Image from yourbellalife.com
Partisan political wrangling, hegemonic religious claims, and exclusive ideologies of all kinds can be invitations to psychic or even physical violence. Often based on faulty reasoning and wrong perceptions, their exclusivity and the tribalism it encourages tend to foster “us vs. them” thinking; sometimes this takes extreme and virulent forms.
The yoga mat, the meditation cushion, and the breathing room are places of refuge where the practitioner can water the seeds of enlightenment, quietly decline invitations to strife, and clear a path for her better self. When that person manifests, both she and everyone in her world will benefit.
As sentient beings, we are in a state of perpetual change. We are also bombarded constantly by information and emotional appeals, much of which is designed to elicit an outraged response; it's no secret that controversy sells. We have to take refuge, to protect our minds from the barrage of mental toxins that are sent our way on any given day. Simply inviting the meditation bell to sound and breathing in and out mindfully several times can produce the countervailing force we need to shelter and purify our minds.
Sitting in mindful awareness of breathing for several minutes every day can reunite our mutually alienated minds and bodies. We may want to give this this oneness of body and mind outward, symbolic form by bringing our hands together before our chests in imitation of a lotus flower. After our period of sitting meditation, discreetly repeating this action several times throughout the day can help us to recapture the mental and emotional clarity we found in meditation. We are then more than qualified to take on all the challenging situations and difficult personalities in our worlds; we are primed to allow our best mental formations to dominate.
The yoga mat, the meditation cushion, and the breathing room are places of refuge where the practitioner can water the seeds of enlightenment, quietly decline invitations to strife, and clear a path for her better self. When that person manifests, both she and everyone in her world will benefit.
As sentient beings, we are in a state of perpetual change. We are also bombarded constantly by information and emotional appeals, much of which is designed to elicit an outraged response; it's no secret that controversy sells. We have to take refuge, to protect our minds from the barrage of mental toxins that are sent our way on any given day. Simply inviting the meditation bell to sound and breathing in and out mindfully several times can produce the countervailing force we need to shelter and purify our minds.
Sitting in mindful awareness of breathing for several minutes every day can reunite our mutually alienated minds and bodies. We may want to give this this oneness of body and mind outward, symbolic form by bringing our hands together before our chests in imitation of a lotus flower. After our period of sitting meditation, discreetly repeating this action several times throughout the day can help us to recapture the mental and emotional clarity we found in meditation. We are then more than qualified to take on all the challenging situations and difficult personalities in our worlds; we are primed to allow our best mental formations to dominate.
Our relationships with other people (and other sentient beings) will improve as we carry the mindfulness generated on the meditation cushion into every conversation, every transaction, all the interactions that make up our days. This is a thoroughly rational and clear-minded way of being in the world, one that requires no dogmatic assertions or exclusive ideology. It can radically transform our lives, and I can’t recommend it highly enough.
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