A meditation for running
Fitness is beneficial to any spiritual pursuits because it is found in order to get to deeper levels of spiritual consciousness one must transform the energies one normally uses for other pursuits such as day dreaming, gratifying the senses, or thinking about all kinds of things that are just a waste of energy, you will observe that the same mechanics of meditation will be involved, from sitting in lotus to swinging a sledge hammer to running, fundamentally speaking that is.
Before you go running it is always wise to first do 10-15 minutes of a warm up and stretching your muscles, begin your run at a steady relaxed pace, place your gaze about two metres in front of you on the ground, make sure when you do this there is no possibility of you running into anyone or anything thereby having an accident, you will know when to look up, but stay fixed with your gaze at this location, do not be curious or inquisitive to look at anything going on around you be focused in this gaze, resist all temptation to look anywhere else unless you have to because a car might run you over or the like but otherwise DO NOT SECUMB TO TEMPTATION TO LOOK ANYWHERE ELSE and then inwardly observe your body, observe any tensions or stiffness in the body, starting from your legs to your thighs to you hips, to your lower back to your upper back to your chest shoulders head, and most importantly your face, and then relax all of those muscles taking particular attention to those muscles that are tense, relax them by focusing on them and telling them to relax after this tell your body as it is making a relaxed stride that it is beautiful it feels good, it feels great, the whole body feels great.
As you are running, now observe the legs further, how are they moving? Is the stride of your legs relaxed stride or is it more tense? Put your awareness into the legs for some time so that you can create a maximum performance with a minimum effort, make the legs relaxed in their movements, a nice balanced stride, with nice long strides, no tension whatsoever, you will find that the length of stride will get longer without effort, there must be balance and rhythm in the movement and your body, eventually there will be pain if you are not so fit, one must focus on this pain, is it for instance a pain in one leg? If so this suggests that your balance may not be quite right, therefore bring your attention back to your rhythm and stride and relax them pain may also indicate that you are going to fast too soon, so slow down until the pain is acceptable, but in the beginning you must not allow the pain for too long as this may be a sign you are over doing it and you will get injury from not taking notice.
Practice this for some time maybe weeks, and go over it again and again until you are ready to move to the next thing, that is now it is easier for you to establish a nice balanced relaxed body when you are running, the face is also important and also the eyes being fixed about two metres in front, when the body and movements feels right, and it feels balanced and gaze is fixed steady, then it is time to focus attention on your breath, how is your breath doing? See how the breath is moving in and out as you are running, is your breathing being done under strain, often when you run you will breath faster than you need to breath because there is an underlying anxiety about the run, a tenseness that is there will be in the muscles and will relate to the breath also, if you have found tension in your muscle that do not need to be there then like wise it will reflect often in your breathing, so observe your breath.
Are you breathing heavier and faster than you need to? If so allow it to relax to it's own state of equilibrium, a state of breath that relates to the movement of the body as it is running, observe the breath and allow it to relax, do not make effort for it to relax, just observing it and recognising it is there, and this will allow it to come to its natural state of equilibrium, after some time of doing this, when you have reached a state of relaxed breath even though you are running, by now your fitness will have gone up some, it will help to push your pace up in order for the next step to happen more easily:
Observe your mind, what are you thinking? Are you day dreaming are you thinking about getting home? Observe how this thinking relates to discomfort and tension in your body and tension in your breath, they all relate one to the other the holy trinity.
If you have become fitter it will be easier to put up your pace, the pain from doing this; let it be understood this is a healthy pain from putting exertion on the body, not a pain that some thing is wrong, you will observe in your mind that it will begin to have an extra influx of thoughts, because the minds natural tendency is to seek pleasure and run from pain, so by stepping up on thoughts and fantasies it is the minds way to create some form of fantasy that will hide you away from pain as you are running, now push the pace up when you have observed this phenomena, the trick here is self observation, this extra effort will push up the pain and push up the energy usage, at this point it will be easier to put the body in a more relaxed state and also the breath quite naturally will meet its equilibrium, the energy that is going into your thoughts and fantasies is taking the energy away from the extra effort needed in your body to run, at this point, you must search in your head for a place where there is no thought, a point in the mind where it is still, imagine there is nothing no more to think just an empty space, in your head it must all STOP.
OK I understand now we have a little problem for you where Stopping the mind is concerned, you need a little method to identify where this stopping can happen and how it happens, there is a simple exercise for you to recognise what this is how to get there; then once you have identified all this you will be able to create it at will, here is a small exercise for you, but it IS really so beneficial, it only take moments to identify it so that you can take it into the run with you, indeed this is the beginning of all true meditations, it is just that this small happening gets bigger then enlightenment from this, and you can practice it at any time of the day when you have only minute even:
Here it is sit down find a small dot on the wall in front of you or make one, it is best done with a white back ground, this dot on the wall must be level with your head so that you can look straight at it, and it is in the very centre of your visual field, relax your body, then observe your breath, now as you are breathing make your breath deeper in and out, breath in deeper and breath out deeper to the maximum your lungs can stretch then make the breath faster until it feels uncomfortable, but still with your gaze fixed at the dot then STOP YOUR BREATH, just at that moment OBSERVE HOW YOU MIND IS STILL.
That is it, it is this observation and seeing the seer itself is that which is the stopping, but don't get philosophical stay in the stop that helps you to develop the ability to stop the mind, eventually you will not need the mechanics of this stop breath exercise, but you will know how to do it without the spot on the wall, and the stopping of breath, it is this that you will find easier to create when you are running because the mind is trying to find an answer to the suffering you are putting on the body and it will fall into this easier when such tension is created, just like life situations.
There is also another way to create this STOPPING of mind effect, in this you use your body, you can for instance jump around on the spot where you are standing make all kinds of frantic movements, like a mad woman or man do this with your body, then get some one to shout out STOP when you are not expecting it, then you STOP and stay absolutely STILL with your body, no matter what position you are in, you must STOP AND BE ABSOLUTELY “STILL” not one tiny movement of alteration is allowed, even if you fall over, then observe the mind, the mind has “STOPPED” and it is “STILL” it may only be a brief moment, but you will be able to identify the mechanics and how it is made to happen, this STOPPING AND STILLING is the seed of enlightenment, after identifying it, it is a matter of exercising it, making it stay longer until there is complete disappearance then you will have reached enlightenment, such a beautiful state.
Because the mind likes to become mechanical in a way that is its fundamentals to desire security what you in fact do is trick it into becoming still and stopped by using these exercises it feels comfortable to let go it is tricked into letting go and stopping.
Well Naj I try to find in my new book where I had written about this but it seems I could not find it, it was like looking for a needle in a hay stack, so having to write this down again has shown me that I need to make myself a better filing system, so thanks for that.
Hope you are successful with the methods I gave you above, if there is anything you don't understand then just ask and I will help you with it, also understand this, that where you get stuch in meditation is like wise where you will have hold ups in your life, a barrier in meditation is the same barrier in life only you give it a different mask to wear.
Love Ozay xxx
No comments:
Post a Comment