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WHAT IS REIKI ? REIKI HEALING REIKI TRAINING

DISTANCE HEALING HEALING SHARING GROUPS

MEDITATION CLASSES FOR BEGINNERS

I am now back in Crowborough. Anybody who would like training in meditation is welcome to contact me on my mobile 07831 742341

Currently we have a small group meeting every Tuesday between 7.00pm and 8.00pm for World Healing and Meditation. Beginners are very welcome to attend.

DISCUSSION GROUPS

Suggestions for interesting speakers on spiritual themes would be appreciated. It would be good to have a monthly time of spiritual education and sharing.

Thanks,

John

Phone mobile: 07831 742341 or email see home page.

Meditation

(An article by John Scott-Cameron)

Sogyal Rinpoche says,” The purpose of meditation is to awaken in us the sky-like nature of mind, and to introduce us to that which we really are, our unchanging pure awareness, which underlies the whole of life and death.”

In these few words he encapsulates the essential focus of all meditation work. That is to bring us from a state of confusion, ignorance and self-centeredness into a pure simple focus on the highest.

Generally speaking most human beings are not in the state of pure sky-like consciousness, called by Buddhists, “Nirvana” or by Christians “Christ Consciousness” or “The peace of God which passes all understanding.”

The Vietnamese meditation master Thich Nhat Hanh gives a beautiful description of the Buddha’s enlightenment:

"Gautama felt as though a prison, which had confined him for thousands of lifetimes, had broken open. Ignorance had been the jail keeper. Because of ignorance, his mind had been obscured, just like the moon and stars hidden by the storm clouds. Clouded by endless waves of deluded thoughts, the mind had falsely divided reality into subject and object, self and others, existence and non-existence, birth and death, and from these discriminations arose wrong views - the prisons of feelings, craving, grasping and becoming. The suffering of birth, old age, sickness and death only made the prison walls thicker. The only thing to do was to seize the jail keeper and see his true face. Once the jail keeper was gone, the jail would disappear and never be rebuilt again.”

The Buddha sat in serene and humble dignity on the ground, with the sky above him and around him, as if to show us that in meditation we sit with an open, sky-like attitude of mind, yet remain present, earthed, and grounded. The sky is our absolute nature, which is our boundless nature, which has no barriers and is boundless, and the ground is our reality, our relative ordinary condition. The posture we take in meditation signifies that we are linking absolute and relative, sky and ground, heaven and earth. Like two wings of a bird flying to the heights the sky-like deathless nature of our higher self is linked to the ground of our transient, mortal nature.

How then do we proceed to do this meditation? How do we begin to silence the thoughts and emotions in order to come into the simple sky-like state of consciousness?

The methods all involve some kind of focusing of the awareness so that there is less space for thoughts to arise. The methods correspond to the senses: Seeing, hearing, and feeling.

1.Visualization.

1. Visualisation uses the inner sense of imagery. In this, the meditator pictures a peaceful scene, for example a lake or the sea. The inner work is to bring the lake to perfect stillness. While the mind is working on bringing the lake to stillness it is quite clearly and gently focused on this task and there is much less opportunity for random thoughts to arise and disturb the mind. Imagery has the amazing power to still thoughts and disturbed emotions and to induce deep states of stillness. Those who have worked with me in the Reiki Training will know.

2.Hearing and Sound

Another time honoured method may be summed up in the Indian word, mantra, which is the repetition of a word or phrase either out loud or inwardly. In lightly focusing on the mantra, extraneous thought is excluded and the mind opened to higher levels of consciousness. OM is the universal mantra which is the primal sound of Creation. Some Mantras are secret, that is tailor made to an individual, as in Transcendental Meditation, a system which was very popular thirty years ago when I began to meditate regularly. Sogyal Rinpoche recommends to his students the mantra: OM AH HUNG VAJRA GURU PADMA SIDDI HUM. Baba Muktananda who was my Siddha Yoga Master, taught the mantra OM NAMAH SHIVAYA This was used as a chant. He also taught So Ham: So on the inward breath; Ham on the outward breath. The inward breath through the nose, the outward breath through a point just above the heart centre. Another common chant is OM MANE PADME HUM. The Hare Krishna’s chant the names of God to connect with the spiritual essence of God and be raised into higher Consciousness.

Others have used English words. For example the Calm technique uses that word as a mantra. Christian Mystics have used the name of Christ or an angel to induce higher consciousness. I have heard members of a Pentecostal group use the word Alleluia repeated again and again to raise consciousness of the members of a “tarrying group” seeking to be filled with the Holy Spirit. Christian monks use plainsong chants to raise consciousness.

When I received my Transcendental Meditation mantra in the sixties I went home and said to my mother, “Mother I have a special word that has been given to me to help me with my meditation.” She said, " O have you? I use love and peace!!” A lesson in flexibility!

3. Sensation

Under this heading probably comes watching the breath. Awareness of breath. Breath in many traditions is linked with the energy of life. In Hinduism it is linked with prana,. In Chinese and Japanese energy work it is linked with the Chi of Ki. Focusing on the inward and outward breath in various ways is the core of the Buddhist Mindfulness of breathing techniques. And although not so clearly linked with specific meditation practice breath is important in Christian mysticism as the Holy Spirit is seen as the “Breath of God.” and Higher states of Consciousness certainly slow down the breath and it seems to be linked in with the awareness of the Spirit in the higher centres of the body.

Conclusion

Our work in the Meditation Training Group will be to experience each of these methods and sometimes to use all of them together to produce a deep inner focusing of the mind so that the higher state of consciousness, the sky like state of mind, may arise.

It should be pointed out that regular practice brings results. Mediators in one sense are like athletes. Athletes practice constantly to develop their ability in sport. Meditators practice constantly and regularly to develop the capacity for relaxed one-pointedness that allows them to rise spontaneously into the clear blue sky of Christ Consciousness, Buddha Consciousness, Krishna Consciousness or Universal Life Force Consciousness, whichever framework suits them best.

It is generally suggested to start with about twenty minutes per day. Try to keep the same time and place if you can but don’t be put off if you can’t do that. I used to achieve very deep states of relaxed inner consciousness by closing my eyes and repeating my TM mantra whilst travelling home on the train after work. The regularity of the practice is the central thing.

An erect but relaxed posture is important. Some methods work with the eyes open other with the eyes closed. Open eyes focuses the benefits of the meditation in the physical world and brings the experience of higher conscious into focus on practical living in the material world. Closed eyes changes the focus to growth in the inner and higher worlds that we are preparing to move into when we leave the physical body at the end of life.