A Meditation in Action Practice: Promote Thoughts Which Are Positive and Helpful for Your Growth

In Yoga, a model of Human Being--and all or any being great and small, for that matter--shows an eternal center. This center goes by many names, True Self, soul, Atman, Christ-Consciousness, light, God, Brahman, but ultimately defies all efforts to be captured in language. This center is surrounded by semi-mortal aspects of human being: bliss and discernment. These, in turn are surrounded by mortal aspects of human being: thinking, feeling, and physical being. This layered model illustrates the purpose behind Yoga: ease and soothe the body, emotions, and mind so that the semi-mortal and eternal aspects of Human Being can be directly experienced. 


There are many techniques to apply to this goal, central among them meditation. Swami Rama, in his book Meditation and Its Practice, lists six skills that are necessary to cultivate for meditation:
1. relaxing the body
2. sitting in a comfortable, steady posture
3. making the breathing process serene
4. calmly witnessing the objects traveling in the train of the mind
5. inspecting the quality of thoughts and learning to promote those which are positive and helpful to your growth
6. remaining centered and undisturbed in any situation whether you judge it to be bad or good
The practice of any of these skills outside of the seated meditation practice can be called Meditation in Action. Consciously sit up straight at work? Meditation in Action. Systematically relax on the bus? Meditation in Action. Take a time-out to observe and calm your breath? Meditation in Action. Make a point to be a witness to your thoughts rather than identifying with them? (This is as simple as saying internally, "Isn't that interesting that this mind would come up with such a thought?") That too is Meditation in Action.

When we learn and practice the skill of inspecting the quality of thoughts and promoting those that are both positive and helpful to growth, we are preparing ourselves to remain centered and undisturbed in any situation. This will not happen overnight, but we can definitely make certain and steady progress toward attaining the skill of equanimity, and we can reap the benefits all along the way.

Psychology Professor Emeritus Jerald Forster has developed a practice called Articulating Strengths that is a wonderful tool for developing the skill of promoting positive thoughts. Articulating Strengths can help you in all of your relationships, whether with yourself, with others, or even with circumstances over which you seemingly have no control. Here is the practice.

Notice how you are feeling before you begin--paying attention to your physical feelings as well as your emotions and thoughts--and give it a number between 1 and 10. Now, call to mind a good experience from your life. Let it be an experience from which you derived a feeling of pride, an experience to which you brought something of value; you yourself were part of the reason it was a good experience. Let this experience float up to the surface of your mind from any time in your life, as recent as this morning, or as long ago as your early childhood. Do not be alarmed if it takes a while to think of a good experience of which you are proud. Many of us have worn deep grooves in our minds for worrisome, regretful, guilty, or otherwise uncomfortable thoughts and feelings. Others of us resist thinking proud thoughts because we associate it with arrogance and other negative qualities. You will probably notice that once you think of one good experience it is kind of like changing the channel on your mind, and other good experiences will flow more freely to mind. Once you have selected one good experience to focus on, Enjoy the memory of this good experience, sustaining the positive feelings, even relishing them.

Next, think about what it was that you yourself brought to this experience that made it a good experience. Challenge yourself to think of just the right words or phrases that describe what you brought to the experience that made it good. Were you courageous? enthusiastic? spontaneous? Think of how what you brought to this experience was both positive and personal to who you are. Only you could have brought what you brought to this experience. Enjoy the feeling of thinking about these strengths in your personality, sustaining the positive feelings, and even relishing them. Finally, in your mind, complete this sentence frame: I am _[your positive quality]_. I know it because _[the good experience during which you demonstrated this strength]__.  You might think of more than one way to complete the frame. That would be great! Allow that to happen, and enjoy it. Notice again how you are feeling and rate it from 1 to 10.

The more you practice this Meditation in Action the easier it will become. You may notice that you are able to sustain positive feelings for longer and longer periods of time. You may notice that you become more alert to smaller and smaller good experiences that occur throughout the day and that you stop to enjoy them more, and experience them more deeply. You may notice a shift in how you feel about yourself and others. You may begin to see yourself and others more in terms of strengths and less in terms of conflict. Best of all, you will begin to reap the benefits of consciously choosing what kinds of thoughts you prefer to have; you will be on a journey to peace of mind.

Jennifer Rose will be leading an Articulating Strengths workshop on Sunday September 23 on Long Island. For more information call 646-831-2675.

Jerald Forster's website can be found here.

So Hum

Bliss wants to go for a morning walk.

Patanjali calls her a sheath. And I will admit that she looks Iike me, walks like me, though I rarely feel like THAT!

I reason with her that there is already time for an evening walk, on our way to our appointment. For a moment, I wonder if she is suggesting we go into the office!

No. She isn't.

Well. What could it be then? Is she confused?

