being who, at this very moment, is holding you in its perfect, unitary awareness. The Supreme Intelligence is totally present in this moment, and there is no distinction whatever between it and you.
• Mentally saluting the Supreme Being, shift your awareness back to your physical body in this physical room in this physical universe, and open your eyes.

This exercise carries your awareness from a concrete image into a higher state of consciousness that is beyond images altogether. It seeks to unite your individual awareness with the cosmic consciousness which holds the whole universe in its awareness the way you hold mental images in yours. Any guesses where it comes from?

Here’s the surprising answer: This meditation was practiced in the city of Rome in the 3rd century AD. It is almost certainly the technique taught to Caesar Gallienus, who ruled the Roman Empire from 253 to 268 AD, and his wife Cornelia. How do I know that? Because it comes from the Enneads, a book written by one of the most famous spiritual masters of the Roman world. His name was Plotinus, and he was the teacher of the emperor and empress as well as numerous prominent members of the Roman Senate. Plotinus concluded the exercise with this advice for the meditator: “If you imagine you’re different from the all-pervading Divine Being, you are not yet in the fully illumined state. When you and it are perfectly one, with no sense of even the possibility that you could be two, then you have attained real understanding and a true perception of your highest self, the true inner being which never departs from complete perfection.”

Did the ancient Greeks and Romans—the founders of Western civilization—practice yoga?

Did the ancient Greeks and Romans—the founders of Western civilization—practice yoga? The astonishing answer is that they certainly practiced something very like it. In southern Europe 2,000 years ago, the deepest state of meditation (samadhi in Sanskrit) was called henosis. Heno is the Greek word for “one”; henosis literally meant “one-pointed awareness” or “unitary consciousness.” There were many centers where you could go to learn how to stabilize your mind in henosis—in the Platonic Academy in Athens, for example, or at the great university in Alexandria, Egypt, or in the schools of extraordinary masters like Plotinus in Rome.

The Oracle at Delphi—the spiritual center of the ancient Greek world—is famous for its simple advice: “Know thyself.” Spiritual teachers like Plotinus took this suggestion to heart. He urged his disciples to “close your eyes and awaken to another way of seeing. This is a skill everyone possesses but few choose to use.” Plotinus died in the year 270. His final words were: “Try to unite the divinity in yourself with the divine in all things.”

Meditation goes back a long way in the Graeco-Roman world. Empedocles, one of the most popular of the Greek sages, was born in Sicily at the beginning of the 5th century BC, 700 years before Plotinus was born. Here’s what Empedocles had to say about the journey within:

You must plunge beneath your crowded thoughts and calmly contemplate the higher realities with pure, focused attention. If you do this, a state of inspired serenity will remain with you throughout your life, shaping your character and benefiting you in so many ways. But if you direct your attention instead to the trivial things most people obsess about, the silly nonsense that dulls their minds, you’ll just acquire more objects which you’ll only lose anyway.

Like many of the ancient Greek masters, Empedocles also spoke of reincarnation when he said, “The wise never imagine that man lives only for one lifetime, that before and afterwards he doesn’t exist at all. Souls, who through their own error fall under the power of fear and delusion, are forced by eternal law to wander for long cycles taking birth in mortal bodies, exchanging suffering in one type of body for suffering in another. I’m one of these exiles myself, wandering far from my heavenly source, having mistakenly put my faith in this violent, crazy world.”

Lasting happiness and peace come to those “who have gained the true wealth of divine understanding,” he went on to explain. They realize that the Divine “isn’t something you can see with your eyes or hold in your hands, it doesn’t have a face or feet or gender, but is pure consciousness which extends throughout the entire cosmos…. Divine Being is without beginning or end; it is nothing but consciousness in any direction, and eternally rejoices in the encircling silence.”

It is our task, according to Empedocles, to reclaim this divine awareness, lost when we forgot our undying inner self and identified completely with a body. The sages who have attained self-realization “have no more part in sorrow or weariness,” he said.

