4 ways to improve the quality of your mediation

I have been meditating twice a day (mostly) for about 2 years now. Just thought I would share some things that benefited my meditation sessions.

I. Relax into your meditation

Relaxation helps you relieve tensions in your body. But meditation goes deeper.
Conversely, one can first do a relaxation exercise to relax the tense parts of the body. Once that is taken care of, it is easier to focus on calming down or observing the pesky mind. A simple relaxation exercise is to mentally scan the body from head to toe and each time you pass through a body part (say nose or thighs, etc), mentally repeat the word relax. The amazing thing about this is that doing this 2-3 times makes me see tangible differences in my state of relaxation. Another way to ease into meditation is to do some deep abdominal breathing.  A deep breath is associated with a relaxed state of mind. So the benefits of this goes without saying.

II. Let go of expectations

It would be great if this meditation were perfect - Very calm, no chattering, no worries, no rumination. This statement is fine as an intention. You can have an intention and then let it go. But an expectation is to have this statement run as an under-current hindering your meditation. Since meditation is all about letting go, and yet having an expectation makes you hold on. If in the meditation, the thoughts are running high - So be it. If it is smooth as silk, that's great too.

III. Make it a habit

Habits are powerful. Habits make it easy to do an activity, they make it almost subconscious. So just as you brush your teeth everyday, you just meditate everyday. This makes it easy to meditate when going through rough times. That is precisely when you need to meditate the most!

IV. Sleep well

Meditation is not a way to short-cut your sleep. Good sleep leads to good meditation and the converse is also true (that's why I meditate before I sleep). The way I get to know that I need more sleep is when I start falling sleepy a few minutes into my meditation.  Meditation does make you relaxed, but you are also aware. It is a state of relaxed-awareness. Sleep is more like relaxed-unawareness or relaxed semi-awareness.

Hope these pointers help you out - And let me know what helps you with going deeper in meditation.

Involuntary Body Movements: Part II

This can be considered a follow-up post to this one. The previous post was on my experiences of involuntary movements during the start of my meditation journey 3 years back. It was quite intriguing to me, since it was clear to me that I was not causing the involuntary movements (by definition!). I could stop these movements at will, but it was as if a gentle hand would again begin the movements in precise directions and curves!
Fast-forward 3 years later,  I am a busy graduate student moving towards the end of my Phd, wishing for more time to do research every day - But at the same time balancing my life with meditation and physical activity........

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I just finished a busy quarter where I set more goals than I could manage. However, I am getting better in planning and organizing my work to achieve my goals more effectively. No sooner did my quarter end,
I took off for a conference to Spain. I had a wonderful time there after which I spent a wonderful 4 days in Germany (specifically Frankfurt and Tuebingen). I consider this post-conference time a retreat time.
I meditated everyday for about 3-4 hours spread out through the day coupled with lots of rest and good food. Invariably, I would get up at around 3 in the morning most of these days. I was alternating Mantra based meditation (which activates my third-eye chakra) with Mindfulness of Breath meditation. I experienced quite a bit of:
a) Involuntary neck rotations: This seemed like a warm-up for what was to come!
b) Involuntary movements from the torso and above - Mostly circular rotations with center at the base of my spine.
c) Sinusoidal movements of my upper torso - Akin to a Snake standing up and waving about when it encouters something in its path.
d) Backward and Forward bends of my torso - This is amazing to witness. I am accustomed to rotations of the torso. But yesterday night, I felt an involuntary movement of the body where the torso started moving in downward spiral but then there was no rebound - That is I was just going down - This is the position I was finally in at the end of this movement: Yoga Mudra.

Although in the beginning, my focus was on the mantra and breath, as soon as these movements began, I could only observe what was happening - I was a witness to this cleansing process - To this rise of energy in my being. The sensations were usually pleasant. Even now as I type, I feel pressure at the center of my forehead and if I close my eyes, my body gently sways.
Where is all of this leading to? I don't know. However, what amazes me is the physiology of how this happens . In spiritual terms, these involuntary movements are associated with the awakening of Kundalini Energy.
However, what is the source of this energy? How does it act? What are some necessary conditions for this to happen? These are open questions for the scientific community, although the scientific community has a long way to go towards investigating these fundamental questions.
What I do understand from the 'spiritual perspective' is that the Kundalini Energy is inherent in everyone and starts to become awakened when the person has invested sufficient time in personal growth. What is the purpose of this awakening? In spiritual parlance, the awakening symbolizes the move towards a greater evolution of the human consciousness, towards inner peace and world peace, towards joy and greater fulfillment in life and beyond.

Music and meditation

Introduction
I have experimented with a few different meditations so far: Breath-based mindfulness (Ana-pana-sati), mantra based (chanting a mantra in the mind), visualization based meditation (imagining balls or columns of light). With regard to meditation and music, I have tried meditating to slow devotional music with different degrees of success (in terms of calming the mind).

A personal experience
A couple of days back, there was a meditation group hosted by a bunch of UW undergrads with a good attendance. At one point, one of the people


present in the room started playing the clarinet. We had our eyes closed and just a few seconds before the music began, I started getting a pleasant sensation at the middle of the forehead (corresponding to the eye-brow or ajna chakra). The pleasant sensation stayed on throughout the time he was playing clarinet. I didn't want to come out of the meditation after the music stopped, just being absorbed in that sensation seemed good enough at that moment. Towards the end, the guy was surprised when I mentioned this to him and let me know that he had played the clarinet to the ``Bhupali Raag'' and that it was supposed to help stimulate the eye-brow point. I am not sure if this particular Raag is assoicated with this, but my meditative experience with the music was crisp and clear.

I have dabbled with the Native American Flute in the past and it has always given me a soothing feeling during the meditation. Perhaps I should start playing the flute more regularly.

A note on mindfulness meditation

Introduction:

Mindfulness meditation is a deceptively simple practice and yet very useful.

Neuroscientists and behaviorists(google MBSR, MBCT to know more) find it greatly helps people who are stressed out and also people suffering from anxiety based disorders (OCD, etc). I personally overcame OCD through mindfulness meditation 7 years back.

Mindfulness meditation can also help people in general manage their stress levels and keep them grounded. Mindfulness meditation is definitely helping me with managing stress in grad school.

Ofcourse, meditation in general(of any kind) is a very useful thing to do on a daily basis. However, mindfulness meditation is especially useful for people who find it difficult to concentrate.

