My Favorite meditation practices

My favorite meditations practices from this class have been subtle mind and Visualization meditation but I have to confess the Rainbow meditation is also my favorite.

Subtle mind meditation has many beneficial components like: abandoning and clearing your negative thoughts and constant negative chatting inside your brain and replacing with positive ones. Another way to perceive this dilemma is by abandoning no-virtue which is the cause of suffering and practice virtue, the cause of happiness. Transforms negative motivation into positive so that your actions will become virtuous. Meditating on emptiness prevent our mind from coming under the control of delusions and free ourselves of disturbing thoughts and immediately experience peace and satisfaction, free ourselves from suffering and attain enlightenment. All of these benefits will transform my mind and help me gain control of my thoughts and emotion and promotes integral health of the mind, body and spirit.

Visualization meditation I was able to focus and visualized my healer and become interconnected with the healer. Visualization meditation is very powerful and can be custom made to your needs. If done persistently and effectively it will increase loving kindness, love, peace, health and bliss in your life.

The rainbow meditation reminded me of healing the chakras with visualizations practices. It does help visualize felling of Groundedness, centered love, ability to love, meaningful purpose,  balance, and  interconnectedness. This practice promotes and facilitates all of these virtues.

Meditation has fostered an increase in my psychological or spiritual wellness. As a result to daily meditation practice, I am able to increase my holistic focus and detach from negative emotions and enjoy wholeness, love, peace and kindness more often than before.

Meeting Asclepius Guided Meditation

Meeting Asclepius is a guided meditation exercise that focuses in visualizing an inner healer and a spiritual guide. The exercise starts by sitting in a comfortable position. Closing your eyes and begin visualizing a person who is wise and has a kind heart, it can be someone you know or you can make someone up. I was able to visualize a Buddhist monk who has previously advised me in the past which I have met in the Buddhist temple that I frequently visit. His head is shaved and he wears an orange robe. He became my wise spiritual adviser and inner healer. Once I was able to focus and visualized my healer the exercise was internalized. I visualized a white beam of light shinning from the crown of his head, and then I was able to visualized shining white light from his head to my forehead, then to my throat. This light was purifying my thoughts and speech and full of loving kindness and peace. The final visualization was visualizing the white light shinning from his heart to my heart and penetrating and infusing my soul with love, respect, bliss, kindness, health and peace.

 Meditation has fostered an increase in my psychological or spiritual wellness. As a result to daily meditation practice, I am able to increase my holistic focus and detach from negative emotions and enjoy wholeness, love, peace and kindness more often than before.

The statement “one cannot lead another where one has not gone himself ( Dasher, 2006). Means to me, that you lead others by example. I do believe in this concept 100% in everything you do in life. We have an obligation to our patients or clients to be developed in health psychologically, physically, and spiritually Incorporating integral health into our life is essential in order to heal or teach others integral health. In order to really be able to assist advice or help our patients, we have to be educated and experienced in integral health and well-being. Also have personal experience in from loving-kindness, calm-abiding and the subtle mind exercises. As healers we need to constantly incorporate contemplative practice into our life in order to advise and heal others. 

Universal Loving-Kindness mediation

The first part was to practice the Universal Loving-Kindness mediation. We were to close our eyes for a minute or two, rest into the natural ease of our mind and body and repeat the following phrases for 10 minutes:

May all individuals gain freedom from suffering.
May all individuals find sustained health, happiness, and wholeness.
May I assist all individuals in gaining freedom from suffering.
May I assist all individuals in finding health, happiness, and wholeness.

This exercise was very nurturing, healing and therapeutic for me. Embracing and asking for collective happiness, health and wholeness brings a sense of calm and peace to my soul. 

Assess the four aspects of integral health which are: psycho-spiritual, biological, interpersonal and worldly. Then, determine which aspect in your life needs more attention.

I realized that the area that needs my attention the most is interpersonal. This area encompasses interpersonal relationship with family and community. At work, being too honest and reacting to situations too fast has caused me stress at work and with co-workers. I need to learn not to react so fast and observe my behaviors and my thoughts first, and then act. Also I need to practice the art of silence more often. Also, I need to focus and improve my relationship with my teenage son. He is at a very difficult stage in life with multiple pressures and I need to find the time to listen and help him with his problems. Also I need to improve my listening skills without being judgmental of actions or behaviors. The most important contemplative practice that I can implement to improve this area is meditation, physical exercise, and calm-abiding and loving-kindness exercises. Once I am able to meet my goals my interpersonal relationships will begin to flourish.

Subtle Mind Practice

The loving kindness exercise is easier to do compare to the Subtle Mind practice. Loving-kindness exercise the focus is on opening your heart to love and forgiveness by taking in the suffering of others. Which opens the heart to others and diminishes self-centeredness and the second is the subtle mind exercise; which means taming and training our mind to diminish the ceaseless mental movements of thoughts, feelings and images. This task can be a challenge especially the mind’s constant tendency to cling to random thoughts, movements, images and emotions.  Obtaining a witnessing mind is having the ability to stop the mind’s tendency to cling to random thoughts, movements, images and emotions.  According to Dacher (2006)  having the control and a  witnessing mind “ will liberate ourselves from lifelong slavery to our mental movements, gain the capacity to choose where our attention goes, access our clear and still mind, and create the foundation for calm-abiding and integral health” (p.73). I think that once we evolve from the witnessing mind to calm-abiding we start to see the transformation of our self through all three; mind, body and spirit even after so many years of meditation practice, I still have problems calming my mind and accomplishing mental stillness.  

The best way to control your thoughts and achieve Calm –abiding mind is by focusing on your breath. Every time you mind wonders you need to redirect to your breath. This is very simple exercise but at the beginning can be a challenge until the mind becomes used to it. As indicated by Dacher with practice and patience, the active mind is gradually tamed and subdued. It is transformed from busyness to sustained and effortless stillness. I have tried this exercise of focusing on your breath to redirect your thought and in my personal experience there are some days that I can do it easily and others that become almost impossible. There is a connection between spiritual, mental and physical wellness. These are essential for integral health.  The rewards are worth the effort, like: intention replaces reactivity, peace, serenity, wisdom, and loving-kindness.