She has her arms crossed over her chest now, frowning with consternation.

What, after all, is so bloody complicated about a morning walk?

Ah. I see. And I say, "yes" to her. And she jumps, skips and dances inside me. Pure joy.

"Your happiness is my happiness my love," I say. Though I rarely feel like THAT!

So hum. So hum. So hum, They say in Yoga class. I am that. I am that. I am that.

The Allegory of the Well

Once upon a time, a lot of folks were thirsty.

Part I
Thirst Quencher Is Made of Pine Cones and Water

One day, a thirsty traveler came upon an old well. Although he had never seen a well before, he lowered the bucket creaking down over a rusty wheel and hauled up the bucket full with 2 parts pine cones and 3 parts water. He put some of the pine cones mixed with water into his mouth. The pine cones were crunchy. They hurt the roof of his mouth and made him bleed, but this water and pine cone mixture quenched his thirst, and that was all that mattered to him. He carried his pine cone and water concoction home with him and shared it with everyone in his village. Their thirst was quenched. The greatest minds in the village studied the stuff, and determined that something very much like it could be made from rain that fell from the sky, and pine cones that fell from trees in the forest. Although the villagers' eyes watered and their mouths bled from the pain of the pine cones, they were grateful beyond words for the thirst quencher, and they shared this beloved recipe generation after generation in their village.

Part II
Thirst Quencher Is Made of Dirt and Water

On another day, a thirsty traveler from another village came upon the same old well. He sent the bucket down into the well and pulled up a bucket full with 3 parts water and 1 part dirt. He put some of the dirt mixed with water into his mouth. The dirt sat in his gut like, um... dirt, but this water and dirt mixture quenched his thirst, and that was all that mattered to him. He carried his dirt and water concoction home with him and shared it with everyone in his village. Their thirst was quenched. The greatest minds in the village studied the stuff, and determined that something very much like it could be made by scooping water out of a nearby river, and mixing it with some of the ample dirt that was lying around everywhere. Although the villagers were constipated and they hated the taste of dirt, they were grateful beyond words for the thirst quencher, and they shared this beloved recipe generation after generation in their village.

Part III
Thirst Quencher Is Made of Tattered Cloth and Water

On another day, a thirsty traveler from a third village came upon the same old well as the first two travelers. He sent the bucket down into the well and pulled up 5 parts water and 1 part tattered cloth. He put some of the tattered cloth mixed with water into his mouth. The tattered cloth made him wretch, but it was not impossible to swallow it down. The cloth and water mixture quenched his thirst, and that was all that mattered to him. He carried his cloth and water concoction home with him and shared it with everyone in his village. Their thirst was quenched. The greatest minds in the village studied the stuff, and determined that something very much like it could be made from water that collected in a pool near the village if they would only soak some of their tattered old clothes in it for a very long time. Although it was hard to swallow, the villagers were grateful beyond words for the thirst quencher, and they shared this beloved recipe generation after generation in their village.

Part IV
The Fourth Traveler

On another day, a thirsty traveler from a fourth village came upon the same well. He sent the bucket down into the well and pulled up 2 parts water, 1 part old tattered cloth, 1 part dirt, and a few pine cones. Because this traveler came from a village that had a spring where clear, fresh water that was good to drink burbled constantly up from deep in the ground, he picked the pine cones from the top of the water and threw them away. He pulled a piece of cloth from the bucket and used it as a strainer. Then, he poured the water and dirt mixture through the cloth strainer, and drank the pure water.

The Well's Story

Thousands of years earlier, a lot of folks were thirsty.

One day, a traveler from a village that had a spring where clear, fresh water that was good to drink burbled constantly up from deep in the ground came to a village where there was no spring, and everyone was thirsty. He reasoned that water came from deep in the ground, and encouraged the villagers to dig with him. That was how the well came to be.

For many generations, people from the village got water from that well. Over time, the people who remembered the story of the stranger who taught them how to dig down into the earth for water died off, and generation after generation of people knew that water came from wells. One day a traveler from the village with the well came to a village where people were thirsty. He told the villagers about the well, and they were amazed. A few strong men made the journey to the well and carried water back to their village. Word of the well spread from village to village and for many generations people from far, distant villages traveled, sometimes perilously, to pull precious water from the well.

Time passed. Things changed. Villages crumbled, and the knowledge of where the well was was lost. The knowledge of what a well was was lost. One day, a thirsty traveler mistook the well for a garbage dump. He had some clothes he couldn't carry any further, so weary and thirsty was he, and he threw them into the well. Over time, dirt crumbled from the old well's walls and was mixed with the water. Strong winds occasionally blew pine cones from the forest into the well. Then, one day, after decades without use, a thirsty traveler happened by. He sent the bucket down into the well, and pulled up water mixed with pine cones...