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The Holistic Mystic: |
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Types of Meditation |
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by Lonny Brown, Ph.D. |
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To the beginner, there seems to be a bewildering array of meditation traditions and techniques to choose from, each with its own emphasis and perspective. The main approaches are briefly described below. As you investigate them, see if you feel a natural, resonant affinity with one or more. With time, teachers, investigation and reflection, one's own path is revealed.
Apart from the differences among meditative traditions, far more significant is what they have in common: the application of awareness to that which has been variously named awakening, realization, insight, transcendence, understanding, absorption, enlightenment, etc. If this most worthwhile state is the destination, meditation is the perfect vehicle.
MINDFULNESS MEDITATION
Mindfulness meditation - also known as insight meditation - is 2500 years old and currently making a significant impact in both medicine and contemporary spirituality. Buddhist in origin, it is nonetheless a purely non-sectarian basic awareness training method. It involves paying moment to moment attention to your own mind (which sounds deceptively simple at first, but requires practice). The reward is a type of inner mental freedom that allows us to be less reactive and more creatively responsive to life's challenges.
Mindfulness and insight require that we be able to focus, at will, for extended periods of time, on our real-time physical and mental experience, in the moment, without distraction. To develop the necessary attention, we begin with a reliable internal object of meditation, which serves as an anchor or central reference point for the mind. Bodily sensations are the first best objects of meditation, and can include the breath, heart beat, senses, balance, or energy levels at various organs and nerve centers. When mindfulness of body or breath is established, it can then be applied to other contents of experience, such as thoughts, feelings, actions, etc. The object is to become fully conscious in daily life.
WITNESS AND BARE ATTENTION
When a quite, balanced meditative awareness is reliably developed through mindfulness of breath, it's time to apply it to other things.. and everything. Instead of a single focus, open your field of awareness and become a dispassionate witness to whatever arises, physical or mental, outside or inside. This is called "bare attention" or "choiceless awareness" because we no longer have preferences or reactions to physical and mental events. It is a very freeing experience.
( Watch this column for more explanations of different approaches to Meditation.)
Excerpt from "Meditation - Beginners Questions & Answers" by Lonny J. Brown, Ph.d. available at www.WritersCloset.com.
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Lonny Brown,
Ph.D.
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Lonny J. Brown, Ph.D. is the author of "Self-Actuated Healing" (Naturegraph, Publ.), and "Enlightenment In Our Time," (BookLocker.com/
LonnyBrown).
His writings on holistic health have appeared on AOL's Alternative Medicine Forum and in Alternative Health Practitioner, Yoga Journal, and many other progressive publications.
Dr. Brown teaches holistic health, mind/body healing, and stress reduction courses at hospitals, schools and businesses throughout the US. His Web site also features essays, tapes, books, and links to a variety of integrative health sources.
Lonny J. Brown, Ph.D. is also the author of " ENLIGHTENMENT ONLINE - The Newsletter for Spiritual Cyberspace.
holistic.com/lonny
lonny@holistic.com
lonnybrown@aol.com
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