Some years ago I
would constantly wake up with a stiff neck, tension in the upper back and
shoulders and a general feel of un-ease. This would make me feel un-rested even
though I had slept reasonably well. I soon realized that my body mirrors the
sub-conscious stress I experienced even during the sleep. I was looking for a
cure… and not being one who pop pills I was searching for an alternative.
Something kept urging me to look for relief in mindfulness practice.
As I began my
meditation routine, sitting quietly, watching the breadth and merely seeing my
abdomen rise and fall, my body relaxed. I began to notice that the tension
eased and my mind became more calm and still. I began to observe this
experience without any judgment of the pain in the neck and shoulders. This
practice of observation alone helped me understand how fleeting all physical
sensation and essentially all material phenomena really is. More importantly, I
understood that meditation is not about making your mind blank but instead
learning to see things as they truly are and freeing the mind of thought.
As I look closely at
our current lifestyles, I can’t help noticing where we spend most of our
energy. We are constantly engaged in doing things, then we fall into bed,
exhausted, wake up and start the incessant doing again. Very often we’re cut
off from our experience and feelings. We are driven by the belief system of the
mind, by expectations, by fear, or by wanting to get some place else then we’re
not actually where we are, are we?
Stress has become a
way of life for most of us. Actually, it’s not so much the stress that’s the
problem, it’s how we cope with it. This actually depends on how we see it, or
if we see at all! Quite often when I ask people if they feel stress they deny
it, as though it’s a disease we don’t want to acknowledge . Our denials make us
live mechanically, on automatic pilot. Hence the mind is constantly agitated
and is either in the past or the future but rarely in the present…. and this is
where mindfulness exists.
The Buddha gives us a
simple yet profound message that the true path does not have to be elaborate,
that there is power in simplicity and that mindfulness is the cornerstone of
meditative practice. When done with sincerity and commitment, in sometime it
becomes a way of life; we learn to pay attention; to become mindful; to tune
in. When this manifests as our experience we learn to take better care of
ourselves; which really means learning to live more skillfully and move towards
greater health and well being.
And so it is…
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