Here's a simple practice:

1) Sit down some place - On the chair or on the ground.

2) Gently scan your body from head to toe and as you do this mental scan, feel your body relax - You can also say the word 'Relax' in your mind as you do the scan.

3) Now, keep your eyes open and just observe the sensations going around you

- These sensations could be the sound of a car outside, the groaning of the refrigerator, your own THOUGHTS, itching sensations in the body - The whole idea is to passively observe these sensations. As far as possible, observe these sensations without making any judgements in your mind. Think of yourself as a passive spectator observing these sensations around you.

Don't try to curb your thoughts or even guide them. Let them run through. You are just a passive spectator.

4) If you are comfortable with this process of passive observation, you can begin doing it with your eyes closed.

Some Comments:

You will slowly notice that as you are going on with this passive observation, you become more relaxed and grounded. Your passive observation process will bring to light the restless nature of the mind!!! Your thoughts might be flying high in your mind, yet you feel more relaxed than before. With practice, the thoughts will also start to settle down.

When I began this practice 2 years back - My thoughts were going zip,zap,zoom. But the interesting thing was, my thoughts would settle down slowly as I became regular at my practice.

As the days went by, I found that my mind was starting to calm down quicker.

A few months later, I had a meditation session, where my mind settled down quickly and the peace thereafter was wonderful. There was a sea of change from the mind I began with and the mind I was experiencing a few months later. However, to sustain this calmness, I found that a regular practice is essential. For me a daily meditation practice is indispensable in keeping me grounded through the rigors of graduate school. The feeling of release of stress when I meditate before going to bed is wonderful. If you are reading this sentence, I highly recommend this meditation practice(or any suitable meditation practice that you are attracted to).

Duration:

You can begin with 10 minutes. And as you progress, you can increase the duration depending on your comfort levels. I have time for about 30 minutes of meditation everyday morning and night.

OCD and Mindfulness meditation

1) Introduction

Obsessive Compulsive disorder is a disorder caused due to a stuck circuit in the brain.

More specifically, the neuronal circuit between: orbital frontal cortex, caudate nucleus and anterior cingulate cortex is on overdrive.

The orbital frontal cortex is the part of frontal cortex that is associated with detecting errors or 'something is wrong' in the environment. This area is on overdrive in people with OCD and hence there is always a feeling that something is wrong. The circuit moves onto the cingulate cortex which is associated with compulsion, which makes the people with OCD act compulsively whenever they have a feeling of 'something is wrong'.

In Neuroscience, there is a classical phrase: 'Neurons that fire together wire together'.

When the feeling of 'something is wrong' is followed by a compulsion to do something (e.g. twitch the hand or some other action)... This sequence gets hard wired in the brain (stronger neural connection).

However, through mindful response... E.g. following 'something is wrong' by a relaxing activity instead of the compulsive action, the circuit is remodeled into something that is more benign.

Ofcourse in the beginning, this mindful action is difficult because of the hard-wiring of the circuit.

But with practice, the circuit weakens and stops bothering the person as much.

2) My experience

I had OCD during my senior high school and first two years of college. In the beginning(first 6 months), it was a gruelling experience. I didn't know why I had these obsessive thoughts that were so troublesome. Ofcourse, I didn't know at that point that it was a stuck circuit. My only respite from these 'something is wrong' thoughts was sleep. A psychiatrist prescribed a tranquilizing drug(fludac) - I think it had an affect on my visual cortex area or the areas related to imagination - Because, since then I have had trouble visualizing(in my mind) objects clearly. Ofcourse, the drug did help make the thoughts less menacing. I think these drugs fall under the class of SSRIs (Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors). Sertonin is a natural biochemical that has a calming influence on the brain.

In my second year of college, I attended a 3 day workshop on mindfulness meditation and other breath based techniques.

I remember clearly, the instructions was to observe my thoughts passively without any commentary or reaction. It was hard, these thoughts had given me a lot of trouble - But I tried anyway. I soon found (a few days later), that my condition was getting better.

I continued my practice of mindfulness meditation and also took up running everyday.

Within 6 months, I was a different person. The obsessive thoughts no longer bothered me (circuit had weakened quite a bit) and I was out of depression (which was also a problem during that time). Further more, running gave me a lot of energy and enthusiasm for life.

It was quite a recovery!! There were small relapses(whose frequency began to diminish), but I knew what to do - be responsive (instead of being compulsive or reactive), mindfully.

3) Neuro-plasticity

It is quite a remarkable thing that a person can change the neuronal circuits in the brain merely through a different mental/physical response. This phenomenon of changeability of neuronal circuits in the brain is known as neuro-plasticity. Neuro-plasticity is supposed to be at its peak during childhood(where the brain is very mouldable and adaptable). This ability does continue with age (although to a lesser degree).

I was reading a book on The mind and the brain: Neuroplasiticity and the power of mental force by Jefferey M. Schwartz and Sharon Begley. The detailed description of what happens in a OCD patient as given in the book is fascinating. I can put together what I experienced with what happens chemically in the brain as described in the book for a better picture of what was going on with me.

Neuroplasticity as a concept is very fascinating as it puts the responsibility for a good life squarely on oneself(ones mind and brain). Don't like your life? - Change your brain by changing your actions and thoughts and voila, neuronal circuits change and you act more responsibly. Ofcourse these changes in actions and thoughts have to be made consistently, so that benign circuits are preferred over malign circuits. Are you very emotional and worried? Perhaps your amygdala is on overdrive or your basal gangila is on overdrive. Solution: Either drugs(with side-effects) or mindfulness meditation(also a host of other alternatives). The latter has no side effects and can help bring in neuronal circuits that are conducive for a more peaceful and clear mind.

4) Questions, questions and more questions!

A very fundamental question that arises (also asked in the book mentioned above) is this:

Is the mind different from the brain? This question arises easily in the case of OCD.

In the case of a mindful response, it was as if my mind was willing a different response to my obsessive thoughts that was followed up by the brain so that the brain was beginning to rewire accordingly. If the mind is indeed different from the brain - Where is the seat of the mind?

Is it a phenomenon of the brain - Is it a higher level abstraction of the brain functions? Or is it something that is fundamentally immaterial - not made up of matter. This is also a question of fundamental physics - String theory claims that the fundamental essence of matter is energy - Which is immaterial. So is mind some abstract form of energy that is immaterial. If so, can it function independently of the body-brain framework? If it can, then we can begin to ask questions on what happens to this mind after death? And thus, we enter a whole new realm that science hasn't dared to enter yet.