Today we think of the ancient Greeks as the men who invented science and democracy. We forget that in their own time many of them were recognized as spiritual adepts. Our modern history books, for example, record that Heraclitus (who lived at about the same time as Empedocles) taught that the universe was created from the element fire. This is a gross oversimplification of his ideas, but more importantly, it ignores the major emphasis he placed on inner life. While many of his contemporaries explored the secrets of the natural world, Heraclitus focused on a more central mystery. “I investigate myself,” he said, maintaining that hidden in the deepest recesses of spirit are the greatest truths, and that this inner quest is endless. “You’ll never find the limits of the soul, no matter how many roads you travel,” he continued, but went on to say that inquiring into the nature of our innermost self is exactly what we must do. “Self-knowledge is every person’s birthright,” he insisted.

Today we consider meditation, the concept of reincarnation, and the recognition of the essential unity of all things to be purely Eastern beliefs. We’ve forgotten that these teachings were once an integral part of our own Western spiritual heritage. While most of this inner lore was lost in the West, it has been lovingly preserved in India. And so, just as Columbus had to sail west to reach the East, today we have to travel east to rediscover the teachings and techniques at the root of Western history. Yoga is a truly universal tradition, an invaluable key to self-knowledge, a common thread of inner wisdom shared by all times and cultures.

adapted from Yoga International by Linda Johnsen, she is the author of Lost Masters: Sages of Ancient Greece.

meditation tools and timers

Now & Zen

1638 Pearl Street

Boulder, CO  80302

(800) 779-6383

Meditation, a way of calming yourself

Meditation is a practical means for calming yourself, for letting go of your biases and seeing what is, openly and clearly. It is a way of training the mind so that you are not distracted and caught up in its endless churning. Meditation teaches you to systematically explore your inner dimensions. It is a system of commitment, not commandment. You are committing to yourself, to your path, and to the goal of knowing yourself.

Meditation is not a ritual belonging to any particular religion, culture, or group. It is a method of knowing the one reality from which all religions spring. For example, the Bible clearly says, “Be still and know that I am God.” Learning how to be still is the method of meditation. And if you meditate regularly you will find that you have become more calm, yet alert to what is needed in the present moment.

Most people associate calmness with passivity, but the peace that meditation brings releases energy. Worry and preoccupation dissipate your strength. Meditation frees the energy that has been bound in your mental discord so that you can apply yourself one-pointedly to whatever you decide to do. Meditation will lead your mind to become more concentrated, so that you can fully focus on whatever you choose. Because of this, those who meditate will learn almost anything more easily and more quickly.

adapted from Yoga International by Swami Rama

meditation tools

Now & Zen

1638 Pearl Street

Boulder, CO  80302

(800) 779-6383

daily meditation represents a commitment

When you decide to meditate each day, you are acknowledging the importance of spiritual discipline, your desire to be a meditator, and the call of an inner voice that really transcends ordinary time. Daily meditation represents both a commitment and an opportunity. With each passing day the intersection of chronos and kairos, of ordinary measured time and your own inner sense of time, leads you back to your meditation seat to nurture your practice again.

adapted from Yoga International by Rolf Solvik, June/May 2007

meditation tools and timers with chimes

Now & Zen

1638 Pearl Street

Boulder, CO  80302

(800) 779-6383

what time is best to meditate?

Are certain times more favorable for meditation than others? Yes. In the morning and evening, when day and night mometarily mingle, nature draws the mind inward. As a result, many choose to med-itate just after awakening or in the evening, near sunset.

Unfortunately, many of us have lost our sensitivity to nature’s influence, and we do not feel the internal pull created by the joining of night and day. But by paying attention as dawn or dusk approaches, we can observe nature’s work. Winds quiet down, animals hush, and the sky floods with color. The mind is also quieted in these moments, and as night and day briefly embrace, our concentration and our sense of inner balance deepen.

There are some practitioners who choose night hours for meditation. A familiar verse in one of yoga’s most beloved texts, the Bhagavad Gita, explains, “That which is night for most living beings is like day for one whose senses are controlled; that which is day for most living beings is like night for the introspective sage.” In the silence of night, when others sleep, a meditator finds pleasure in meditation. But the outward affairs of daily life are like sleep to a sage. That is why some meditators choose to practice at bedtime or in the very early morning when the darkness is conducive to meditation.

