MEDITATION ON THE BREATH

VIPASSANA MEDITATION (MEDITATION ON THE BREATH)

Vipassana Meditation is the Traditional Buddhist style of meditation. It's purpose is to strengthen concentration, ground yourself, awaken compassion, to awaken to yourself and your true nature, to become fully conscious and to develop buddhi (the discriminating intellect)

"Buddhi is the mental power which enables one to contemplate the eternal."


Parable of the Buddha
The Buddha wandered for many years, and as he encountered others, they recognized a spiritual greatness in him. He eventually gathered many followers (disciples) who wished to learn from Buddha. One day, his followers were debating the nature of Buddha. They came to him with a question.
"Buddha, are you a GOD?"
The Buddha answered simply. "No."
The disciples went off to consider this response, and debate the issue further. Soon they returned with another question.
"Buddha, are you a saint?"
The Buddha answered simply. "No."
The disciples again went off to consider this response, and debate the issue further. Again, they returned with another question.
"Buddha, what ARE you?"
The Buddha answered simply. "I am AWAKE."


HOW-TO

Read the preparation for meditation on the Meditation Techniques page, before beginning any Meditation Techniques.

Darken your meditation room -no glaring sunlight or lamps - just perhaps a soft light - the light level should be as it is at dusk - not completely dark, but only a very low level of light in the room. The room should be quiet and a comfortable temperature. Remove distractions of sight, sound, smell, touch (excessive heat or cold). Come to a comfortable seated position, with the spine erect, shoulders down and back, the body relaxed, breath fluid and easy. Relax and breathe. Fully land yourself in your body.
Focus only on the breath flowing into and out of your body. Let any other thoughts go. The mind tries to distract you with thoughts - it is the nature of the mind. Release the thoughts. Without judgment, bring your awareness back to the breath, the life force, flowing into and out of your body.
Notice the sensation of the breath, as it whispers across the skin just below the nostrils, and above the upper lip. Feel the sensation as you breathe.
Don't change your breath. Just observe it as it is, without the need to change anything. Just notice.
If you notice your attention drifting, honor yourself for noticing and being aware that the mind has strayed, and bring attention back to the breath, back to the sensation of the breath whispering across your skin. The nature of the mind is to wander - being aware of the wandering mind indicates that you are alert and attentive.
Return the awareness back to the sensation of the breath again and again. As the mind wanders, gently guide its attention back to the breath, without judgment.
Go deep within yourself, and connect with your inner vitality.
Be compassionate with yourself.
Allow the mind to be still - through this stillness, you will eventually transcend the mind and fully experience consciousness, your own true nature. This brings you to a state of bliss and truth. TO FULLY AWAKEN!

"yoga chitta vrtti narodha" - Yoga is the practice of stilling the fluctuations of the mind. Erich Schiffman elegantly translates this as "yoga is the spirit and practice of moving into stillness"

This style of Meditation, Vipassana Meditation, can also be done while walking - being completely conscious of every step, every breath, every sensation. Vipassana is traditional Buddhist Meditation. Buddha is not a deity to be worshipped and idolized. Buddha is a goal. Buddha means "one who is fully awake." One of the primary tenets of Buddhism is that we all have the capacity to become fully enlightened (FULLY AWAKE) beings in our lifetime.

Credit : mailto:support@focalpointyoga.com

Traditional Cupping

Cupping

Known by many names, practiced by many cultures, cupping is a practice that is quickly gaining much attention in the West. The dangers arises when capitalistic influences driven by the profit motivated medical industry encroach on ancient, conservative, proven, holistic treatments that were entrusted to healer, not businessmen. We are now in an age controlled by the Medical Mafia. No matter if treatments are termed conventional or alternative, buyer beware.

Cupping is an ancient therapy use by many cultures including the Egyptians Greeks and the Chinese. The first known recording is by Ebers in his famous medical text book dated approximately 1550BC and was also used by Hippocrates.

The therapist uses a cup to expell oxygen from a cup or vessel to create a vacuum on a place on the body. The primary objective of cupping is to release stagnation of any kind within the body. Cupping is effective at releasing the flow of 'Qi' (energy), when blocked the body finds if difficult to heal. Cupping will stimulate the flow of blood to aching or damaged muscles. Cupping will remove congestion and enhance the flow of lymph. Cupping helps relieve painful muscles, joints and initiate renewal therefore healing.

