Meditation Retreats at Ojai Soul Arts offer
much more than instruction in how to meditate
as a technique for stress reduction, life balance, and wellbeing. At
Ojai Soul Arts, private retreat clients discover the very real experience
of living from the continual state of meditation. Meditation when it
is experienced and known in this way, becomes more than a technique
or a practice; it becomes the high art of living as a master artisan
of conscious and transformational presence.
This article helps to debunk the limiting trappings of meditation
when it is used merely as technique or practice, and opens instead the
doorway to true meditation as that which is the art of living itself.
***
Meditation is an often misunderstood spiritual practice laden with
misconception and misguided efforts. Most often, meditation is approached
as a tool to help reduce stress, quiet the mind, and provide an inner
calm. So far so good. More than 30 years of scientific-based research
on meditation has shown its significant impact on lowing stress and
increasing health and wellbeing including some remarkable examples of
restoring a healthy biochemistry and cellular regeneration.*
(*These studies can be easily searched and reviewed on the internet,
so I won't reiterate these numerous results here.) The function of this
article is to reveal the real purpose of meditation and to help shine
a light on how to gain its true value in one's life.
If you already practice meditation, you have likely experienced times
where your mediation time offered a tremendous inner calm and you walked
away from the meditation feeling refreshed, relaxed and at peace. And
you've also likely experienced other times where all you could do is
fight to stay still, and nothing but nothing was going to let you stop
your inner dialogue of distraction and circular thoughts. (…don't
think "pink elephant" Ha, sure!..)
Keeping up a regular meditation practice can
be exceptionally rewarding and it can also be very frustrating! One
of the main reasons many people start and don't continue a mediation
practice is because they get lost in practicing technique and therefore
never discover it's deeper method of realization; they get tired of
trying to stop the mind, trying to watch the breath, trying to hold
the mantra, trying to sit…
What I am here suggesting is this: Meditation is not really meant to
be picked up and used as a technique for the end-goal of easing the
days tension or getting the 'buzz' of bliss. These are pleasurable side-benefits
that can occur from the meditative mind, but they are not the primary
purpose of mediation. When we use meditation in that way (when we use
it to try and stop the mind to enter bliss) we are fundamentally missing
the deeper point of meditation, and we are therefore limiting its true
power and life-transforming value.
Meditation is not actually intended to stop the mind at all. The mind
can't really be stopped. Only can we rise above and see through the
conditions of thought. (The rising above and seeing through is a key.)
When we enter meditation as a mental technique and try and use the mind
to stop the mind, well, it can't be done. Wrong tool! Mistaken emphasis!
The mind will never achieve stopping itself! Go ahead try...and try…
You'll discover that the mind doesn't stop. We can however discover
the still point (the unshakable inner stillness) that exists beyond
and before all thought. This is the place mystics and sages of the world
religions call enlightened presence.
When we use meditation to try and stop the mind so we can spend time
in a state of mindless bliss, we're actually still trying to control
and manage a desired state: we reject this state to try and get
more of that state! This is where the mistaken problem starts.
In truth, this attachment to controlling our experiences is a fundamental
misunderstanding of what mediation truly offers, and it very easily
becomes just another seductive addiction or diversion blocking us from
a much deeper abiding and radical aliveness.
I'm not saying that these side-benefits of mediation aren't helpful
in reducing stress, in building the discipline of focused attention,
and in enhancing a state of inner calm. These are good and pleasurable
side benefits of mediation. But if you are interested in its true power
and purpose, meditation offers much, much more.
Mediation is actually meant to provide a portal or point of entry into
realizing how to live in a state of open presence and spontaneous creative
flow all the time. Mediation is meant to reveal an inner realization
and experience that transfers to and effects ones every waking moment.
The state of meditation is meant to become how one lives.
We are meant to live our lives as meditation. That is, we are
meant to discover the real secret of meditation, which is to discover
how to live from the artistry of being open, attentive, present and
calmly engaged in the creative and evolutionary flow of life. We are
meant to be so alive in the moment that we are right here, in the dance
of creation; perfectly balanced, and in the zone of being, doing,
seeing, and receiving.
When we are in the zone of being, there is no longer a "doer",
but rather there is simply the enlightened engagement of creativity
and playful exchange… or what Deepak Chopra calls spontaneous
right action. The living meditative state of conscious
presence is where one discovers how to express his or her unique genius
because to discover ones unique creative genius, requires being absolutely
radically alive to, and engaged in, each present moment.
At Ojai Soul Arts, where I lead people in private and customized personal
retreat intensives and vision quests, what I'm really doing is showing
them how to immerse themselves in the living experience of continual
meditation - in how to discover within themselves the high art of remaining
ever-attentive, present, and engaged in the intelligent flow of nature.
When this experience occurs, a person's unique genius is radically and
instantly accessible and seen. A transformational meditation
retreat teaches more than technique, practice, or method.
