Meditation – Page 4 – United Martial Arts Association

Why Practice Meditation?

My definition of meditation is practices where an individual train their mind to achieve a mode of consciousness to realize benefits. Meditation does not necessarily need to be done in a lotus position nor, hours of sitting motionless. However, these are methods of meditation. So can walking, gardening, playing an instrument, drawing, painting, journraling, yoga, tai chi, qigong, archery, target shooting and many other methods can be used as meditative practices.

I may have had some second thoughts or skepticism when I first started to learn of meditation practices. However, I was 16 years old at the time and had very little life experience and not much wisdom at this point in my life. Eastern philosophy and meditation practices from martial arts, qigong, yoga and others were not widely accepted in the United States in the early 80’s and definitely not in Midwest suburbia of the Chicago area of Illinois. Martial arts schools at this time in the US were looked upon as being religious, cult-like, or at the very least a cultural-shock to my conservative upbringing.

When we are young, we can often be more influenced and possibly manipulated by others in order to see their viewpoints or beliefs in their personal agenda. I may have experienced some of these issues to some extent. However, in my case this turned out to not be a bad thing but rather a life-changing event that allowed me to gain benefits from meditation for decades forward.

Whatever reluctance I held at the time for these methods, soon diminished as I was able to see and feel the benefits of my training, while I saw my elders and peers’ health and well-being suffer from years of unregulated emotional stress and physical tension.

Meditation practices can offer so much in relation to cultivating the mind, body and spiritual harmony that many seek to achieve but really have no plan, method or goal as to where meditation can guide them to. I have been able to build and nurture (cultivate) a relationship with my mental thought process, my physical being and my spiritual awareness of something bigger and more profound than the mundane life we often possess and accept.

Meditation has offered me so much. Specifically, on the mental level I have been able to release mental stress and achieve consistent focus and clarity. On the physical level I have learned to be able to recognize and release muscular tension by slowing my breath rate, heart rate and blood pressure. On the spiritual level I have been able to enter into a deeper sense of self-awareness and realization that our life is a series of lessons to be learned to hopefully serve a greater purpose. We can go find religious or spiritual leaders to help guide us through this journey. Or we can venture inward and go direct to the source if this is where we choose to put our efforts. Meditation is not a replacement for one’s faith but rather a way to enhance and understand it. Meditation is a tool to be used for the benefit of the practitioner. Based upon these concepts, I feel that my meditation practices have much more to offer me in my next stages of life.

Be well, become healthier, be wiser.

________________

I write often about topics that affect our health and well-being. Additionally, I teach and offer lecture about qigong, tai chi, baguazhang, and yoga.

For more info, contact Jim Moltzan at info@mindandbodyexercises.com, 407-234-0119 or through my site at http://www.mindandbodyexercises.com

Strive to have a “relationship with your physical body”. I think often times people hear about the mind, body and spirit connection but really have no idea, plan or methods on how to achieve this state of being.

From what I have learned from my teachers of martial arts & qigong is that by becoming aware and understanding how the physical body exists and operates (kind of from like a mechanical or physiological perspective) one can begin to better understand how their own mind works. For example, if holding a particular yoga, qigong or kung fu posture for say 1-5 minutes, the muscles and the physical body begin to fatigue. The process of the mind trying to keep the body in the correct position engages the thoughts to express emotional traits of patience, frustration, determination, focus and other levels of awareness. This can also be similarly developed from other mind/body practices such as archery, painting, singing, playing an instrument, carpentry or other trades that all require repetitive engagement of the thought process and the control of the body to accomplish a particular task. These types of activities can be viewed as various types of sitting, standing, or moving meditations all in their own rights.

Background music can be a pro or con depending upon the goal of the practitioner. Some martial arts or dance styles utilize drums to keep a beat that coincides with the pace of the movements. Others moving meditations like tai chi or qigong might incorporate music that consists of specific tones or tempos to help to coincide the breathing and heart rates to slower paces, thereby hacking the parasympathetic nervous system and reducing stress. Certain tones can either help elevate the heart rate (like maybe Led Zeppelin) while others might lower the heart rate (maybe jazz or instrumentals), where as in TCM specific notes are associated with wood (liver-gall bladder), fire (heart-small intestines), earth (stomach-spleen), metal (lungs-large intestine) and water (bladder-kidneys).

Be well, get healthy, be wise.