A state of balance and inner peace

I. Introduction

I have been to extremes, rather I should say I began exploring the extremes in my college life.

I experienced incredible freedom in my college days at the Indian Institute of Technology(IIT), so much so that I explored the freedom in many possible ways, some constructive, some not so constructive.
Let me give a few examples:

1) Sleep: Till my college days, I was very disciplined in my sleep. Ofcourse, I was living with my family and everyone would go to bed early. So I would sleep by 10 pm or 11 pm, no later than that and get up by 6-7 am.
That all changed in my second or third year in college. I thrilled in sleeping late. I explored sleeping at different times, 2 am,4 am, 6 am, etc. I even took pride in that I could sleep that late and not let my body be affected.
The extreme sleep cycles went on even when I came to Udub to pursue my Phd. I was sometimes sleeping at 11 am in the morning and getting up late in the evening.
At this point, I was desperately trying to stabilize my sleep. It was no longer a thrill. It was no longer a use of my freedom, it was rather a misuse of my freedom.
Freedom comes with responsibility and I was beginning to come to terms with that.

2) Focus: In my college days, I was so thrilled by what I could explore apart from my academics. I explored running, swimming, biking, hiking, spirituality, philosophy and so on. I was just jumping from one to another, tasting one and sipping another without really going deep into anyone of them. Ofcourse, I did take running seriously, but there was no real balance between my extracurricular activities and my academics. I still face the problem of focus, but to a lesser extent now.

What I have realized through my explorations and experiences in life is that
balance is important in life.

II. Different areas in which one can bring about balance

1) Balanced emotions:

Having balanced emotions is a great asset. When one goes from extreme joy to extreme sadness or extreme love to extreme anger, there is a continual dreading of the negative extreme, there is an imbalance that affects decision making, clarity and focus.

On the other hand, when one has balanced emotions, one can be calm even when things outside are upside down and can make quick and effective decisions most of the times.

Balanced emotions can be brought about in many ways including breathing exercises (pranayama), deep relaxation, meditation, and even through an understanding of the need for balance. Forgiving people quickly and sending everyone in your life positive thoughts is another easy way to be in a state of balance.

2) Work-life balance

This is something everyone is working on. For me it has taken some time to realize this. I would go from fully focusing on work during one week to totally taking it easy the next week.

Nowadays, my days start with having positive intentions for the day, meditation and then work.

Coming back, I meditate before going to sleep. I also run over the weekends. I find this to be a much better balance than the life I was leading before.

3) Understanding equanimity and balanced interactions

I just want to point out here that, equanimity is not just being calm when something unwanted happens but it is also being calm and balanced even when something 'fantastic' happens.

Not getting easily excited or perturbed by outside events and being centered and calm when interacting with people who are easily excitable or are perturbed is a sign of an equanimous state of mind.

I have come to understand the following principle and it's potent use in my life.

The principle of balance - A self-regulating mechanism

- Whenever you get perturbed in the mind by some event or some memory or someone's comment or some worry, notice the perturbation and come back to the present.

Note that the ability to quickly notice the perturbations of the mind without exacerbating the perturbations is itself is a big skill that can be acquired with practice.

The next step is to find ways to quickly come back to a state of balance once the perturbation has been noticed.

III. A few quick ways to come back to a balanced state of mind

1) Continual reminders: Remind yourself to be at peace continually. The effect of these reminders is that when there is a 'big perturbation' due to some event or memory, this reminder will play in your mind and you will quickly come out of the 'perturbation' to a state of balance.

2) Continual relaxation: Stress builds with time. Strees in the mind translates as tension in the body. 'Scan' your body frequently. Mentally focus on different parts of the body and sense if there is any tension and relax it. Relaxing the body does affect the mind and helps bring the balance. Sometimes when the mind is perturbed, it's difficult to calm it down. The easiest thing to do at that time would be to 'scan' the body and relax it.

3) Observing the content of your thoughts: When one observes the vacillating nature of one's own mind, you realize that you can either add to that vacillation or stabilize that vacillation

by becoming a passive observer to the thought process. This passive observation brings about balance quickly and helps us understand why we think the way we do and consciously bring about a change to the thinking process.

4) Following the breath: The breath is intricately linked to the state of mind.

When you are angry, you breathe quickly and shallowly. On the other hand, when you are calm and relaxed, you breathe deeply. A technique therefore is to focus on the breathing and observe its rhythm. This observation in itself affects its rhythm and the breath becomes slower and deeper. If there are distracting thoughts, gently bring it back to the breath and continue observing its rhythm.

Symbol of balance:

I just want to mention here, that when I was listening to some peaceful chanting in the night 1 year back, I had a vision of the image displayed at the top of this article. I thought about what this image might mean - I knew that this was a symbol that came up often in Indian films whenever there was a courtroom scene. But then it struck me, ofcourse - This is a symbol of balance - Balancing the scales.

I thank my intuition for this image. I have come a long way since then in balancing my emotions and life and ofcourse, there is always room for improvement.

Here's to balance and inner peace for everyone in the world.

Be an example: Chintz Bana

Watch the video about the transformation of Chintz Bana, who got a lot of material success but was left with a feeling of emptiness. Watch how he was able to transform that feeling through breathing techniques learnt through Art of living and service to help transform prisoners.
Watch it here.

My 10 day vipassana meditation experience

I did the Vipassana meditation retreat between 16th july - 26th july. In short, it was a roller-coaster ride. The ride was ofcourse in the mind . It’s interesting to note that as we go about our daily lives, we look at external objects, people and issue out reactions or responses. But observing your own body, your own mind, can some useful information be gained, can a new perspective be gained, can you actually even go looking for the root cause of misery by looking within? These are some questions that have fascinated me and these 10 days were my time for focused observation of the body and mind to possibly answer these questions or atleast get some perspectives.

I have got a few insights and many experiences to reflect on(those I have reflected on, I have applied the lessons learnt with good benefits so far).

Talking to different people at the end of the retreat, I realized that everyones’ experience is different and unique. If you are interested, you can go ahead and read some details from my experience (it’s long!) .