Although these various times are all recommended, it is important not to neglect one more suggestion, which is to meditate at the time that works best for you. That might mean meditating at the beginning of a lunch break, at the end of the workday, or when your children are napping. Finding the time that best fits your personal schedule makes it more likely that you will settle into a regular practice.

adapted from Yoga International by Rolf Solvik, May/June 2007

Use our unique “Zen Clock” which functions as a Yoga & Meditation Timer.  It features a long-resonating acoustic chime that brings your meditation or yoga session to a gradual close, preserving the environment of stillness while also acting as an effective time signal. Our Yoga Timer & Clock can be programmed to chime at the end of the meditation or yoga session or periodically throughout the session as a kind of sonic yantra. The beauty and functionality of the Zen Clock/Timer makes it a meditation tool that can actually help you “make time” for meditation in your life. Bring yourself back to balance.

Timers with chime, perfect for meditating day or night...

Now & Zen – The Zen Alarm Clock & Meditation Timer Store

1638 Pearl Street

Boulder, CO  80302

(800) 779-6383

three meditation tips

Establish your basic practice.
Make sure you have the essentials of your meditation practice clear in your mind. In general, this means establishing a basic sitting posture, training yourself to breathe comfortably, and witnessing your mind from an inner distance—either focusing on your breath or a mantra.

Add time in small increments.
Begin by sitting for 10 to 12 minutes on a regular basis. When you are ready, increase your sitting time to 15 minutes. Then, work your way up to 20 minutes. At that point, your meditation will be well established.

Don’t take on too much.
Ultimately, the length of your meditation will be determined by your mind’s capacity to concentrate. The key to sitting longer is to relax and deepen the process of concentration. From a practical point of view, when the mind becomes so tired of concentrating that you are no longer engaged in the process, the meditation is moving toward its end.

adapted from Yoga International by Rolf Sovik, May/June 2007

Use our unique “Zen Clock” which functions as a Yoga Timer.  It features a long-resonating acoustic chime that brings your meditation or yoga session to a gradual close, preserving the environment of stillness while also acting as an effective time signal. Our Yoga Timer & Clock can be programmed to chime at the end of the meditation or yoga session or periodically throughout the session as a kind of sonic yantra. The beauty and functionality of the Zen Clock/Timer makes it a meditation tool that can actually help you “make time” for meditation in your life. Bring yourself back to balance

Meditation Timers and Clocks with Chime in Bamboo, Walnut, Maple, and Black Lacquer

Now & Zen – The Zen Timer Store

1638 Pearl Street

Boulder, CO  80302

(800) 779-6383

Meditation in Orchard

In the process of meditation, we ask the mind to let go of its tendencies to think, analyze, remember, solve problems, and focus on the events of the past or on our expectations about the future. Meditation helps the mind to slow down its rapid series of thoughts and feelings, and to replace that mental activity with inner awareness and attention. Thus, meditation is not thinking about problems or analyzing situations. It is not fantasizing or daydreaming or letting the mind wander aimlessly. It is not having an internal conversation or argument with ourselves or intensifying the thinking process. Meditation is simply a quiet, effortless, one-pointed focus of attention and awareness.

In meditation, we try to let go of the many mental distractions, preoccupations, and fleeting thoughts and associations common to our normal waking experience. We do this, not by trying to make the mind empty (which is impossible anyway) but by allowing the mind to focus on one subtle element or object. This leads the attention further inward. By giving ourselves a single internal focus of attention, we help the mind stop other stressful mental processes such as worrying, planning, thinking, and reasoning.

Students of meditation may use a sound (mantra) or visual image (yantra) to help concentrate the mind. A mantra may be a word, a phrase, a set of sounds, or simply a syllable. Concentrating on it helps students to let go of useless, distracting mental processes, and allows them to go deeper within themselves. All great spiritual traditions, both ancient and modern, have some system of pronouncing such a syllable, sound, or set of words which acts like a mantra. Om, Amen, and Shalom are examples. Mantras have powerful effects on the mental level, and those who are competent in this great and profound inner science can lead students on the path. The preliminaries are simple and easy and can be practiced without the guidance of a teacher, but when an aspirant begins to deal with the mind itself, an appropriate mantra will be necessary. Teachers choose a mantra according to the students’ state of mind and the extent of their burning desire to uncover the innermost truth.

adapted from Yoga International

Use our unique “Zen Clock” which functions as a Yoga & Meditation Timer.  It features a long-resonating acoustic chime that brings your meditation or yoga session to a gradual close, preserving the environment of stillness while also acting as an effective time signal. Our Yoga Timer & Clock can be programmed to chime at the end of the meditation or yoga session or periodically throughout the session as a kind of sonic yantra. The beauty and functionality of the Zen Clock/Timer makes it a meditation tool that can actually help you “make time” for meditation in your life. Bring yourself back to balance.

