Hello all.
As I have posted in my last couple of posts I do not enjoy listening to the calming audio tracks we are asked to listen to. However, I did perform the Loving Kindness exercise right after I finished reading chapter 6. I began by thinking of someone I love very much and once I began to feel the same way I do when that person is near me I started to send that feeling to the different parts of my body. I will admit it is difficult to remain engaged. However, I did my best and was able to complete 10 minutes of this type of meditation. When I was done I felt as if I was at ease and like there were no worries in the world. I think everyone should at least attempt to try to feel what this type of meditation offers. It is very difficult due to the fact that the mind wanders every second of the way. However, I am sure with practice it will get easier.
Dacher (2006) summed it up best when saying "we cannot earn a Ph.D. in physics without a daily commitment to study nor can an athlete attain an Olympian level of fitness without daily exercise" (p. 64). In order to develop your mind it takes the same amount of training it would take to develop anything else. Just one hour a day will add up and before long we will be on the road to health, happiness, and wholeness (Dacher, 2006). In fact, there is no other way to develop our spiritual selves without first developing our metal. Some of the way we can do this is by meditation. One way is exercising the Loving Kindness exercise and another is by exercising the Subtle Mind exercise. Both of these will allow us to enter a more integral form of well-being and will help of clear any mental roadblocks hindering us from developing our spiritual nature.
References
Dacher, E.S. (2006). Integral health: the path to human flourishing. Laguna Beach, CA: Basic Health Publications, Inc.
Hello Sean,
ReplyDeleteI would definitely agree there is a level of difficulty to maintain these exercise. In doing the exercise for myself, I did finish the entire exercise and I felt good accomplished in sending out positive thoughts to another love one that has experience pain or loss. The thing that really annoying about the exercise for me was the waves crashing into the water. This meant for me it made the concentration level harder to hold onto. The water wave sounds and the light sound of music were fine for me, it seemed to be soothing. I hope learn the methods of meditation through these exercises become easier as we go further into the unknown of human well-being.
Hi Sean
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that it is difficult to stop the mind from wandering while doing the meditative exercises. For myself when my mind stops wandering it means I have fallen asleep. I am glad that this one seemed a bit easier for you and you felt more relaxed at completion.
Finding an hour for some people like myself to sit and meditate sounds absolutely ridiculous. I know the benefits are great but who will pick up my slack sadly no one. This will lead me to more anxiety. A more realistic goal for me is 15 minutes and as improve skill wise I can increase time.
Robin