The Setting

A beautiful field of wild yellow-green grass surrounded by tall trees, in the middle of which lies three buildings(meditation hall, men’s dorms and a dining cum women’s dorms). Located in Onalaska, it’s 2 hrs drive south of Seattle. I was surprised that three-quarters of the people at the retreat were below the age of 35. I then learnt the reason..It's summer!

Boredom

So my first impressions of the meditation routine was that it’s boring. I mean, think about it, 8-10 hrs of meditation everyday. And you are doing the same meditation for atleast 3 days before changing the technique. You get up at 4:30 am and you get to bed at 9:30 pm. There are many meditation sessions in between with some rest periods thrown in, but it's all meditation. You go back from the meditation hall to your residence, and people start walking slowly being aware of each step, oh yeah - The walking meditation. You are having your food, and you are totally focused on what you are eating - No paper in hand or laptop on the lap - So that's mindfulness meditation while eating. Ofcourse, we were to maintain complete silence for 10 days, so no getting distracted by talking to other meditators. So you see it's the ideal environment to meditate and also to get bored with meditation.

It’s like there is only one restaurant in town and you go there to order food:

“Excuse me sir, I would like to order some food”.

‘Sure, we got an ‘All you can eat’ buffet today, and as always, it’s free’.

“Oh wow, what’s on the menu?”

‘We got two delicious items – The group meditation and individual meditation. The group meditation has to be consumed within the premises, but you can ‘take out’ the individual one’.

“Oh ok”.

At the end of my first day, it was refreshing to have a different experience than boredom: As we came out of the meditation hall, we saw a mother deer with her two recently born kids jumping around merrily. It was an awesome sight, complementing the beauty of the place.

Sensations

The vipassana technique is all about observing sensations on your body ‘equanimously’.

The first 3 days, we observe the breath, which is the ana-pana-sati(incoming outgoing breath awareness) technique. We also narrowed down our focus to a triangular region around the nose to observe sensations. The idea is that there are always sensations on every part of the body, but we may not be aware of them because the mind hasn’t been trained to look for them. So, by observing a triangular region around the nose, I was able to observe two different sensations. One was an itching sensation and the other a tingling sensation. These sensations are impermanent, they arise and pass away.

So we get the idea that there are sensations (some perceptible, some subliminal – depending on the mind’s sharpness) all over the body and that these sensations arise and pass away.

Now, what’s observing sensations got to do with peace of mind?

The idea is that when we crave for something, let’s say chocolate, what we are actually craving for is the sensation that we get on the body when we have chocolate. And when one craves for chocolate and can’t have it for some reason, one can get upset or irritated. The idea is that one is upset because one craves for the sensation on the body that arises when you have chocolate.

Similarly, when one hates something, the idea is that one hates the sensation that happens on the body when that object comes into your view.

What if one remains calm or equanimous to these sensations on the body instead of craving for them or having an aversion for them? This idea of equanimity to sensations is the basis behind the Vipassana technique and that’s the core practice we do during the last 5 days of the course.

It’s amazing what sensations can be observed when the mind is trained to look for them.

Personally, I was able to observe tingling sensations all over my head and palms of my hands. And over the rest of the body, I was able to observe a few sensations here and there.

One important idea is that even pain can be viewed as a sensation. And if you can remain equanimous to pain, it can stop having that big of an effect of you. For example, when one has severe pain in the leg, the physical pain one feels is exacerbated by the mental reaction.. ‘Oh pain, oh severe pain. I don’t like this pain.. I want to get rid of it. What do I do?’. The mind in it’s reaction of aversion to this ‘sensation of pain’ increases the suffering one feels when one has this pain. On the other hand, the mind could have been equanimous..’Yes there is severe pain, let’s see how long it lasts. Let me not get affected by it’. This is an easy thing to say, but not easy to act, as I discovered.

The sitting

On day 5, we were introduced to this adhittana sitting or a sitting of strong determination. In this group sitting, you are not supposed to move even a single part of the body for an hour. Days 5 and 6 were pretty much a struggle for everyone. We would all get up limping and groaning. We had three such sittings every day since day 5. On day 5, I could manage two sittings without movement. On day 6, I thought I would be brave and not use any cushion and just sit on the floor. These guys provide you will all sorts of cushion of all sizes,firmness, and shape to make your meditation comfortable and I decided not to use it on that day! Why?? Because I figured that I am anyway going to observe sensations which include pain, how does it matter if the pain is shallow or deep, I am going to be observing it anyway. I managed two sittings with grit and determination, but the third sitting, it was difficult for me to even sit down, let alone not move. My legs were shot that day, and I was careful from day 7 to make myself comfortable with cushions. I figured, I could try out the no-cushions thing another day.

Moving beyond pain

On Day 9 of the course, we were sitting in one of those hour long group meditations where you are not supposed to move any part of the body and maintain your posture. It can seem like torture to an outsider, since the pain in the legs can get intense with 1 hr of sitting with no movement. But to a vipassana meditator, the pain is supposed to be just another sensation!

45 minutes into the 1 hr sitting, my calf muscles in my left leg were becoming more and more painful and I, as a good vipassanameditator was trying to observe the pain ‘objectively’. So I examined the pain… Where is it centered? It’s in the center of the calf muscle. Ok what kind of a pain is it.. It’s a mildly intense pain on the verge of becoming a severely intense pain. Alright, what’s it’s nature? It’s a pulsating/radiating pain that arises and passes away every second.

At this point I also had pains centered in my knees and my thighs. So it was an interesting experience for me in trying to characterize pain in one part of the body, when ‘other pains’ are calling for your attention.

So I surveyed the pain objectively and moved on to other parts of the body to examine sensations there. Suddenly, I felt a warm rush of vibrations in my left leg. I examined what was going and I found that the ‘gross calf pain’ that was intense had faded away to the background and was replaced by these pleasant ‘warm vibrations’ in my leg. This was my first experience of pain – a gross sensation dissolving into subtler sensations through objective equanimous observation of pain.

In Vipassana meditation, it’s a sign of progress to have gross sensations such as pain in the body to be replaced by subtler sensations such as tingling sensations, since that means two things: Your mind is getting sharper in being able to observe subtler sensations and that you have been able to develop equanimity to pain, which is not easy.

Implications

We usually think of pain as something unwanted, something to be gotten rid of. But when you change your perspective on pain and think of it as a sensation that could be observed without aversion, as something that can be observed objectively, waawaveeva, you can have this pain fading away.

