Meditation in Stillness, Meditation in Movement - Emptying & Relaxation

By Stephen Cheney

Previous Chapter: Focus & Balance

EMPTYING

We do not only combat adversaries in the external world. Within ourselves, because we retain memories of past unpleasant experiences or fears, we are in combat with turmoils within ourselves, and this mental challenge to sanity and peace can be far more common in daily life than any mugging or warfare.

Daily ordinary aversions naturally cause stress in the mind and this causes stress in the body. When under mental stress the trapezius muscles at the back of the neck tense and lock in order to raise the arms so to be ready to either ward off an attack or to strike as may be needed. This natural mechanism can be unconscious and over time tire the muscles and restrict blood flow, and can cause a headache.

The mind needs to be emptied of its natural worries and this is not easily done. A change of attitude, that is a mental state, is required. People stressed out of their brains with severe anxiety can see no way out from their problems and their mental functions and their options for any solutions deteriorate. The problem dominates them.

Their mind is as a cage they are within and they are surrounded by the horror of their problem; they are small and their problem is big. 

Another thinking path needs to be chosen, and that is that your mind is a universe of its own. It can mimic the vast universe around it; it is not small. Within your mind you can contain many different memories, thoughts, ideas, and problems. Each day is normal if it has a problem. Some are solvable and some are not. Those that are solvable require your taking action to correct them. Those that are unsolvable must be avoided or endured. Would your problem still affect you if you were no longer in the area, or lived far away? If you must remain with your problem can you get help from others or undertake new learning to resolve it? If you must remain with your problem can you put up with it by changing your tolerance level to include it? Living next to loud train noises, those people adapt to conquer it and no longer take notice and overreact when a train passes by. Of course some problems are so great that under them you perish. But life ever seeks to fight or escape and live on.

To empty the mind often requires quietness, little body activity and in a peaceful environment, a deliberate focusing on some point or object. In movement or combat that point may be your central body point. In stillness that point may be something conveniently in front of you that is enough to capture the mind, such as a candle or sphere. In other words the mind must be distracted from its internal thoughts, discussions with its self, and its worries. In both stillness and in movement the mind can be sent to focus on its breathing. Breathing is its rhythm of life and counsellor as to the level of danger that it must cope with. When you slow down your breathing and focus awareness upon it - that also calms the mind. You empty the mind by giving it a new experience. The mind never fully sleeps but always toys with something, even if only in the subconscious level.

Exercise in Emptying

The mind is not made to be empty, when activated it is full of thoughts, wanted and unwanted. To empty the mind you need to disassociate.

1. Form another mind within your mind and then separate that bubble from your main mind and send it off away. There are no thoughts as yet in the new mind. So you send and enter your presence there.

2. Leave the old mind behind with its many confusions. You are deliberately on holiday. Populate your new mind with an expanse of darkness or of light and just bathe yourself in that. You BECOME the Darkness or the Light to just be and radiate yourself, in order to not have to think about anything. Keep radiating blankness or light and enjoy the moments. That is all you are, a star of Light or a flow of Blackness; what you were long ago in the beginning of time.

3. To come back to the world here, just focus on what you can hear.

Those who seek knowledge, collect something every day. Those who seek the Way, let go of something every day. - Laozi (Lao Tzu)

RELAXATION

Tension is restriction, it has its purpose, but it restricts outward natural movement, for tension is a form of clutching, it can even be a selfishness and a fear. Tensed matter tends to break and shatter on impact. Relaxed matter tends to bend and complement an incoming force. One can be a brittle stick, or a flexible reed. One breaks in the hurricane and its shattered parts serve memory of passing forces. Life ceases. The other one weaves with the hurricane and retains little memory that a hurricane was once there. Life goes on.

Combat mode is a relaxed mode, but relaxing does not mean slouching. In boxing, where the arms are held up in front of you, as in many combat arts, you do not tense those arms nor use your strength (firmed muscles) to keep your arms up in the air.

Relaxation exercises

1. Bring your arms up in front of you in guard position: Fists in front of your face, arms bent and elbows directly vertically below your fists, protecting your chest, elbows being one fist width away from your torso. Now open your fists into open palms and let your hands drop from the wrist, keeping your arms in same place as before. Your hands are soft and floppy and your arms feel loose and flexible. Now you are able to whip those arms outward at a whipping speed.

2. Standing, you bring your head upright, you drop your shoulders onto the top of your chest frame, and you lower your hips and bend your knees slightly. Swing your loose straight arms from the shoulder joints. Press down your weight into your feet and feel your weight. With this feedback from feet and muscles your brain will know just how much effort is needed to keep you from falling and maintain good balance. With minimal use of muscles to hold you up, you now have maximum usage of your remaining muscles to send force outward.

3. To sleep in a bed, use some tension to press your whole body downwards into the mattress. Then let go, relax. Repeat a whole body tensing and pressing downward to ‘fit’ your shape into the mattress, then let go. Do a few times and see if that muscle contracting and then deliberately relaxing helps you to sleep soundly. It is easier to relax a tense muscle by deliberately tensing it some more and then relaxing it, than by trying to tell your muscles to just let go and relax. Action is greater than words.

Fill your bowl to the brim and it will spill.

Keep sharpening your knife and it will blunt.

Chase after money and security and your heart will never unclench.

Care about people's approval and you will be their prisoner.

Do your work, then step back.

The only path to serenity. - Laozi (Lao Tzu)

Next Chapter: Flow & Control

[The views expressed in this publication are solely those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of Dissecting Society™ . © 2007-2019 Author(s) ALL RIGHTS RESERVED]