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Old 06-30-2003, 11:02 AM   #8
Creature_of_the_id
 
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Dojo: Alnwick aikido club (UKAU)
Location: Newcastle, England
Join Date: Dec 2000
Posts: 217
England
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I practiced meditation for a long time and never quite felt comfortable with it until a few years ago when I stopped 'meditating' and instead just sat down in silence and experienced sitting down in silence.

It may not sound like there is much difference, but I found that the change in perspective helped me in many things.

When I sat down to meditate I told myself that certain things should happen, that there were certain rules to meditation. like my 'mind should be still' 'I should be relaxed', 'I should not get distracted' that kind of thing.

This set up a win-lose situation in my meditation.

my meditation was defined by the outcome rather than the experience.

if at the end of my meditation the certain criteria had been fulfilled then I felt happy that I had meditated.

If not, then I felt I had not meditated.

I judged it to be imperfect.

I stopped doing that and stopped fighting or putting limits on it and began to just sit and experience sitting.

in doing that, I could sit and if I was distacted then I could simply experience the distraction, or experience the way in which my mind is moving. I could experience 'and find harmony with' any set of circumstances that occured within that moment in which I was sitting.

in letting go of the definintions of meditation and the limits of meditation I allowed my meditation to become perfect as I had no criteria against which to judge it. it became a more personal thing as it was all about me and the moment in which I existed.

I realised then that it was a case of standing up and doing the same thing.

that the 'meditation' could be applied to everything.

that you could experience just being in any situation and each situation would become perfect as you had no criteria against which to judge it. harmony could be found.

It was an amazing experience and discovery for me and fit in nicely with my aikido and the philosophy of it.

unfortunately it didn't make my spelling any better and i found that it is a difficult path to go along as it is so easy to get distracted.

But I've gone on long enough.

thanks for listening

Last edited by Creature_of_the_id : 06-30-2003 at 11:09 AM.

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