I spoke to other meditators to see if they had similar experiences. One guy in his 50’s had sciatic pain in his back that was always present. But during the 10 day course, once he started observing the pain objectively, the pain would pass away and come back. Not having pain, even for a short period was a big relief for him.

Another guy had an amazing story. At the end of every 1 hr group sitting with no change of posture, we would all get up limping and groaning. But this guy would get up and just walk away with big strides and a smile as if he was going for his regular morning walk. When we asked him about it, he said that he felt no pain whatsoever and that he was only experiencing a lot of energetic sensations all over the body. This was his 4^th time to the course and on the previous three retreats he wasn’t able to go beyond the pain.

Recurrence of past health symptoms

I had this happen during the vipassana retreat. I had some OCD symptoms and panic attack symptoms come up from the past and I understood that they were coming up for clearing. I just had to be detached to these symptoms and they would pass away. They ofcourse did pass away. But it's interesting how the OCD symptoms just showed up during the meditation when I was done with it years back. I spoke to another guy, he had had Asthma in the past and a similar thing happened to him.

He had asthma symptoms come up on one of the days. His usual thing to do, was to force himself to breath deeper when these attacks began. But since this happened on day 6 or 7, he thought it might be worth a try to just be "ok" with the shortness-of-breath symptom that was a precursor to the Asthma attack. And amazingly, the symptoms passed away after a few minutes and he wasn't doing anything, just observing it as another sensation.

Connecting the dots…

1) Mindfulness meditation vs Vipassana meditation

I started meditating regularly in July, last year. I do the mindfulness meditation, which is basically being aware of and being equanimous to whatever phenomenon is going around you at that time. For example, I often hear buses passing by, someone opening the door, and ofcourse the thoughts whizzing by in the mind. By just being aware and being equanimous, it happens that the thoughts tend to settle down after sometime and you feel more peaceful.

In Vipassana, ‘awareness’ and ‘equanimity’ are again the two big principles, but there is also ‘focus’.In Vipassana, one is focusing the mind to observe subtler sensations all over the body and at the same time being equanimous to them . There is also an order of moving from head to toe or toe to head.

In contrast, the mindfulness doesn’t involve focusing, you are just aware of whatever is going on inside and outside of you.

2) Shavasana (Corpse posture) vs Vipassana meditation

In yoga, there is a posture called Shavasana, where one lies like a corpse on the ground, fully relaxing the body. Usually, one starts at the head and mentally relaxes each part of the body all the way down to the toes. There is some resemblance of Shavasana toVipassana in that even in Vipassana one goes from head to toes, but in Vipassana one is not trying to relax, one is trying to be focused on observing sensations on all parts of the body from head to toe equanimously.

3) Vipassana meditation vs a generic meditation technique

In a generic meditation technique, you have an object for meditation. If the object is a mantra, that is repeated through the meditation, it’s called a mantra meditation technique.If the object is the breath, it’s the ana-pana meditation technique. If the object is some dynamic guided imagery, it’s called guided imagery meditation. The idea is that all of these object-based meditation techniques are focused on the mind and have something to do with thoughts.Vipassana on the other hand is totally focused on the sensations on the body, though the mind can play the role of distracting the meditator from doing that. So it's like this, if there are a lot of dramas going in your life, observing the sensations are going to be difficult when you do the vipassana, since your mind is going to be playing out those dramas/scenarios in the mind. But it's the same thing with a mantra-based meditation, you are not going to be able to focus on the mantra. It's mostly the case that when you begin any form of meditation, you are just not able to calm the mind. That's alright, because when you begin to meditate, you realize that the mind has a mind of it's own. That's a good place to begin and slowly with time, the mind will start behaving well and inner peace that always existed but was clouded by all the dramas of the mind, will start showing up more frequently during meditation and will begin extending to even the periods of the day when one is busy.

I hope you have enjoyed reading my experience. For me though, there were times when I thought of quitting the course, but thankfully they were few. Most of the time, I could perceive the benefits, short-term and long-term of practicing this technique. I am thinking of alternating between mindfulness and vipassana meditation for now. Let's see how it goes.

Observing the thought cycle

So lately I have been observing the thought cycle. I meditate during the nights and in the morning.

Do some breathing exercises (pranayama) and then just observe the thoughts or observe the screen in front of my forehead (inner space).

During the rest of the day, I usually use a mantra.

Mantra is pretty useful. Here are a few benefits I have observed:

1) The primary role of mantra that I have observed is that it acts as a reference thought to observe other thoughts that go in your mind. For example, if your mantra is peace. You would repeat it silently in your mind often, so that whenever a negative thought or a thought of lower vibration comes up in your mind, your mantra acts as a contrast to that negative thought and you immediately switch your focus back to the mantra. Negative thoughts could be fears, worries, anxieties, resentment, past hurts, regrets, revenge,etc,etc.

If you don't have a reference thought or a mantra, you can get caught up in these negative thoughts without realizing that you have been caught up. These negative thoughts are like a trap.. They trap you into thinking that it is important to think about them or else... (fear based thoughts). So you think about them, till you get tired or have some thing important to do. Then you get back to your fears and worries. Many a times, these fears and worries come out as a habit of the mind.

2) A mantra makes you realize that with less negative thoughts in your mind, peace comes to the surface naturally. It's like, oh, so my fears and worries were keeping me away from happiness and peace. Why the heck do I have these worries and other negative thoughts anyway?

So, a mantra brings you back to that awareness of the insignificance of these thoughts.

The worries and fears might loom large, they might call on to you. They might say, 'Oh, hey you, you must focus on me. This is important. You must find a solution to this. Or else...(some negative outcome)'. A mantra then brings you back to the present moment and makes these worries and fears insignificant.

3) A mantra makes you aware of how much time you spend thinking negative thoughts, even sometimes without being aware that you are. It becomes so unconscious. You see a person you don't like, and immediately there are some negative thoughts that go through your mind.

Something didn't happen as you expected, and you mull over it, you bring in your worries and fears to that situation. Many of these negative thought patterns are subconsious and automatic, it's like we have programmed ourselves to think negatively when there are certain external triggers. Mantra helps in releasing these reactionary patterns and brings you back to present.

