Tag: Mind monkey

Let’s Talk Witch – Even Witches Need To Know How to Meditate

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Let’s Talk Witch – How To Meditate

To begin, sit in a darkened room (not pitch dark, but dim lights). Sit still, sit quiet, for 10 minutes. No music, no talking, no tapping your fingers, no jiggling your foot, no moving your head or cracking your neck or looking around. It’s harder than you think. If you don’t make it through the first time, try again the next day (don’t rush it or you’ll just get really mad at yourself – this isn’t a speed competition!) and keep trying until you can sit still and quiet for 10 minutes. You can think about anything you want, the point is to be physically still, and not have any external stimuli (no TV, no music, no whatever). This teaches you to have a quiet body. This also teaches you about time, because it’s hard to know how long 10 minutes is. Your eyes can be opened or closed, it doesn’t matter (and blinking isn’t counted as moving, so you can blink all you want).

Once you are able to sit still for 10 minutes, then try sitting for 10 minutes and think only about white things. If you start to think about something that isn’t white, stop yourself, and start thinking about white things again. Here’s a list of words to help you get started:

Snow, polar bears, cotton, vanilla pudding, paper, light bulbs, chicken, arctic hare, white wolf, beluga whale, dove, cream, soap, flower, milk, flour, rice, refrigerator, tooth, swan, snowy owl, sand, stones, clouds

Once you have done it, do it twice more, on different days. Ten minutes thinking about things that are white. It will teach you how to concentrate and how to have a quiet mind. If you think about white things and you start to move, try again. If you are still, but you think about what that jerk on the bus said to you today, try again. Each time you try, take at least a one day break in between your tries. You will learn concentration and discipline, both very important for meditation. Don’t rush it, this isn’t a contest!

When you are comfortable with spending 10 quiet, still, minutes thinking about things that are white, try 10 minutes thinking about things that are natural, like animals, grass, trees, sky, and so on. Anything in the natural world, made naturally and not altered by human hands. Remember to keep still, and keep quiet. Don’t say the things out loud, just think them in your head.

If your mind wanders, just pull it back. So if you are thinking about animals, and you think about your cat, and your cat’s fur, and your cat’s meow, and the neighbourhood dog that chases your cat, that is fine. If you then think about the neighbourhood dog that barks, and your stupid neighbour who lets the dog bark at night and it wakes you up and then you get a bad sleep and you have an important meeting tomorrow and… now you have let your mind wander. Immediately think of another natural thing, and refocus yourself.

Then, practice and practice and practice until thinking about natural things is really really easy, and being still is really really easy. Think about different things each time – maybe think about animals one time, and then flowers the next time.

I recommend thinking about natural things because it is a great way to connect to the Goddess. So that when you want to meditate on the goddess Diana, for example, you can concentrate on things that are important to Her: trees, a cool stream, a deer, a dog and so on, without getting off track.

Give it a try, it will take some time to get good, but it will be worth every minute you spend trying. It will let you connect better with the Goddess, and that will increase the power of your spells and magick.

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Daily OM for October 18th – Quiet Please!

Quiet Please!

Taming Monkey Mind in Meditation

by Madisyn Taylor

We all have the endless chattering and noise in our head often referred to as the monkey mind.

It’s been called the monkey mind – the endless chattering in your head as you jump in your mind from thought to thought while you daydream, analyze your relationships, or worry over the future. Eventually, you start to feel like your thoughts are spinning in circles and you’re left totally confused.

One way to tame this wild creature in your head is through meditation – although the paradox is that when you clear your mind for meditation you actually invite the monkey in your mind to play. This is when you are given the opportunity to tame this mental beast by moving beyond thought – to become aware of a thought rather than thinking a thought. The difference is subtle, but significant. When you are aware of your thoughts, you can let your thoughts rise and float away without letting them pull you in different directions. Being able to concentrate is one of the tools that allows you to slow down your thought process and focus on observing your thoughts.