For more on cupping, see:

http://www.painfoundation.org/page.asp?file=documents/CAM/guasha.htm

http://www.cancer.org/docroot/ETO/content/ETO_5_3X_Cupping.asp

http://www.healthline.com/galecontent/cupping

Benefits of massage

Benefit of Massage

Service of massage may be divided into 5 levels. These are

1. Massage for health.
To relieve general bodily discomfort by improvement of general of local blood circulation.

2. Massage for curing.
To cure or alleviate some diseases. The practitioner should by Ayuravedic doctors or well trained traditional doctors. The 63 disorders may be cured or alleviated by massage as the following:
2.1 Disorders of the nervous system, i.e. stroke, number (not from beriberi which can be cured by vitamin B2), spinal cord repression ect.
2.2 Disorders of the skeletal system, i.e. fracture, dislocation, joint stiffness and some other bone and joint disorders, especially of the elderly.
2.3 Disorders of the muscular system, i.e. muscular paralysis, muscular weakness.
2.4 Disorders of the urogenital system, i.e. infertility due to abnormal position of the uterus, dysfunction of pelvic diaphragm and impotence.
2.5 Miscellaneous, i.e. increasing child intelligence.

3. Massage for physical imbalance. To improve the posture disorder and gait disorder by thoroughly corrections of several parts of the body.

4. Massage for sports. Used for relieve muscular pain and fatigue, inflammation of muscles and tendon, dislocations, cramps, and other injured tissues.

5. Massage for beauty. To rejuvenate the complexion by the special patterns of massage along with many other beauty aids.

Thai Massage

Type of Thai Massage

The Thai Massage is classified into two main types, base on the way of life:


1. The People Type which has been developed by the people and spread all over the country. At present, the famous institutes for teaching and servicing are at Wat Pho, Wat Samphraya and many other associations for massage. The simple way to recognize this type of massage are the observations of:

1.1 The masseur postures, some are impolite.
1.2 The client positions: various, including prone position.
1.3 The manipulation : some are aggressive and harmful such as : kneading by elbow, knee, heel and sole, stretching and twisting of neck, limb, shoulder, hip, and vertebral column.



2. The Court Type which has been developed by the courtiers, according to the successive was with the neighboring countries. In the ancient time the kings were the leaders of the troops. Trauma, dislocation, fracture, wound from the ancient different arts of fighting could be cured by herbs and massage. The massage must be also applied to the kings and their families. This type of massage is therefore recognized by:

2.1 The Masseur Postures : polite and very polite, some derived from boxing and some are dramatics.
2.2 The Client Position : no prone position.
2.3 The Manipulations : no aggressive and no harmful.

meditation for health : Chapter 2

Chapter 2—How to begin practicing Vipassana?

A good Vipassana practitioner starts with a right view. In our case, it means that whoever read Chapter 1, and is now able to give an answer to the question “What is Vipassana?” similar to what being concluded at the end of that chapter, then it can be said that he or she has already taken the first step.

Majority of people have an understanding that Vipassana practice is to sit with eyes closed and keeping a straight face, or to do a walking meditation along a monastery wall. Those are only the minority images that may stands out, but they still do not give us the whole picture. To the experts, true Vipassana may be practiced while putting food in one’s mouth, or right after laughing one’s head off, or even before one may not be done crying. As soon as one is mindful and truly aware of the ongoing phenomena as impermanent and uncontrollable as one wish, at such a moment one is in Vipassana.

When thinking of "becoming mindful," what does it remind you of? Taking examples from everyday life, one may think of being absent-minded while driving—when one started to be mindful of the fact, and stop daydreaming or thinking, when he/she was about to drive the car down a ditch. At this line of the book, please take a moment to remind yourself of what "being mindful" is like to you. Taking examples right now, you can experience the moment of mindfulness as you are aware of yourself reading this book, or asking yourself this very question.

But even then, notice that when you started being aware that you were driving, or being aware after being asked to look back at yourself, you still might not know how to look at your thoughts, in order to see them as something impermanent and uncontrollable.

So, let's try something right now. Let's put the feeling of "not knowing where to look" into use. If at the moment you are puzzled, confused, or trying to figure out for an answer, then that is good, since it is exactly this feeling that we want.

The state of being confused, dull, not knowing of what to do, is called in technical term as “hindrance,” which refers to mental obstacles that are barriers against our progression. The Buddha had given us guideline for dealing with it, which is to be mindful of the fact that our minds are currently besieged by doubt. And by being aware of such doubt, at that moment it can be said that you start to be mindful of things as they truly are. This is so because you start being aware that there is such a phenomenon (hindrance) existing.