Some people think that when you chant a mantra such as 'Om namah shivaya', you would be trying to please Lord Shiva into give you want you want. That is not why you would chant that mantra. Shiva represents the qualities of detachment, stillness, and peace that are already within you. If you really want something from Shiva, focus on these qualities that Shiva represents that are already within you when you chant the mantra.. Feel that peace, feel that clarity and stillness when you stop paying attention to negative thoughts by chanting the mantra in your mind.

Letting go of worries and fears completely or not?!

So this is where the cycle begins. Ok, so you have this mantra going in your head to make you more aware of what's actually going on in your head! And, now what? What if there is a fear or worry that crops up due to something that just happened? It seems so urgent, this fear or worry, it seems so important. Can I focus on it just a little bit... a teeny-weeny bit?

May be I can. Ok, so mantra on hold! Let's focus for one minute. Is this fear real? Can it actually happen? Oh may be it can. Oh shit, I better do something about it! And at this moment, we have again begun the process of perpetuating the cycle of negative thoughts in the mind.

A few hours later, you are like, 'oh my god', I have gotten completely off-track. I have been mulling on my fears and worries, and have been distracted from my work! Let's get back to mantra. For the rest of today, I am going to make sure that my mind is on the mantra, nowhere else. The next day, you see someone you haven't seen in a while, again the mind presses you to focus on the negativity through a memory related to that- regrets, hurts, revenge! It's important the mind says, I must take revenge for what this person did to me! The ego also begins to press you, since it's getting a lift. Oh yeah, I am getting my revenge!

Another cycle has begun, you have gotten off the mantra and onto this 'revenge thing' and then an hour later you realize, oh I am off-track.

So the question is, can you just totally cut through this cycle of mantra to negativity to mantra and just have the mantra all through bringing you peace? We don't allow ourselves this priviledge, because of the subconsious reactions to sensory inputs. It takes a while, quite a while before the cycles begin to shorten, i.e. you begin to realize that you are in the negativity trap quicker than before and then switch to the mantra. So that's where I am aiming at.

I have been thinking to myself, I just want to let go of my fears,worries, and other negative baggage completely and just have the mantra on or just have peaceful thoughts on. Am I willing to do that? What will stop me from doing that? The answer is my fears!!! Plain and simple.

I do want to let go of my fears completely. This is where I am headed. It's going to happen: Maybe today, maybe a month later, but definitely soon.

Jon Kabat Zinn on Mindfulness Meditation @ Google

Fantastic FAQs on meditation

I found this website that has very good FAQs. The questions cover many many aspects of meditation experiences, kinds of meditation, problems, etc and the answers are pretty good.
Jim Malloy, who compiled this FAQ seems to be very knowledgeable and full of wisdom gained from his meditation practice and experiences. Really worth a visit if you are into meditation. Here's the link.

Beuatiful songs

The 17th Karmapa, Ogyen Trinley Dorje was in Seattle last summer. I was there for his talk in one of the big auditoriums in Downtown seattle. The introductory song, consisted of 'Karmapa Khyenno'...
This song, whose lyrics I didn't understand, struck a chord with me.. I was deeply resonating with its tune and it seemed to remind me of something...I was a little in tears listening to this song.
I found it on youtube later on:


Here's a similar tuned song:

To worry or not to worry: That is the question!

'To be or not to be: That is the question', is a oft-quoted one from Shakespeare's Hamlet.
'Being' is a state. You can be happy, sad, fearful, joyful, high, low, peaceful, or in a state of 'worry'.
Let's look at worry.

If you say, you are fearless and yet worry, you do not understand worry completely.
When you worry about something, when you worry for example, on whether your relationship is headed in the right direction or not, or whether your career is unfolding as you expect it to: The basis for these worries is fear. You fear the consequence of the relationship not turning out well. You fear the consequence of your career not turning out as expected.
There is a distinction between being cautious and planning ahead vs worrying about it. Worrying is a repetitive state of mind, where one plays out 'what-if' scenarios in one's head repeatedly. It is a state that begets more of itself. That is to say, the more you worry, the more you can worry!

The understanding that stems out of examining worry is that, it serves no purpose, at all! It could probably keep you stressed, it could probably keep you tense, it could probably make your heart beat fast, and it could also affect your health adversely.
But positive affects of worrying? None, whatsoever. (Let me know if there is one!)

All this is easy to understand, but to say, 'Ok I am going to stop worrying. I will plan ahead, but I will not worry' - That might not work out. Why, you ask? It's because the mind does the worrying and you are asking the 'mind' to stop worrying. You are talking about calming down the mind!
Who said that's an easy job?
When a 'direct' approach to stop worrying doesn't work, one can turn to 'indirect' approaches. Some of them are:
a) Having positive thoughts about whatever you are worrying about. Example: It's all going to work out well, It's all going to be good, etc.
b) Distracting your mind from the worry through focusing on something else. For example, focusing on your work..Putting all attention to it. Or, taking a break and doing a favorite activity, etc.
c) Understanding the mind-body connect: Relaxing the body, calms down the mind and calming down the mind, relaxes the body and applying it by using a relaxation technique to relax the body and thus calm down the mind.
d) Meditation - Active or passive.

What do a),b),c) and d) have in common? They are all centering tools.. They center your awareness to the present moment, which is free of all worries, fears, regrets, hurts, etc: All the things that keep you from being happy. So the idea is simple: Be in the present moment(i.e. your mind focused on the present), whatever activity you maybe engaged in and that's the key to happiness.
Sound's simple? But the implementation is the tough part. As with anything, the implementation is made easier through practice.
For me, this is a totally sound basis for using these centering tools. The last centering tool, meditation is as varied as you can imagine. In meditation, centering can achieved by focusing on one's breath, which is ever present, or focusing on an object of one's choice, outside of oneself or within one's own imagination. Meditation can also be of a passive kind, where you can act as an observer to whatever's happening at the present moment. You can also be an observer to your own thoughts! 'I am observing my own thoughts!' - Isn't that funny?
The next question is, if you are observing your thoughts, who is thinking them? :)

Hiking and Meditation

How are these two related?
I remember the first hike I had once my spring quarter ended in 2008. I was going through a rough patch in life and I hadn't hiked in a while. Going on in my mind was a lot of worries and fears.. What if? Will that happen? Oh my god, where is my Phd headed? You know, I was a good 'worrier'.

