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Vipassana, or Insight Meditation, is probably the most powerful practice you could do to find a sense of peace and tranquility and direction in your life.
It's core is seeing things as they are, right now, without judgement or rejection.
This takes immense courage.
Why Meditate?
Mental and Emotional stress does not come from the things that happen to us but from our reaction to them. Our responses.
So, if the cause originates in the mind then the answer must also be found in the mind. Your thoughts follow you wherever you are, be it in an Indian Ashram or on a holiday by the sea.
The answers to our questions are not 'out there' but inside us.
Drugs, alcohol or addictions of any kind are just displacement activities to hide us from the reality we need to face.
The challenge wont go away by hiding under the duvet or ignoring it.
The Inward Adventure programme is an incredibly powerful tool in helping us to take control of our lives.
The main function and effect of sitting gently, observing your breath and letting go tension is to see things how they are, as they arise:
- To allow thoughts to arise and move on without judgement or attachment.
- So that you are not distracted by what your body is doing or by external influences.
- Then your mind can focus with clarity, can let go and just 'be'.
Meditation has two main directions:
- 1 - your attention is taken away from your current reality - basically you are visualising something. Either you are relaxing, maybe listening to a cd or maybe creating affirmations. You are taken away from the now. When you return the situation is still the same.
or
- 2 - your attention is focused right here, right now and you are directly experiencing your current reality, without judgement or agenda.
~Acceptance, allowing and a detached awareness lead to a feeling of peace, greater awareness and more understanding.
This 2nd one is Vipassana or Insight meditation.
It is what we teach and is probably the most important part of the experience of the Inward Adventure journey.
What is it?
Insight Meditation shows us how to re-connect to ourselves. To know ourselves in a direct and compassionate way. To see things as they are through the lens of clarity, without the fog of fantasies obscuring our awareness.
This happens by seeing into how we truly are and that seeing is what allows the process of opening to occur.
It is the matrix, the glue, which binds together all of the elements of our lives, whether it's practising Yoga or Tai-chi or Rock climbing or Mountain biking or drinking a coffee or hugging or ……., everything that we experience at every moment of our lives.
It is what allows us to fully experience whatever we are doing.
We become alive, finding peace and joy and tranquility by not resisting what is.
How is it done?
There is an intense focus on what is happening right now, in this moment, without judgement or mental interference. Just watching, with a quiet acceptance, what is arising. Much like a mother will watch her child in a playground. She doesn’t constantly interfere but observes her child in the process of growing, knowing that he has to experience life for himself, directly, accepting the little challenges which will arise. Facilitating his growth.
This is why it lends itself so well to the disciplines we practice.
During Yoga or Tai-chi or Liangong or whatever we are doing at any time, we just observe deeply what is happening, right now. What arrises. Then we can take the appropriate action to move us to where we want to be.
We can learn to deeply feel what is happening, right now, when we find our alignments, breathe deeply into a stretch in Yoga, or move with grace and balance in Tai-chi or walk with poise and minimum effort when out shopping.
What are the benefits?
Our everyday minds are in constant action, never resting, constantly flitting from this thought to that one, so a sense of peace is not possible. Monkey mind!
When we focus on what we are doing, seeing, feeling - being in the moment - and we let go the actions of our minds, a profound sense of peace and tranquility can arise and fill our being.
Events become just events which we can deal with as they happen, without descending into a quagmire of difficult emotions.
We can’t always control what happens to us but we can learn to choose how we feel about that event.
This calm space doesn’t always arise and cannot be made to happen.
We just create the conditions and quietly wait to see what arises, with a feeling of quietude and gentleness.
The Process.
There are a number of ways to make this happen, the thread connecting them all being a focus on one thing only, whatever you choose that to be (within certain boundaries).
An anchor for your restless mind be it a candle flame, a sound or feeling the tensions in your body.
We use the body and the breath to generate a deep stillness. This focus allows our minds to become more quiet as the incessant chatter of the ‘monkey mind’ becomes stilled, for a few seconds.
We gently count the breath with a deep focus and awareness.
We can’t stop the inner dialogue so we don’t try. Rather, it's seeing the spaces between the thoughts as they float by.
This allows a feeling of spaciousness to arise in our minds.
- So we sit, with our body in alignment, watching the breath and feeling the body relaxing into a gentle stillness and quietness, with no expectations or outcomes or goals.
- Or we move with calm and grace in Tai-chi and Qigong, becoming one with the flow of the beautiful, rhythmic, movements.
- Or we let go into the stretch in Yoga, feeling how the breath and the body combine in wonderful harmony to facilitate an Asana.
- Or we sink into the wonderful, alternating, contraction and relaxation of muscles whilst flowing into the beautiful postures of Liangong.
- Or we sit in the cafe, find our alignments, relax our muscles, focus on the tea or coffee in front of us and really appreciate where we are.
That’s it! Just be here, right now, and feel a deep sense of appreciation for this journey, this adventure, because if you're not right here, right now you are in a fantasy, a dream world and you're not experiencing life as it happens, in all it's raweness and immediacy.
- Our minds will ceasessly try to sabotage by distracting us, procrastinating, blocking, resisting our practices.
- We are continually challenged to keep the practice going, even when we trip and fall and get up and move forward - again and again and again. Like a child learning to walk - we have compassion for ourselves, in our efforts.
- And, Magically, we learn to love and appreciate the journey, not the achievement of the goal, important though that is.
Who is it for?
Anyone who can breath, use their mind and has a sincere desire to explore that Magical inner world of Mind that leads to Peace and Harmony within.
Those who feel the world is a stressful place.
Those who want a sense of calm into their lives.
Since we all have a body, we are all breathing and we have a conscious mind we can all use the power of Insight Meditation.