Welcome to the latest Reiki blog hop where Joy Vernon asked us to:
Write out instructions for how to do whatever basic meditation or first meditation you teach in your classes or first learned to do.
Well… following instructions is not always my forte and certainly when teaching meditation, I have found that people who struggle with the concept of meditation can get more confuddled if given instructions. We live in an often stressful world and I think it’s easy to slip into seeing meditation as being a goal to achieve and by extension, something to fail at…
There are as many ways to meditate as leaves on a tree and my personal opinion is that if the thought of one technique stresses you out, then ditch it and find something else that will work for you. When I was first introduced to meditation, I found the situation to be farcical and tantamount to being trapped in a bad sitcom. An instructor asked the group to raise their hands if they had a daily meditation practice. Hands shot up in all direction and then followed a game of top trumps as people tried to out zen one another… I chewed the insides of my cheeks to try and contain the laughter that wanted to erupt as I heard the boasts around me. Oh… I meditate for an hour a day… Another voice smugly declared that they were now up to 90 mins a day… Another voice delivered a counter bid of an hour in the morning and an hour in the evening… I stared at the ceiling desperate to avoid making any eye contact as I was on the brink of a blooper reel type corpsing of maniacal laughter…the whole absurdity of being in this room with people who an hour or so before had been discussing the art of non-competitive practice…
The instructor landed on me… Tell me Karen, how do you meditate?
I confessed that I didn’t as I found it all quite boring…
I was then asked – do you do anything to clear your mind?
I thought about it and thought it was probably a dumb answer but said it anyway… Well… I go into the garden and when I first go out, I can hear all the noise from the traffic but I try to tweak my ear to the birdsong until all I can hear is chirping and the traffic noise disappears…
The instructor asked – do you think it’s possible that that could be described as a form or meditation?
I conceded that it may be possible…
I still do that many years later, I also thanks to my resident hedgehogs sit and listen to see where the rustles come from and let my eyes adjust to the dark until I see them clearly walking around… But mostly if I’m going to actively meditate then I do it with art as there’s something about using my hands that grounds me into being wholly present in the moment.
What does this have to do with Reiki? Ok… Reiki is practiced in a meditative frame of mind and I don’t think really that it matters that much how you get to that place… Let me explain with some art…
Inside the swirling mind, if you know where to go, there’s this sweet spot like the eye of the storm…
If you try too hard to find this place, or to slow your thoughts to silence, then they’ll just swirl faster and you might be fooled into thinking the sweet spot doesn’t exist… or that it’s only attainable to the special few…
Don’t worry… it is there for you… At first you might experience it for a fleeting split of a second… hold it… somewhere in your brain, a connection is made and a path laid down… you can find it again…
There’s no need to force yourself to sit for hours and will this into place… a brief pause often returned to will begin to take on a life of its own… the split seconds will grow longer of their own accord… This is your place to go to whenever you want… Learn to recognise how it feels and you will learn how to tap into that feeling wherever and whenever you are, no matter what you are doing…
And this has an interesting side effect… as you find the quite space in your mind, then over time that feeling/energy ripples out across your life and into the paths of others… Peace starts within but the effects are contagious…
And that pretty much is my ‘instruction’ for Reiki meditation… Click on my neighbour’s links to see their guidance.
The pure and blessed way 
I am so glad that its not just me that has come across those who try to out do each other with their non-competitive / competitive trying to out zen each other with their meditations and spiritual visions when sitting in that ‘zone’ it’s the spiritual equivalent of the gym bunnies trying to do one better…
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’ve come across more Zen bunnies than you! Lol
LikeLike
I love the art — what a great way to illustrate your point. Listening for birdsong is a great exercise!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks Joy! 🙂
LikeLike
Thanks for that lovely! Bird song & a coffee/tea; bliss!
LikeLiked by 1 person
YW! 🙂
LikeLike