To develop your concentration, you may want to start by focusing on the breath while you meditate. Whenever your monkey mind starts acting up, observe your thoughts and then return your focus to your breath. Some breathing meditations call on you to focus on the rise and fall of the breath through the abdomen, while others have you concentrate on the sound of the breath. Fire can also be mesmerizing, and focusing on a candle flame is another useful tool for harnessing the mind. Keep the gaze soft and unfocused while observing the color, shape, and movement of the flame, and try not to blink. Close your eyes when you feel the need and continue watching the flame in your head. Chanting, devotional singing, and mantras also still the mind. However you choose to tame the monkey mind, do so with firm kindness. The next time the chattering arises, notice it and then allow it to go away. With practice, your monkey mind will become quiet and so will you.

The Daily OM

8 Ways Meditation Can Change Your Life

8 Ways Meditation Can Change Your Life

We can’t imagine what life would be like without meditation. It has seen us through tough times and many life  changes, keeping us sane and grounded and real. Life is challenging enough; we  can never know what will arise next and only when our minds are clear and  focused can we make the best decisions.

How are you able to deal with the madness and chaos that occurs daily? How do you deal with the challenges  of life? Meditation is highly misunderstood and often under-rated yet is perhaps  what it takes to be a truly sane person. How does meditation affect us? How does  it shift our priorities, enable us to make friends with ourselves, to find  answers to our questions?

Here are eight ways meditation can make your life more meaningful and  enjoyable!

1. Living With Kindness

No one deserves your kindness and compassion more than yourself. Every time you  see or feel suffering, every time you make a mistake or say something stupid and  are just about to put yourself down, every time you think of someone you are  having a hard time with, every time you encounter the confusion and difficulty  of being human, every time you see someone else struggling, upset, or irritated,  you can stop and bring loving kindness and compassion. Breathing gently,  silently repeat: May I be well, may I be happy, May I be filled with loving  kindness.

2. Lightening the Load

In a stressed state, it is easy to lose touch with inner peace, compassion  and kindness; in a relaxed state, your mind is clear and you can connect with a  deeper sense of purpose and altruism. Meditation and  medication are derived from the Latin word medicus, to care or  to cure. A time of quiet calmness is, therefore, the most effective remedy for a  busy and overworked mind. Anytime you feel stress rising, heart closing, mind going into overwhelm,  just bring your focus to your breathing and quietly repeat with each in- and  out-breath: Breathing in, I calm the body and mind; breathing out, I  smile.

3. Letting Go of Me

Stillness is always there between the thoughts, behind the story, beneath the  noise. What keeps us from experiencing our natural state of being is the  habitual and ego-dominated monkey mind. Meditation enables us to see clearly, to  witness our thoughts and behavior and reduce self-involvement. Without such a  practice of self-reflection there is no way of putting a brake on the ego’s  demands. From being self-centered, we can become other-centered, concerned about  the welfare of all.

4. Dissolving Anger and Fear

We do not accept or release our negative feelings so easily; we are more likely to repress  or disown them. But when denied they cause shame, depression, anger, and  anxiety. Meditation invites you to openly meet these places, and to see how  selfishness, aversion and ignorance create endless dramas and fears. Beneath  these is a quiet stillness where you can get to know yourself; this is a  wondrous and beautiful experience. Whether you practice for just ten minutes a  day or longer does not matter. You are releasing your limitations, while opening  to self-acceptance and awareness.

5. Awakening Forgiveness

Forgiveness is the greatest gift you can give yourself and  others. As you sit in meditation and watch your thoughts and feelings moving  through you, so you can observe that who you are now is not who you were just a  moment ago, let alone a day, a week, or a month ago. Who you, or someone else,  was when pain was caused is not who you are now. When you experience your  essential interconnectedness you see how the ignorance of this creates  separation and suffering, so that forgiveness for such ignorance arises  spontaneously.

6. Generating Harmlessness

Simply through the intent to cause less pain you can bring greater dignity to  your world, so that harm is replaced with harmlessness and disrespect with  respect. Harm is usually caused unintentionally, whether by ignoring someone’s  feelings, putting yourself down, reaffirming your hopelessness, disliking your  appearance, or seeing yourself as incompetent or unworthy. How much resentment,  guilt, or shame are you holding on to, thus perpetuating harmfulness? Meditation  enables you transform this through recognizing your essential goodness and the  preciousness of all life.

