Hey CSC family! Shaq Wùkōng Bennett from Commonwealth Sports club here bringing some Taoism to your day with a meditation focusing on creating the peaceful, harmonious and healthy environment within that we’d like to see reflected on the world during these times of crisis, pandemic and uncertainty.
Since we’re all being forced to slow down our lives, take a break and stay inside, why don’t we take this opportunity to dive even deeper, turning to our own inner space to do some well needed maintenance and show ourselves some peace and love in a time where we’d like to see the same reflected in our external environments. Also, remember that when we sit for our meditational practice, we remember to hit these key points:
- Stretches
- Doing some basic stretches for our muscles and tendons promotes blood flow which will ensure that we’re ready to hold proper relaxed posture and have a successful meditation practice
- Posture
- Sit in a chair. It’s most comfortable (since most of us are stuck inside, and also hate sitting like pretzel on the floor) and make sure to sit on the edge of the chair utilizing the sitting bones to find that place of balance which helps you hold yourself up comfortably and effortlessly
- Plant the feet firmly, as they are the ground wire (having ten channels of energy flow in each leg) we want to keep the shoulders and neck relaxed with the head bowed slightly forward, and the chin tucked
- We also want to make sure to flex out jaw and face tension so we can be relaxed as possible
- The back must be comfortably erect, straight at the waist, though slightly bowed forward at the shoulders and neck relaxing the chest allowing proper Qi/energy flow downward
- Hand Position
- We want to cradle our right hand palm down in our left hand palm up, keeping a nice firm attentive grip so as to not let any of your qi/energy leak away
- Place right hand palm over the left palm to connect and seal the energy
- Breathing
- Focusing on our breath to bring peace, we want to draw air in deep, long, and smoothly into the abdomen, expanding it, which will release excess energy in the chest, shoulders and neck helping toward the achievement of inner calm
- Breathe noiselessly through the nose so you don’t get distracted or disturbed
- However after a while, forget about the breath as you want to focus on drawing energy as the correct breathing patterns will occur as the body needs
- Once you’ve acquired energy and concentration, imagine energy entering every pore as you inhale and leaving every pore as you exhale, breathing through the surface of your skin
- Count from 1-10 and backwards following the breath five times if you have trouble focusing
- Tongue Position
- In addition to regulating our breathing we will also maintain contact between the underside of our tongues and the upper ridge behind the teeth to connect the energy flow between our yang back and yin front sides
- Placing tongue on palate near teeth is the “wind” position will make it easier to relax or fall asleep! Sleeping babies also utilize this tongue position
- Inner Smile
- Start by closing your eyes and smiling sincerely into them.
- Smiling to yourself like your recalling a quality joke from a friend is like basking in love : you become your own best friend and live in harmony with yourself
- Because physical illness stems from internal energy imbalances, which are heavily influenced by our emotions. The inner smile becomes a very effective tool for regulate our states
- Relax and feel a deep smile shining through your eyes
- By relaxing your eyes you can calm your entire nervous system
- Which makes this an especially effective technique for bringing the inner peace
- As you focus these feelings of joy as you maintain the smile, you’ll feel your eyes tingling with the smile energy which you can draw down into your body, filling each of your internal organs intentionally with loving energy of gratitude
- The eyes are connected to and controlled by the autonomic nervous system aka the system controlling fight or flight responses
- So relaxing the eyes with the inner smile frees the mind of tension throughout the body allowing the mind to harmonize with the environment and the tasks at hand
- Mental Attitude
- The goal is to raise your consciousness and capacity to love
- So keeping a calm mind, an attitude of forgiveness, and being cheerful and open to life are key. Return to your childlike nature!
- Don’t struggle or try to force wandering thoughts away. Simply release them and imagine them as clouds to the wind as you watch them morph and disperse with each coming moment.
- Simply observe the phenomena of living, breathing, existing at all to even be able to have thoughts to observe and be thankful!
- Tomorrow will take care of itself! Let your worries and thoughts go if only for 1 minute a day.
- Happiness and calm states of being are signs of spiritual progress
Let your worries and thoughts go if only for 1 minute a day by practicing this inner smile, making sure to flood the loving light energy of your smile from the eyes to the rest of the body.