It provides a direct experience for the realization of what meditation
really is: the art of conscious co-creative presence.
What is meditation? Meditation is really the
inner act of remaining vigilant and present to life as it is
arising, here, in the now. True meditation is remaining in conscious
relationship with each creative moment, not trying to get rid of
the mind or anything else; not trying to get bliss or anything else.
True meditation shows us how to become master artisans of living. It
teaches and shows us the path of freedom.
Life, like the breath, is always moving. Unlike the breath we often
fail to move with life, and instead work against it by trying to control
and manage life's circumstances based on our past experiences and fears
concerning the future. Or, sometimes we just dull out entirely …and
slip into the half-life passivity of TV or some other mindless entertainment.
We are not really alive in those moments. We're in a kind of drone state.
Sleep is even more productive than that loss of vital presence.
Life is meant to be alive in! Sounds funny but we tend to forget that
we're here to experience and take part in our profoundly creative universe.
In short, we're meant to live as meditation; we're meant to discover
the yoga of being and expressing our true Self.
I want to free up the word meditation. I want to give it back its true
power. You don't have to go sit in a chair and practice "no thought"
trying to find that elusive state of semi-conscious bliss. That's not
the point at all! Meditation as a practice is meant to be simply a honing
of the skill of maintaining one's attention and conscious presence during
a chosen art (yoga, archery, tai chi, sitting practice etc.) so that
it can flower and become your true state of being and expression of
freedom within everything that you do and within each moment of your
living!
In truth, there are many forms of meditation.
There are as many forms of meditation as there are human beings! In
fact, everything one does (if done with conscious presence) is meditation.
Yoga, if done with inner awareness and focus of attention is a full
integration of mind, body, spirit - in short, meditation. If it is not
done with focused presence, it is not yoga at all, but rather just a
good stretching exercise for the body.
Everything if it is done with conscious presence is meditation. Everything:
yoga: cooking; floral arranging; walking; skiing; job hunting; eating;
conversing; writing… in fact anything and everything that is done
with an inner conscious attention and balanced state of active/receptive
presence, is meditation.
Meditation is putting into play the true art of living. It is keeping
such inner vigil as to be capable of remaining truly present to life
in a way that allows both active and receptive balance. This is why
in Zen Buddhism, the most profound teachings and practices in meditation
are often developed through learning to give one's full attention to
the simplest of daily tasks. When we learn to live our life as this
kind of high art, then everything we do from that state of attuned presence
becomes meditation; it becomes peace, contentment, and joy.
When we live in the artful state of meditation we are in resonance
with life, which means we flow with it. We don't miss new opportunities
stuck in old patterns or habitual ways. We don't grasp, fear, or hold
on. Instead we enter into the adventurous mystery of being alive: we
listen, respond and move in harmony with the creative flow of the universe.
This is the real point and purpose of meditation practice: To learn
how to enter into and live from this state of balance and grace….every
moment, every day, in all things. No need for 20 minutes time out each
day in order to meditate. Everything IS meditation to one who
has discovered its real secret.
When this kind of graceful balance and poise is sustained throughout
the moments and days of living, then one's life becomes available to
the universal laws and currents of divine intelligence and creativity.
Recently, cult movie, "The Secret"
has become amazingly popular. Want to learn
"the secret" of the universe? Want to understand
the law of attraction? There is no secret … just our own unclaimed
divinity! Our forgotten divinity is reclaimed and expressed when we
know how to make our life a true meditation…when we know how to
live as awake and receptively-engaged artisans of the universal flow.
The natural order of things (and the so called universal laws) has
a certain flow; they are inextricably tied to the alchemical power of
creative presence. This flow cannot be mastered as a goal, strategy
or technique, but only claimed as an inner realization, a direct knowing,
and a living presence of being. When one understands that life (real
aliveness) is meditation, then no practice is required and no-thing
can hold you back from this state of unshakable Grace! "Seek
first the kingdom of heaven and all things will be added to you".
This passage from one of the great world texts is an example of how
to live the high art of life as meditation, and therefore to realize
and have available to you all the creative powers of the universal flow.
Any lesser approach or practiced technique is just that: a lesser approach
and technique. Freedom comes where the deep pools of inner realization
are daily lived as the high art of being. Namaste!
Ronda LaRue is an emerging spiritual author/mentor living in Ojai,
California, USA. http://www.rondalarue.com.
Ronda works from a novel and contemporary approach to the ancient tradition
of one-on-one sacred apprenticeship for facilitating radical transformation,
healing wholeness, and direct Self-Realization. Her first book "Remembering
Who You Really Are," is a contemporary classic on the journey to
true self Realization and Wholeness. (available from Amazon.com) See
more about her private retreat programs at http://www.OjaiSoulArts.com
or order her book at http://www.rondalarue.com.