7. Appreciating Appreciation

Take a moment to appreciate the chair you are sitting on. Consider how the  chair was made: the wood, cotton, wool, or other fibers, the trees and plants  that were used, the earth that grew the trees, the sun and rain, the animals  that maybe gave their lives, the people who prepared the materials, the factory  where the chair was made, the designer and carpenter and seamstress, the shop  that sold it—all this just so you could be sitting here, now. Then extend that  deep appreciation to everything and everyone in your life.

8. Being Aware

Awareness is the key to awakening. Through awareness you can see your monkey  mind and all its mischief. Almost everything we do is to achieve something: if  we do this, then we will get that; if we do that, then this will happen. But in  meditation you do it just to do it. There is no ulterior purpose other than to  be here, in the present moment, without trying to get anywhere or achieve  anything. You are just aware of whatever is happening, whether pleasant or  unpleasant. No judgment, no right or wrong. Simply being aware. Enjoy!

6 Tips to Simplify Meditation

by Ed and Deb Shapiro

Meditation is simple and transformative, yet it is highly misunderstood. Some people think it is about controlling the mind or stopping thinking, while others see it as both weird and wacky or boring and meaningless.

Yet meditation really just means being totally present, totally aware with whatever is happening. It is being with ourselves completely as we are. If the mind is thinking, then we are aware of the thinking; if the body is moving, then we are aware of the movement. Hence we have sitting meditation, sound meditation, walking meditation, even running meditation. It is not purposefully doing anything other than just being here and now.

And just this is transformative. It creates an inner spaciousness in which we can gently stop the endless “me-centered” dramas, our mind that is like a drunken monkey leaping from one scenario to another.

“Meditation can mean really being focused on something, or it can mean letting go of all focus and simply being still,” says Gangaji in our book, Be The Change: How Meditation Can Transform You and the World. “It is not a matter of saying, ‘I am going to meditate,’ it is more like ‘I am just going to be here for a moment without doing anything, without following any thought.’ And, in that, there is peace, a surrendering the mind’s activity to this vast silence and spacious awareness. It is not anti-mind activity; it is simply that usually the mind is spinning round and round, so it is a stopping of that spin.”

Meditation is both an experience of oneness and the practice that enables us to be aware of this. As we make friends with ourselves, we discover a freedom from habitual tendencies, from repetitive behavior, and we experience a great joy, peace, and unconditional happiness. It is, therefore, the greatest gift we can give ourselves.

But the world is like a magnet pulling us outward into all manner of distractions, so we often need help, methods or techniques, to remind us to just be still. We need to be guided inward. Here are six steps that can lead us in that inner direction:

Six Steps to Freedom

1. Create a daily practice even if it is just for 5 minutes. Meditation has an accumulative effect, so doing it for a few minutes every day is actually more helpful than an hour once a week.

2. Meditate for the sake of it without expectations, as it can cause stress and even a sense of failure if you look for results. No appointments, no disappointments!

3. Make friends with your breath. Focusing on the natural flow of your breathing will give your mind something to do and encourages your attention to go inward. In this way you also make friends with your meditation practice.

4. Make friends with your chattering monkey mind. When you are still your mind can seem very busy and distracting. Name this your monkey mind and don’t take it too seriously.

5. Commit to your peace. There is nothing more important than your peace, it is the core of your being, so make a commitment to being still and quiet regularly.

6. Do It

Meditation techniques are many and varied, but all that matters in being fully present. Try this:

Sit comfortably with your back straight.

Take a deep breath and let it go.

Be aware of each breath and silently count at the end of each out breath, up to five: Inhale, exhale, count one… inhale, exhale, count two… and so on for five breaths. Then start at one again. Just five breaths and back to one, following each breath in and silently counting. So simple.

Do this as many times as you want, breathing normally.