Cross Training

02021-01-28 | Uncategorized | 3 comments

Meditation is difficult for some people. Sometimes they haven’t given it enough of a chance and sometimes it just doesn’t seem to work for them. I have heard comments like “riding my motorcycle is my meditation” or “gardening is my meditation”. My reply to that is always that riding a motorcycle is riding a motorcycle and meditation is meditation. Gardening can have a lot of positive effects, but it is not meditation.

Cross training might be an option for people who don’t want to or can’t meditate every day. Perhaps switching off between meditation, yoga, chanting, deep breathing, or even staring at a flame, either in rotation or by making a daily choice. Getting into a rhythm of doing this every day would be good, perhaps by setting aside ten minutes at two specific times a day.

3 Comments

  1. JaneParhamKatz

    Yes. I read that meditation is not necessarily to QUIET the human mind, but rather to observe it. See what paths it wanders down – worry, fear, whatever it may be. Whether the human mind becomes quiet or not, observing it will cause changes.

    So I see that calling any activity “meditation” misses the mark. Gardening or motorcycle riding gets attention AWAY from what is going on in the human mind (it’s been called the “monkey mind,” which says to me the intelligence is quite limited.) Even chanting seems like a distraction from observing the mind – I’ll look further into it.

    This is good for me, because I can’t seem to create a blank canvas out of my mind. So observing it, as if stepping back from it, is much more interesting and engaging. In fact, the effort to observe my own mind leads to the question, “Just who or what is it doing the observing – is that me also? Or is that the real me, and my mind is false – full of opinions, lies and errors?” So, can I start to rely more on that observing entity and less on my false mind? It feels like something divine.

    Reply
  2. Steve

    It took me a long time to learn to meditate. A really long time.

    I was able to learn and teach electromagnetism and Maxwell’s equations in less time than it took me to learn how to meditate … often times, when it goes poorly, I question if I am “doing it right” at all.

    A very steep learning curve for me.

    Reply
    • JaneParhamKatz

      You’re priceless, Steve!

      Reply

Leave a Reply to JaneParhamKatz Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Archives

Images

Social

@Mastodon (the Un-Twitter)