None of my meditation sessions are ever the same. Each one has its unique obstacles I must overcome as well as its own lessons to be learned. Sometimes I am able to get past the roadblocks, and sometimes I have to stop and come back later.
However, often times my meditation does follow a generally similar path.
After about five minutes my ego kicks in, trying to convince me I dont have the time to meditate right now, or any of the other million excuses. I try to breathe in to this. Trying to allow my consciousness to relax. Much like my muscles, which kick in later, my ego is tensing up trying to hold on to its grip of the world.
Breath in to the dantian, through the nose and out the mouth.
At about the 15 minute mark, my arms start to ache. I employ a similar tactic, though this time each breath I imagine a ripple of intention, much like ripples in a pond after dropping in a stone, passing from the head down through the rest of the body. It moves slowly, and everything it passes through is sent to relax. I continue this process until I feel the body no longer straining to maintain its standing posture.
About the 25 minute mark I hit another barrier. Its still a relatively new one, so it is kind of hard to describe. In this point of the meditation, I am usually working on allowing my consciousness to sink in to my dantian. More often than not, it is resting somewhere between my third eye and my heart chakra. It just kind of bounces between there throughout meditation.
But lately, there have been moments where it sinks all the way to my dantian, it never lasts long, but it definitely stops by for a visit.
It is most closely related with a level of relaxation that is pretty rare for me to achieve. My body is just floating, and my mind, though still mostly in my head, is loosely aware of my dantian. Usually I imagine a little rubber ball just making circles around it and sometimes find myself talking to it….asking how it’s doing and just seeing if it talks back :D.
So this barrier I seem to sense is the doorway into moving more in to my dantian. It’s like my intention is knocking on a door…or a wall to find the places in between the studs where it can get through the Sheetrock. Or maybe….finding an old ventilation shaft it can sneak into before the guards find it.
Like all the other roadblocks, I have a sneaking suspicion that the key will be to relax more. But finding the WAY to relax will be the difficult part. As with everything, the more attention I pay to it, the more little subtleties I overlooked become apparent.
Its a process that I am told never stops, though it may slow down at times.
There will always a new aspect or perspective to be gained in this practice. I have a long way to go, but if discovery is always going to be this fun, I sure am not going to stop :).
Today’s practice:
- 35 min standing meditation
- 1 hour private lesson
– mostly went over the first move of the 24 - 45 minutes qigong
- 30 min teaching the opening move
The Restless Raven 