But then, in order to see things as they truly are to the point where you can break free from doubt's influence, simply seeing the sustaining nature of doubt is not enough; you must see the subsequent ceasing nature of doubt as well.

So, now, to see the ceasing nature of doubt, the next question will be what to do so that the state of being doubtful disappears. To answer the question, let's first take a breath. At the point where you are able to tell yourself whether you are inhaling or exhaling, at that very second your doubt has already disappeared, and being replaced with mindfulness — being aware of inhaling or exhaling. When your mindfulness slips away from being aware of the breath, doubt or eagerness to know resumes. A key point here is to differentiate between the state of doubt and the state of doubt-free.

By observing at the very second where you were able to tell yourself whether you were inhaling or exhaling, you will see that the state of doubt, which felt uncomfortable and uneasy, would change into a new state that felt worry-free, content, and happy. By just seeing this difference between the state of doubt and the state where you are temporarily doubt-free, it can be said that you already started the initial phase of gaining mindfulness in Vipassana.

This is because when you started to feel that initially your mind was in one condition, but now it is in another one. In a way, this act of seeing is an indication that you started to see that your previous state of mind has already passed, ended, transformed, and is no longer in the present. And by nature, whenever one’s mind sees something disappearing, the mind will not see it as self-existing entity.

This is a very interesting point to consider. What does the mind see as a self-existing entity? The answer is the ongoing present state that is apparent at this very moment. For example, when contrasting between the state of doubt and the state of doubt-free, one would notice that the mind stopped clinging to the state of doubt in the past, but instead it clings to the state of doubt free in the present as a self-existing entity.

If you clearly understand this point and are able to observe the present nature of the mind that we are misperceiving, it means that you understand the principle of Vipassana rather well.

The next step that we need to know is what could be the objects of observation within us? The answer is that we can be aware of everything that is a part of our bodies and all things that are a nature of the mind with mindfulness in Vipassana.

But just being told only this much, you could still be confused. You may be confused on how to observe everything within your body and mind. Should you observe it as a whole at once? The answer is that you should analytically observe things separately because there is no such thing as seeing everything all together at once. Besides, it is impossible. Therefore, you should observe only whatever you can.

Next may be the most crucial question. Which part should we observe first? The Buddha advised us to be mindful of breathing the most. This is because breath is dependable. It can rescue mindfulness, nurture mindfulness, as well as give rise to mindfulness so that we can realize the true nature of things as being impermanent.

As mentioned previously, just simply being aware of breathing in or breathing out can be called being mindful. Whenever you are mindful, doubt and distraction are being replaced temporarily. Therefore, it is desirable to establish an aspiration in being aware of breathing in or breathing out as often as you can, in order for mindfulness to govern the mind, rather than letting doubt and distraction dominate.

Whenever your mind is attentively mindful with your breath, you can feel that the experience of “disappearing from this world” is taking a shorter time, and your mind will be in the ready state of becoming more and more aware of the subtleties of various aspects of your body and mind.

The problem for most people is that we are unable to establish willingness or we have difficulty in prompting ourselves to be aware of our breath or the subtleties of various aspects of our body and mind. The next chapter will introduce some strategies to overcome this obstacle.

Conclusion
To start practicing Vipassana is not difficult. Once you understood what you should be reflecting your mind on for observation, it can be said that you are already on the right track, such as comparing the difference between the state of doubt and the state of doubt-free. The energy-saving tool that will bring you out of the starting point is your breath. Simply being mindful of your breath for once is like having a dividing wall between the state of doubt and state of doubt-free for you to easily visualize. The following chapters will mention some basic strategies to help you to be able to practice Vipassana continuously and we will practice it together while reading this book!

meditation for health :preparing you to graduate in the science of seeing the true of things

Chapter 1—What is Vipassana?

There are various ways to answer the question of “what is Vipassana?” Derived from the Pali language, Vipassana means “Insight.” But the best explanation is “seeing things as they truly are.”

Just try to think about the phrase “seeing things as they truly are.” What is your gut reaction? What were you thinking about as you read the phrase, “seeing things as they truly are?”

This book has been translated from Thai into English. You can read English, an undeniable fact. Therefore, saying that you are “thinking in English” would be correct. Congratulations to anyone who realizes this fact. You understand it correctly. You are beginning to see things as they truly are already.

