Meditation

 

I advocate meditation, like swimming and cycling,is a technique that is worth learning. Now, let me explain to you its advantages through the steps I  perform my meditation.

Find a quiet place without disturbance. Sit with folding both legs like Buddha(padmasana). Can sit on a chair if you cannot fold your legs. Do not lie down as you may easily fall into sleep. Check shoulders square, spine upright, look down at the place 4 to 5 feet in front of you  then close the eyes with the tip of tongue touching the hard palate. Scan every part of the body to see if they are comfortable, then we can start.

First step is regulation of breathing 調息

Breathe deeply with abdominal breathing, that is, the belly bulges out during inspiration and comes towards the spine during expiration. You can also imagine a ball of  energy 3 fingers’ breadth below the umbilicus which rises to throat during inspiration and descends below umbilicus during expiration. Performing it for few minutes can decrease heart rate & lower  the blood pressure. It helps to release stress.

It also helps you to become aware of your breathing and train your mindfulness.

Second step is breath counting 數息

Inhale and then count 20 silently  during expiration then inhale and count 19 during expiration and repeat it till count down to zero. Doing this exercise helps to train to concentrate our mind. It likes walking up a hill. At the first time, there is no path,  so you have to walk carefully and even have to remove obstacles,  but after more walking experience then a path will be established by you and it will shorten your  time to the hilltop. Between neurons of brain, there are gaps called synapses. We need neurotransmitters to bring the signals across the synapses. After repeated training, the speed of transmission of all signals  will be faster and next time when we start working then we can inform our mind to concentrate  on the work and can avoid mistakes.

It helps to improve our concentration專注力。

The third step is body scan身體掃描

Imagine a hole on top of your skull. While you inhale, the energy surrounding you goes to  your forehead via the hole. Check if you frown your forehead  skin then try to relax the forehead muscle. While you exhale, the toxins and unhealthy substances  will leave your body via the hole in  the skull. Then scan every part and organs of your body like eyes,  ears, throat, lung, liver, heart and limbs etc and say hello to all of them. At last, bring your attention to  your left big  toe and sense the feeling of your toe. This step helps to train the communication between our mind and our body so if some thing is wrong inside our body  then they can inform you. Also if you care them, cancer cells can be controlled or resolved.

The 4th step is nutritionizing our spirit by  self hypnosis自我催眠 滋養靈性

Imagine or self hypnotize that you are in-side a lift. While you inhale and exhale counting 10 silently  in your mind, the lift arrives at the 10th floor and the door opens. Inhale and exhale counting 9, the lift arrives at the 9th floor and the door opens.

Then continue to count down till zero then the lift door opens and you step out the lift and enter into an environment which is the happiest experience in your life. It can be winning a prize, marriage, being promoted, etc. For me, it is the experience of lying at an open air hot spring in a hotel of Hokkaido  十勝（famous for red bean production) at night. It was full moon in sky and I was naked as nobody there and I was very relaxed listening to cicadas蟬singing and smelling the fragrance of flowers. Savoring the joyful experience can provide nutrients to our spirits just like listening to music.

The 5th step is relaxation of mind by thinking of nothing 放空

It is difficult to tell our mind not to think as ideas come continuously. We have experienced that our computer will slow down if we use it for a while. In order to gain back the speed, we just turn it off and restart it. Since the previous 4 steps require your high concentration & mindfulness and your mind will be tired so it is easier to tell your mind to rest. Do imagine you are now inside a room with fog surrounding you. You try to think of nothing. Whenever ideas come, just aware its presence but  without further reaction and immediately bring the concentration back to  your breathing. There are 5 brain waves. When one is fully alert, it is beta wave. When one is deeply asleep, the wave is delta.  Delta waves  are generated in deepest meditation and dreamless sleep. From the study of the   brain waves of monks from Tibet during meditation, their brain waves reach delta wave form  immediately. A 10 to 15 mins brain rest during meditation will be  equal to effect of brain rest gained from  one hour’s sleep. After meditation, our mind will be sharpened.  Creative and brilliant ideas will come.

In summary, meditation helps to relax stress and it also helps to promote our mindfulness by increase self awareness of our own body and own emotion. Mindfulness 靜觀means fully aware of  surrounding environment, our bodily sensation, our feelings,  our thoughts & emotion with acceptance which means we pay attention to our   thoughts and feelings with open attitude  (without judging or believing them) . It also helps to savor pleasurable  moments to uplift & provide more energy to our spirit. Finally, it  rests our brain  and  increases our creativity and wisdom.(禪定生慧)