When I went hiking on that spring afternoon, I remember thinking, what the heck? So many thoughts rushing through my head and all of them are my fears and worries. All through my hike to the top of tiger mountain and back, I had these thoughts rushing through.. I was helpless, I was a mere observer. I wasn't engaging them, I wasn't doing anything, it was just happening.. I was a mere observer. Atleast I tried to be, but I was also worrying about these worrisome thoughts in my mind!! The next day, I went hiking again to a different place, and felt a little better. The next day, I went hiking to Wallace falls state park, it was raining all through, it was pouring, but I enjoyed the hike.

The connection between hiking and meditation is this: In the meditation I do, I just observe whatever thoughts are going on in my mind, passively, without engaging them.. This is also known as mindfulness meditation.
During my first hike, these thoughts were rushing through.. Being in nature, being in solitude, puts you in touch with your unwanted worries and fears.. That's why some people fear being alone.. They don't want to face their thoughts. Hiking in nature is like a soothing caress.
If there is excess baggage that you are carrying around in your mind, nature brings it out, so that you feel better at the end.. That's what happened to me during that hike.
This happened to my friend too.. He came hiking with me and he just couldn't stop talking.
I asked him to enjoy the hike but he said that if he stopped talking, he had to listen to all the chatter in his mind!! So he did the next best thing, listen to music on his mp3 player.

I remember another ocassion, I was very worried about something. I had to take a break and go for a walk. There was a trail near Udub I hadnt explored. I went in that direction, found that trail and that trail went to the edge of the lake union, beautiful place that is. In the beginning I was continuing my worrisome state, what if? Oh what should I be doing, etc. But as I entered the trail, my thoughts slowed down. I had a distinct recognition that I was more peaceful now than before.. I started enjoying the scenery around, I came back refreshed. Nature is a wonderful, nurturing place to be in.

Combining hiking and meditation. Since there is a definite parallel between hiking and meditation, why not combine them? Thats what I have been doing on my recent hikes.
Stop, and smell the flowers. Admire the tall tree. Be amazed by the different shades of green all around. Sit in a quiet spot on the trail, and just enjoy the silence. Enjoy and be grateful for the fact that you are in a wonderful place, right here, right now. Hiking, I love it.

It's been a year... Part I

Since I began meditating. Lot of changes have happened within me. What I mean by that is, there have been changes in my attitude towards life, the way I respond in any given situation, the way I compose myself, etc. Meditation helps you identify patterns that you indulge in unconsciously or subconsciously. It's been 3 incredible years I have had in Seattle....This post will also double up as a flash back of relevant periods of my life!

Fight or flight
I read recently in the book, 'Surprised by Grace', by Amber Terrell on how we indulge in the 'fight or flight' pattern. What this means is, given any situation, if the situation is perceived to be unfavorable by some yardstick that is unique to every individual, then there is a tendency to either fight the situation or run away from the situation.
What else could you do, you ask? Well, you could become 'comfortable' with the uncomfortablness!
Really, that's what meditation has put me in touch with: becoming comfortable with the 'uncomfortable', the 'unacceptable', the 'oh no - not again', the 'never agains', etc.

OCD and Meditation
Infact, I suffered from a chemical imbalance 9 years back and the disease was called, 'Obsessive Compulsive disorder' (OCD), although this wasn't the repetitive action thing.. It was a repetitive thought thing. In the common form of OCD, people tend to repeat actions, like washing hands 20 times to make sure it's clean or checking if the door is closed 10 times before leaving the house etc. In the OCD I had, I would get repetitive thoughts of a particular kind. These thoughts I absolutely detested and wanted them out of my mind.. But they would come anyway uninvited and not once a day, or once an hour, they would remind me of their presence every minute.
Sleep was my only respite from these thoughts. I constantly prayed to god at that time.. please relieve me of these thoughts that trouble me, please help me become comfortable with myself.
You see, it was all about becoming comfortable with the uncomfortable, the unacceptable.
In 2003, my 2nd year of my undergrad program, I attended a 3 day workshop by Swami Sukhbodhanada, where I learnt a few meditation techniques (Read about that here). Until then I had been on medication: I was using a drug called fludac and it was supposed to calm the mind. But in hindsight, I think the drug wouldn't have done me a whole lot of good if I had continued with it. I stopped using this drug after I learnt the meditation.
Infact, when I did the observation meditation, I attempted at becoming comfortable with the unacceptable, detestable thought. That was the beginning of my recovery from this dis-ease.
I practiced that meditation for sometime, and then I discontinued it once I took up running, another excellent way to get in touch with your self and come out of depression... (I had small bouts of depression too during that period). I also practiced a relaxation technique called Shavasana every day, which was very effective in keeping my body relaxed.
From then on, my life took a change. Really, sometimes I just couldn't bear the thoughts I had, it was because I had a strong hatred for those thoughts from my childhood. Sometimes I thought, I would go insane. But it didn't happen, infact now I see the dis-ease as my training ground.
Through the OCD experience, I learnt how strong I am, mentally strong that is and I also learnt that constant hatred can set you up for an experience like I had, where you learn to be at peace with anything and everything, no matter how unacceptable it may be.
It' s not that you favor the unacceptable, it's just that you don't pay attention to it. And you do that by first making peace with it, and second, by letting it go.

Coming back..
That was a brief flashback! Yes, well, OCD was my first ginormous life-challenge that I overcame successfully. My second set of life-changing experiences began when I landed in Seattle to pursue my Phd program. More on this Part II of this post..!

Meditation, I find is fundamental to my life.. It's the reason, I overcame the OCD, it's what has kept me stable during periods of instability(see part II of this post). My gratitude abound for meditation being a part of my life today.

Creating space for meditation

I have moved into a new house in Greenlake, Seattle. And before even moving in, I imagined how the space I allocate for meditation would be. It would be a large enough sitting area surrounded by things I consider sacred, which include crystals and pictures of sacred dieties and inspiriational people. And that is how I have it right now. My meditation sessions have also gone up in time.. I am able to do 30 minutes on an average these days and they get deep once I hit the 20 minute mark. 2 days back I did a 45 minute meditation (I didn't time it) which I didn't want to end. When I opened my eyes, I felt refreshed and a little sleepy. So I guess sacred space is pretty important for meditation. My previous apartment was very crowded and I didn't have a set space. This new apartment, I have created a nice space for my meditation practice and made sure that there is nothing nearby that's haphazard or disorganized.
Meditation also helps me see through the illusions of life, the dramas of life. If I am perturbed by something, I look forward to my meditation during the night, for I know that I will come out of the meditation feeling relaxed, reassured and have a good night's sleep.
Here's to deeper meditation and more inner peace and bliss through daily commitment to meditation.