Gentle Tibetan Bowl Timer for Yoga, Meditation and a Gentle Alarm Clock

Now & Zen – The Zen Timer Store

1638 Pearl Street

Boulder, CO  80302

(800) 779-6383

meditation

The word meditation is used in many ways, and that is why there is so much confusion about what it is and how to practice it. Some people use the word to mean thinking or contemplating; others use it to refer to daydreaming or fantasizing. Meditation is not any of these. It is a specific technique for resting the mind and attaining a state of consciousness that is totally different from the normal waking state. In meditation, you are fully awake and alert, but your mind is not focused on the external world or on the events taking place around you. Neither is your mind asleep, dreaming, or fantasizing. Instead, it is clear, relaxed, and inwardly focused.

Inner Dimensions
The Latin root of the word meditation is similar to the root for medical or medicate and implies the sense of “attending to” or “paying attention to” something. In meditation, you pay attention to your own deepest, innermost levels—dimensions of yourself which are seldom known. These deeper levels are more profound than the processes of thinking, analyzing, daydreaming, or experiencing emotions or memories. Meditation involves a type of inner attention that is quiet, concentrated, and at the same time, relaxed. There is nothing difficult or strenuous about creating this inner attention; in fact, you will find that the process of meditation is restful for the mind. In the beginning, however, the greatest difficulty is that the mind has not been trained to create this inner attention.

In every society, people are educated in the skills they need to survive and function in their culture: how to talk, think, work, and investigate the objects and experiences of the external world. We learn sciences such as biology, ecology, and chemistry in order to understand the world we live in, but we are not taught to understand or attend to our own inner dimensions. We learn to assimilate the goals, fashions, and values of our society without first knowing ourselves within and without. This leaves us ignorant of ourselves and dependent on the advice and suggestions of others.

Meditation is a subtle and precise technique for learning how to pay attention to and understand the various levels of yourself—the body, the breath, and the mind.

adapted from Yoga International, by Swami Rama

Use our unique “Zen Clock” which functions as a Yoga & Meditation Timer.  It features a long-resonating acoustic chime that brings your meditation or yoga session to a gradual close, preserving the environment of stillness while also acting as an effective time signal. Our Yoga Timer & Clock can be programmed to chime at the end of the meditation or yoga session or periodically throughout the session as a kind of sonic yantra. The beauty and functionality of the Zen Clock/Timer makes it a meditation tool that can actually help you “make time” for meditation in your life. Bring yourself back to balance.

Meditation Timers

Now & Zen – The Zen Meditation Timer Store

1638 Pearl Street

Boulder, CO  80302

(800) 779-6383

mindfulness practices

People have been meditating for so long that no one can really say when or how it got started, but the reasons they do it haven’t changed much. Over the centuries, meditators have consistently found that their practice keeps them focused and emotionally stable, helps them to adapt to new situations, cope with stress in a positive manner, and be more creative. And yet, there is something more to it.

It’s difficult to define meditation in a way that accounts for the wide variety within established meditation traditions. Undoubtedly, specific techniques have evolved within each tradition to address specific human needs and to develop specific potentials, but much of what people call meditation may be better described as systematic relaxation, visualization, working with the breath, simple concentration, or just “spacing out.”

One of the promising ways we can get at a more complete definition of meditation is to look at what is happening in the brains and bodies of people from different meditation traditions when they are doing their practice and see what is similar and what is different. It may be that all meditative activity looks the same to the brain. Or we may find that certain practices engage specific parts of the brain and this is why they are suited to developing particular latent potentials of the mind.

