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Mother
August 2007 
Leading Meditation
Posted on Aug 21st, 2007
by 
Whitewave
Whitewave
Ohmygoodness! I can't believe that they asked me to do it and I DID IT! I lead Meditation Class last night. I got to learn how to ring the bell; one of those brass bowls that you ring with a special mallet. It was great. We always follow a certain format:
20 minute sit
20 minute walk
20 minute reading
So, the 20-minute sit was, of course, a no-brainer. Heh-heh. And I decided to throw a certain spin on the walk. With each right step, inhale and imagine arriving at certainty - about whatever was up for you for that moment. With the left step, exhale and imagine departing from certainty. Right = I know. Left = I don't know. And this goes very, very slowly. There were about 7 or 8 people there that night. Usually there are only about 3 or 4. So after the walk, which for me was really fun and illuminating. It made me want to create a special garden or pathway somewhere where there are stepping stones with "Certainty" and "Uncertainty" imprinted on them and enough of them so you could walk without bumping into people for about a half-hour.
Everyone has thoughts that come up during meditation. It's part of the exercise to learn to welcome them and then say goodbye. This is sometimes confusing for me, and I think, others. I have a tendency to confuse that with repression. I know this is common, because the reading I used spoke about it. So, I used certainty as another way of shifting awareness. Instead of trying to let the thought go, it created a shift in attitude towards it. It became an epistemological exercise - which is also very fruitful. "My bike" comes up as a thought. "I am certain about my bike being there for me." "I am no longer certain that I will have my bike." "I know." "I don't know." Just shifting it back and forth created alot of emotion and also new awareness of how fragile I am and easily jerked around I can be because of the presence or lack of certainty. Many issues became fodder for this and I became aware of forgiving myself for my fear. One of the people at the meeting said he became aware of the cycle of certainty/no certainty becoming one experience. This was another great thing that I got too. I got alot of great feedback on it, and they all got alot out of it.
For the Reading section of the session, I chose a portion out of Pema Chodron's "The Places That Scare You". It was about containing emotional distress with meditation. It advised to let the particulars of the story which is distressing to us just drop, but retaining the emotional energy. Then leaning into that energy and making more room for it to abide. She said straight out,
"Experiencing our emotional distress. Many people, including longtime practitioners, use meditation as a means of escaping difficult emotions. It is possible to misuse the label 'thinking' as a way of pushing negativity away. No matter how many times we've been instructed to stay open to whatever arises, we still can use meditation as repression. Transformation occurs only when we remember, breath by breath, year after year, to move toward our emotional distress without condemning or justifying our experience."
After the comments came in, I realized how confusing and troubling this is for many people. One woman said it was exactly what she needed to hear. Another woman said that this can be traumatizing so keep it contained in small bites - successfully negating the entire point. There is a huge difference between the small self being subjectively dragged off by emotional turmoil and the larger Self intentionally opening up a space for it so that the small self can experience it with safety and compassion.
The more I practice all this, the more I realize that God has presented Himself as a larger Holon or a place-holder for people who are not yet at a more advanced place in awareness or development. For each level there is a higher level, so God is both at a level ahead and also where we are right now. Now and then I hear Bible verses in my head that are saying what I've just learned but using this place-holder-for-the-next-larger-Holon kind of metaphor. Here's a snippet about emotional distress:
"No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to us all. And God is faithful; He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, He will also provide a way out so that you can endure it."
1 Corrinthians 10:13
I just get warm fuzzies when I think of how this was presented to a people in a time where expanded awareness was not on the menu, but it was tucked inside this caring metaphor to help them nevertheless. It's really very compassionate and sweet.
Gotta go.
~Ww
20 minute sit
20 minute walk
20 minute reading
So, the 20-minute sit was, of course, a no-brainer. Heh-heh. And I decided to throw a certain spin on the walk. With each right step, inhale and imagine arriving at certainty - about whatever was up for you for that moment. With the left step, exhale and imagine departing from certainty. Right = I know. Left = I don't know. And this goes very, very slowly. There were about 7 or 8 people there that night. Usually there are only about 3 or 4. So after the walk, which for me was really fun and illuminating. It made me want to create a special garden or pathway somewhere where there are stepping stones with "Certainty" and "Uncertainty" imprinted on them and enough of them so you could walk without bumping into people for about a half-hour.
Everyone has thoughts that come up during meditation. It's part of the exercise to learn to welcome them and then say goodbye. This is sometimes confusing for me, and I think, others. I have a tendency to confuse that with repression. I know this is common, because the reading I used spoke about it. So, I used certainty as another way of shifting awareness. Instead of trying to let the thought go, it created a shift in attitude towards it. It became an epistemological exercise - which is also very fruitful. "My bike" comes up as a thought. "I am certain about my bike being there for me." "I am no longer certain that I will have my bike." "I know." "I don't know." Just shifting it back and forth created alot of emotion and also new awareness of how fragile I am and easily jerked around I can be because of the presence or lack of certainty. Many issues became fodder for this and I became aware of forgiving myself for my fear. One of the people at the meeting said he became aware of the cycle of certainty/no certainty becoming one experience. This was another great thing that I got too. I got alot of great feedback on it, and they all got alot out of it.
For the Reading section of the session, I chose a portion out of Pema Chodron's "The Places That Scare You". It was about containing emotional distress with meditation. It advised to let the particulars of the story which is distressing to us just drop, but retaining the emotional energy. Then leaning into that energy and making more room for it to abide. She said straight out,
"Experiencing our emotional distress. Many people, including longtime practitioners, use meditation as a means of escaping difficult emotions. It is possible to misuse the label 'thinking' as a way of pushing negativity away. No matter how many times we've been instructed to stay open to whatever arises, we still can use meditation as repression. Transformation occurs only when we remember, breath by breath, year after year, to move toward our emotional distress without condemning or justifying our experience."
After the comments came in, I realized how confusing and troubling this is for many people. One woman said it was exactly what she needed to hear. Another woman said that this can be traumatizing so keep it contained in small bites - successfully negating the entire point. There is a huge difference between the small self being subjectively dragged off by emotional turmoil and the larger Self intentionally opening up a space for it so that the small self can experience it with safety and compassion.
The more I practice all this, the more I realize that God has presented Himself as a larger Holon or a place-holder for people who are not yet at a more advanced place in awareness or development. For each level there is a higher level, so God is both at a level ahead and also where we are right now. Now and then I hear Bible verses in my head that are saying what I've just learned but using this place-holder-for-the-next-larger-Holon kind of metaphor. Here's a snippet about emotional distress:
"No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to us all. And God is faithful; He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, He will also provide a way out so that you can endure it."
1 Corrinthians 10:13
I just get warm fuzzies when I think of how this was presented to a people in a time where expanded awareness was not on the menu, but it was tucked inside this caring metaphor to help them nevertheless. It's really very compassionate and sweet.
Gotta go.
~Ww
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