Observing your thoughts: A meditation technique

I was introduced to this meditation technique of observing the thoughts in a 3-day workshop( by Swami Sukhbodhananda) I attended in India 6 years back.

The only thing you need to do in this meditation technique is just passively observe the thoughts without engaging them. If you get a thought, 'Oh, I have to finish this work by tomorrow' while meditating, just observe it. Don't engage the thought by replying in your mind, 'Oh yeah, lot of stuff to do'. If you get a thought, 'I have to pick up the mail after the meditation', just observe this thought, you are not in a pressure mode here, relax, you will remember what you need to do once you finish the meditation. You see, the only thing that you have to do is be an observer, a passive spectator, see the games and tricks the mind plays, observe how it brings up the past, or the future. The mind does a good job of bringing up past hurts or future worries. See the thoughts the mind brings about passively.
Now, thinking, 'I have to just observe my thoughts, I have to just observe my thoughts' is NOT observing, but participating with the thoughts. So how do you get around this?
Before beginning the meditation, make an intention to just observe the thoughts and not get caught up in the thoughts that surface during observation. You don't have to silence the thoughts. Let them go on, but don't engage them either. Be a passive audience to the thoughts. It takes some practice, but with time, you will begin to not engage the thoughts and start to enjoy the meditation and the silence it brings about.
I personally have had quite a few meditations where the thoughts gradually died down without any effort on my part as the meditation progressed and the ensuing silence (or very few thoughts) was beautiful.

Here's a great article that elucidates this method.
Also, here's a post I wrote earlier on how the meditation practice unfolds.

Interesting review of Vipassana retreat

Came across a nice review of the 10 day Vipassana meditation retreat. You can find it here.

I plan on doing one in June, when the summer break begins. Also, the website for Vipassana courses here.

Experimentation and experiencing spiritual phenomena

As a graduate student, I think I have more flexibility in terms of what I can do with my time as compared to people who have a regular job. At any given time, I can either do research, go for a run, do a meditation, read a spiritual book, or simply experiment with stuff.
I have spent a lot of my time reading spiritual books, trying out meditations, trying to see if the methods described in the book actually work. For example, I read an exercise for viewing the aura on the internet and I tried it out in the library:

Auras
While doing a homework in the Odegaard undergraduate library at Udub, I noticed that infront of me was a small placard with something written on it that I don't remember right now. I then thought of testing out this aura stuff on the placard. I read that every colour gives off its complementary aura.
For example, green reflects a pink aura, pink gives green. Similarly, [blue, orange], [Violet,yellow] are auric pairs. The placard in the library was pink, so I expected to see a green colour. I unfocussed(yep your read it right) my eyes around the edge of the placard, and ka-boom, there was the greenish blur around the edges.. If I tried to focus my eyes, the green would vanish.. That's how you see the aura, you unfocus your eyes around the edge of an object.

What about human auras? I stood in front of the mirror in the bathroom of my apartment, partly closed the door so that it was darkish inside but with some light streaming in from the bedroom.
I stood gazing at the edges of my head, unfocussing my eyes to see if I detected anything or any colour. A minute later, I was able to see a thin white band around my head. As soon as I focussed my eyes on the white band, it went out of visibility. So 'being unfocussed' was the trick!
I haven't been able to see aura around people though.. As far as my aura, I can only see the whitish etheric laryer around my body in the mirror.

Energies
I began noticing energies first in my hands while meditating. It was like something was buzzing in my hands.. I think energy is a decent term for this buzzing. It was like wow..what is this buzzing that is happening in my hand. Initially, it only happened when I meditated. Now a days, it happens, every now and then, especially if I am totally into a devotional track.
I also started noticing a sprinkling/tingling/crawling sensation on the top of my head when I meditated. Some say this is a sign of the crown chakra being active. It's like there is some sort of a download that's happening at a portal near my head!
During a Reiki session, I had some pretty cool experiences like a sense of floating, feeling spacey, feeling a lot of heat in certain areas of the body, etc. The Reiki philosophy talks about the Reiki healer being a conduit for the cosmic energy to flow through to those parts of the body that require healing. So experiencing these energies personally, made the Reiki philosophy seem pretty credible.


Lights
I also see flashes of lights every now and then (my eye sight is normal!). I also see blobs of pink colour that stay for a few seconds (I think they could be my guides), though very infrequently.

Synchronicities
Synchronicities refer to meaningful coincidences.. That is coincidences that carry more meaning to you than anyone else. For example, I was walking down to the Safeway store one morning to buy some grocery. Going on in my mind, was whether I should lie about something to someone.. I was in two minds, since I always try to say to the truth unless it is very uncomfortable. Entering Safeway, I heard a song that went,'Just tell the truth...'. Now this could just have been a coincidence, but it had a lot of meaning to me at that moment, and hence it's a synchronicity. Synchronicity is an indication of your being guided or your being in touch with your higher self.

Why am I writing about these experiences? One main reason is that you might have stumbled on this blog (through google for example) and might have had a few of these experiences without knowing if it was your imagination or if it was for real. You might also feel a need to know (I definitely did) if others are having these seemingly unusual experiences that you are having and if these experiences have meaning.
I mean it's one thing to say that you have a pranic or etheric body and another thing to even experience the energies or vibrations associated with that etheric body. So yeah experimentation is a great way (or maybe the only way) to validate the spiritual material you have read.

Rhythmic motion during meditation

My daily meditation routine is going pretty good, infact I have a good sense of how important meditation is in shaping my thoughts, my composure and behavior, and hence it's kind of the number one thing I would like to do everyday.
Today's meditation was unique in that right from the point where I closed my eyes, I began to sense a ticking inside the body which grew into a gentle rocking of my body back and forth.
It was as if I was acting out how my upper body would be when I do my running.. Going back and forth rhythmically, only that I wasn't doing this action, it was happening involuntarily. And I found it to be quite a pleasant experience..especially the rhythm involved in the motion. Before I began the meditation, I lit a candle and invoked Amora, a higher conciousness, to aid me during the meditation. Altogether 30 minutes of good rhythm.
I blogged on the same topic last year. You can check it out here .

Update: After writing up this blog, I came across an article that resonates with the content in this blog: Meditation in Motion