Recently modern science has developed sophisticated tools to explore meditative practice for clues to how it affects our body and brain. And what they have been finding sheds new light on the power of meditation to make a measurable difference in our experience of the world. Even though there is a wide variety of studies being done these days, following a number of different approaches to meditation, the general trend of this research shows that we can exercise some degree of control over things we didn’t think we could change. The scientific study of meditation shows that once we break through our preconceived notions about human capacity, new possibilities for self-transformation abound.

adapted from Yoga International, by Jon Janaka

Use our unique “Zen Clock” which functions as a Yoga & Meditation Timer.  It features a long-resonating acoustic chime that brings your meditation or yoga session to a gradual close, preserving the environment of stillness while also acting as an effective time signal. Our Yoga Timer & Clock can be programmed to chime at the end of the meditation or yoga session or periodically throughout the session as a kind of sonic yantra. The beauty and functionality of the Zen Clock/Timer makes it a meditation tool that can actually help you “make time” for meditation in your life. Bring yourself back to balance.

Now & Zen –

The Zen Meditation Timer Store

1638 Pearl Street

Boulder, CO  80302

(800) 779-6383

yoga

A Simple System of Relaxation

1.  Lie down in the corpse pose and make yourself comfortable. Try a pillow under the head, and don’t forget a light blanket to keep drafts from drawing your attention outward.

2.  Give yourself a few moments to settle, and allow your body to soften into the support of the ground. Watch the breath until it and your heart rate are steady.

3.  Bring your awareness to each point listed below and allow the surrounding muscle tissues to relax.

Crown of the head
Forehead, temples
Eyebrows, eyelids, and eyes
Nose
(Focus on the breath flowing in and out of the nostrils, 2–4 times.)

Cheeks, jaw
Mouth, chin
Hollow of the throat
Sides and back of the neck
Shoulders
Upper arms, lower arms
Hands, fingers
Fingertips

(Inhale as if the breath is flowing down to the fingertips and exhale back up through the nostrils, 2–4 times)

Fingers, hands, arms
Shoulders
Chest and rib cage around the back to the spine
Heart center

(Inhale as if the breath is flowing down to the heart center and exhale back up through the nostrils, 2–4 times)

Abdomen
Sides, lower back
Hips, buttocks
Upper legs, lower legs
Feet
Toes

(Inhale as if the breath is flowing down to the toes and exhale back up through the nostrils, 2–4 times)

4.  Reverse the sequence, bringing awareness up the body from the toes to the head without pausing for breath awareness at the toes, heart center, fingertips, or nose.

5.  Take 10 breaths while keeping awareness spread throughout the body.

6.  Make a gentle transition to your next activity.

adapted from Yoga International, January/February 2006

Wellness Tools, clocks and timers for meditation

Now & Zen

1638 Pearl Street

Boulder, CO  80302

(800) 779-6383

Utamaro Kitagawa, The Courtesan Hanaogi of Ogiya - 7 Steps to a snooze-free meditation

You can manage the urge to sleep with the practice of breath awareness.

1. Sit comfortably erect. Use a chair or a wall to support your spine if helpful.

2. Close your eyes and begin to follow the movements of your breathing. Stay with the breath for a few minutes, until your focus is steady.

3. Without losing your breath awareness, relax your body just as if you were settling it into bed.

4. Continue to follow your breath, maintaining your breath awareness as if it is virtually the only thing of importance in the universe.

5. Relax your mental effort. Maintain a steady hold on your breath, yet relax your body and mind.

6. Now begin to silently recite the mantra so-hum. Let that sound flow with each breath—so on the inhalation and hum on the exhalation. Sense that these sounds are gently blowing away layers of ashes that cover the embers of consciousness in you.

7. Continue for as long as you like. The urge to sleep may come and go, but do not let it dislodge your relaxed breath awareness. Gradually, as you become more rested, your sleepiness will diminish or even disappear. Over a number of sessions you can lengthen the time you sit.

adapted fromYoga International, by Rolf Sovik, PsyD, is co-author of Yoga: Mastering the Basics, May/June 2008

Use our unique “Zen Clock” which functions as a Yoga & Meditation Timer.  It features a long-resonating acoustic chime that brings your meditation or yoga session to a gradual close, preserving the environment of stillness while also acting as an effective time signal. Our Yoga Timer & Clock can be programmed to chime at the end of the meditation or yoga session or periodically throughout the session as a kind of sonic yantra. The beauty and functionality of the Zen Clock/Timer makes it a meditation tool that can actually help you “make time” for meditation in your life. Bring yourself back to balance.

bamboo meditation tools

Now & Zen – The Gentle Chime Timer Store

1638 Pearl Street

Boulder, CO  80302

(800) 779-6383