simple meditation

[windblown]

I sit on my bed and close my eyes and feel my breath. Thoughts are jin-jangled all over the place. I bring my mind back to the breathing...then again worry comes, anxiety, my knee itches...I can't stand it!

 

I am awful at sitting and could never have a desk job.

 

Is there a simpler form of Taoist meditation? I know about Chi-Gung but the classes are expensive and 30 minutes away from here and I'm tired after work.

 

Maybe there is a good video, although i don't know how to work husband's t.v.

 

I know being aware of every moment is nice when I remember it--but isn't that Zen meditation?

 

Sometime when I'm in the throes of work and running around the store like a rabbit I say to myself, "I Wu-Wei Now!" Is that a meditation?

 

I am undisciplined ad that's not going to change I don't think. I have improved greatly over the years but I only can go so far.

 

I wonder what Lao-Tsu's advice would be for me? He might say something that hurts my feelings like that guru in India I spent 4 months with in the ashram. He was enlightened but he was rather arrogant and not to fond of Westerners.

 

I just wanna' be Winnie-The-Pooh in the hundred acre wood with nothing much to do but what I do...which is very little but somehow it all gets done. And Pooh doesn't really meditate. He just is. So why bother meditating. I'm all confused. I can't live in the Winnie the Pooh book.

[Aetherous]

Is there a simpler form of Taoist meditation?

 

Cleaning your place slowly in a zen like way...especially the bathroom. The bathroom is a place of purification (symbolically, of your mind...physically for your body of course) and if it's kept very clean it helps your mind to function right. It also represents a place of 'letting go' of things you don't desire. So it's a good place to spend time contemplating, especially when thoughts are powerful.

 

Of course half of using the bathroom is about cleaning yourself, not just the room.

 

It seems like the nastiest place...so it's "grounding" and "exorcising" to spend time cleaning it. You're facing your own "shit" (pardon my french) literally, which is the point of spirituality. You're moving the body during all of this, so I consider it to be a form of "qigong".

 

Also, do a forum search for cold water therapy. It's a very healthy thing to do, and many spiritual traditions have used it for tempering the mind.

 

 

Also, I think Taoist meditation isn't really about attempting to accomplish anything. You're fine just the way you are, even if you doubt it. Whatever is in your nature to think, feel, do...those things are good for you. Eh, this is a hard thing to remember and I'm not good at describing it. But basically just enjoy your life, there's nothing to become except what you choose. Why would you want to become Lao Tzu or something? You enjoy yourself much more than being someone else.

[Aetherous]

Oh and on the flip side...cleaning your kitchen, and cooking food from scratch...enjoying eating your creations and sharing them with others...

 

That's good to do also. It represents conscious creation of things you think are good, which is like the opposite of "purification".

 

The kitchen stimulates the senses. For instance when making bread:

 

You feel the stickiness of the dough, you smell the yeast and flour interacting...you see your finished creation and are proud...you enjoyed the easy effort in making it...you filled a loaf of bread with all of your care and love, and it tastes that much better for it. You share it with others. Everyone loves to get a gift of food...unless it tastes horrible of course.

 

So that is another idea, a way to live meditatively.

[Aetherous]

Oh yeah, or, if you already mastered those things...anything you do in life is meditation. I'll stop coming up with addendums now.

[windblown]

Lovely, lovely, Center. I can do that sort of Taoist meditation! It's always right in front of our eyes, so simple I sometimes miss it. But it just is and we just are. And we go about it naturally loving and living.

 

As far as bathrooms go....shudder...I am the worst procrastinter when it comes to cleaning them...ooooh yucky. It is bothering me how much I need to clean my bathroom right now. I think you are right about this I really do. I will clean it on my day off on Wed. I promise myself. Maybe afterwards I will light a candle. That is an awful and wonderful meditation. I don't like the dirt in the corners. How will I ever do it? And mops are gross and the toilet is icky. I clean the whole house and neglect the bathrooms. This is a challenge I will try to overcome but I don't like it!

[Aetherous]

My bathroom is in need of cleaning too. Not a big deal, it's normal.

[Aetherous]

Edited February 24, 2011 by center

[InfinityTruth]

 

I am awful at sitting and could never have a desk job.

 

Is there a simpler form of Taoist meditation? I know about Chi-Gung but the classes are expensive and 30 minutes away from here and I'm tired after work.

 

 

 

 

You could do a walking meditation in nature/city? There is a story that said Lao Tzu went for 3 hour walks in the morning.

[KCHooligan]

I find anything over 5 minutes for me (I'm VERY new to meditation) requires music (without words as to not stir language-based thoughts).

 

Had my first 20 minute meditation on Friday (new Radiohead album- very few intelligible words- more so melodic expressions, plus easy to tune out the content when compared with the crazy rythm section). Felt real good. Had a sort of lightweight, spinning feeling when I really connected with the melody (HR actually slowed to bpm of song- not sure how).

 

I find stressing over under-achieved aspirations to be a huge problem, so I try to recognize when to be soft on myself. Mediation is definitely in the realm of "not-the-end-of-the-world" kind of stuff. As long as I'm not giving up, I haven't failed.

[manitou]

Center, how graceful your life must be. Your words were like a cool stream running over me.

 

I have come to realize that our outsides mirrors our insides. To look at someone's current manifestations is to look at their soul. It is the current manifestation that is used for triangulation in inner shamanic practices as well.

 

When my own self is off center, and one of biggest clues is the very thing you're talking about - the condition of my home. I have a way of getting distracted if I don't stay in the Here and Now, and it reflects in that I'll have things start to pile up, one thing over the other. Or if clutter on my kitchen counter is given a foothold, I find myself becoming confused (which came first, the chicken or the egg?); sometimes I have to stop, put myself in the here and now, and clean up the area focusing on one item at a time, left to right. There is something about picking up each item, no matter how small, even if it's a bobby pin. Then walking with that bobby pin down the hallway to the bathroom to my little bobby pin box and put it away. And then back to the counter and pick up the next item.

 

I suspect that this could be an age thing too - the short term memory is getting worse and worse, and a type of ADD is developing. Unless I'm in the Here and Now, then I don't need to rely on short term memory.

 

But physically doing something to clean up the physical matter around us; it's as though it starts a cleansing process from the Outside to the Inside, even though we manifested it from the Inside to the Outside. It does seem to happen rather magically.

 

And thank you for your idea about smudging the room before cleaning it! That really appeals to me, and it's a perfect meditation, particularly if done with fluid motion and interesting music. I think the meditation could be the conscious awareness that we're cleansing or aligning our inner self as we clean the kitchen. Very nice!