Yet if one asks “Are you an American?,” it may become more complex than the previous statement, as it depends on your perspective of what nationality you belong to. If someone forces you to accept that you are an American, while your mind still wants to think that you are not, as you may have a stronger identification from a certain ethnicity, this means that you need to further explain the issue. And no matter how much you can come up with reasons or supporting evidence to back up your own concept, the bottom line is that whatever you believe in will be equivalent to the reality you have.

The question is if the fact is linked to the concept, isn’t it true that there would not be any real seeing of things as they truly are? Doesn’t it mean that we have been living in a self-created virtual reality all along? Each person is living in their own particular world of virtual-reality, without ever crossing into another boundary.

An argument, without any objective, in what is real and what is unreal would never be conclusive. Therefore, as one refers to the effort being put into one’s practice to see things as they truly are, one needs to continue with the next question, “What is the purpose of such seeing?” Certain facts, like ethnicity may simply make one feel that “I am different from you” or “I am much better than you.” Beyond that, things may get carried away to the point of ethnic cleansing, or it may just simply result in racism and the desire to harm others as we see these days.

The purpose of Vipassana is to see things as they truly are, in order to free oneself from all sorts of mind-luring attachments, and be liberated from being imprisoned by the dark force of delusion. We may not realize how dangerous this delusion is, until we have to struggle through some of the consequence that we have created. Isn’t better off if we can realize the truth of life? For example, we do not need to go to war based on the differences in our beliefs, or we do not have to suffer because of our thoughts. This filters down to common daily problems. For example, by simply leaving all the work behind at the office, one does not have to bring the stress back home.

Now we have a rough idea that Vipassana is to see things as they truly are in order to free oneself from clinging. And by freeing oneself from clinging, one does not have to suffer because of insubstantial matters. The crucial question now becomes: What are the "things" that one should see as they truly are? It is analogous to us realizing that it is now time to go to war to free ourselves from slavery, but then who are the enemies? Where are they? When will we meet them?

The answer for those who consider practicing Vipassana at home is that “things” that we should see as they truly are, basically, are everything we cling to unnecessarily. What are these unnecessary things that can turn around and hurt us as if they are our enemies? Try asking yourself whether you have experienced some of these situations:

Have you ever been cheated by someone out of a couple of dollars, yet it kept you thinking about it repeatedly? It can be said that not only you were cheated, but your own thoughts also stole your happiness.

Have you ever agreed to end your relationship with someone, but you were still jealous of your ex-lover, thinking about the past with regret, considering how happy he or she is with others?

Have you ever cheered for a team, but the other team won, which means you have also become a loser? But if you look at it carefully you have not lost or gained anything along with the loser at all.

The above questions are just examples to demonstrate how unbelievably people suffer greatly from clinging to insubstantial matters. But the frightening fact is that each day we may cling to as much as 9 unessential issues out of 10.

Occasionally you may admit to yourself or complain to others that you were so stupid to be obsessed with insubstantial or trivial matters. Despite knowing that it was stupid, you could not stop thinking about it. You were unable to control it, and could not be aware of it.

Only if one truly understands Vipassana, one can save oneself from these clinging. To truly understand the meaning of Vipassana is the initial step. And the first step is to accept it truthfully through investigation with a simple thought that anything that is not controllable according to our wish cannot be called ours. For example, when we accept that thought is not ours, we would feel as if we have withdrawn over half of ourselves from suffering rooted in the thought, resulting in an instantaneous weakening of such thought.

It is like a single strand of hair obscuring the view of the whole mountain. And it is funny that we cannot see through the tricks, unable to grasp the situation. As we are unable to grasp it, we easily become victims that fall prey to this phenomenon. Most people live to be a slave of their desires which are the cause of various degrees of suffering. And they may not be able to die peacefully because of the lifelong suffering that has erodes their hearts. By understanding the meaning of Vipassana and realizing that by simply changing perspective of life toward the way of Vipassana, we do not need to go anywhere, or perform any ritual. Yet happiness has already replaced suffering, while we are alive and still breathing, before dying with ignorance, not knowing the cause of every new suffering.

Conclusion
Vipassana is to see things as they truly are. Everything outside and inside ourselves is impermanent and actually uncontrollable according to our wish. So we should let go of mistakenly clinging which overwhelmingly causes us to suffer mentally in things that should not have concerned us. The job of Vipassana practitioners is simply to transform their perspective, from a demander, a desire-worshipping warrior, and an egotistical person, to an observer, a knower, and a person who fights for the truth as it truly appears.