{"id":1,"date":"2011-02-27T22:54:00","date_gmt":"2011-02-27T22:54:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kivatherapeutics.com\/b\/?p=1"},"modified":"2011-06-18T16:11:52","modified_gmt":"2011-06-18T16:11:52","slug":"hello-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.kivatherapeutics.com\/b\/2011\/02\/27\/hello-world\/","title":{"rendered":"Techniques to practice while meditating:"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/strong>\"\"<\/a> Ever sit down to meditate and feel like you\u2019ve failed?<\/strong> Me too. Luckily, then I get this nice little voice in my head that comes from a great big source. It says, \u201cThere is no try. Only do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ha. But in all seriousness, Yoda was onto something. Meditation isn\u2019t about trying. It\u2019s about being. And when we try, we\u2019re not being. We don\u2019t need to beat ourselves up for not getting a good meditation connection happening every time, and every minute that we meditate. That voice sounds a bit like Buddhist teacher Hue Wong\u2014he says a lot of things along the lines of \u201cJust accept yourself completely.\u201d<\/p>\n

So what\u2019s the practical point?<\/strong> Let\u2019s combine these two gurus\u2019 teachings into one: let go of trying to make yourself meditate, and accept your self-perceived limitations.<\/p>\n

Here are 5 things I practice while meditating:<\/h2>\n

1. Let your mind wander a while.<\/strong> When we first sit down to meditate, we\u2019re in transition phase, moving away from the busyness of whatever we were doing before we arrived in our seat, and into the stillness within. We can\u2019t expect our minds to meet us there instantly. So letting them wander a while in the beginning, rather than resisting it right away, helps ease the transition. Was it Carl Jung who said, \u201cWhat we resist persists\u201d?<\/p>\n

2. Start with your eyes open.<\/strong> This helps for many reasons. When we start with our eyes open, we help our mind ease through that transition phase. Focusing on one very small area can give your eyes something to occupy them and your mind. And stilling our gaze helps to still our mind.<\/p>\n

3. Don\u2019t sit still.<\/strong> My friend and mentor Swami Hue Wong\u00a0 shares stories about sitting in stillness for hours at a time\u2014deep in blissed-out meditation. But when he teaches us, he\u2019s toootally fine with us moving around a bit. He gets that we live nutty busy maxed-out lives\u2014us\u00a0 modern-day yoga teachers\u2014and knows that resisting the movement and adjustments at this stage in our mental-physical evolution will just lead them to\u2026persist.<\/p>\n

4. Move your body.<\/strong> On that note, Jivamukti Yoga founders David Life and Sharon Gannon teach that we cannot make ourselves meditate. We can make ourselves concentrate. Dharana, or fixation of attention within the mind, is the sixth limb of yoga outlined by yogic philosophy powerhouse Patanjali. Yep, we could concentrate on something still\u2014an image of our guru, or a candle flame, or a mandala, or our favourite pop idol\u2014or we can concentrate on our asanas. Simple sun salutations can become a beautiful moving meditation when done with mindfulness.<\/p>\n

5. Make it with mantra.<\/strong> I love mantras. And they don\u2019t have to be in Sanskrit. \u201cPeace, peace, peace\u201d works nearly as well as \u201cShanti, shanti, shanti.\u201d I say nearly as well because the Sanskrit terms are designed to resonate on a physiological level within the multiple energy centers streaming within our body. I\u2019m a big Sanskrit mantra lover, but sometimes I just like ones like \u201cLet go.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hopefully some of these tips resonate with you, too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ever sit down to meditate and feel like you\u2019ve failed? Me too. Luckily, then I get this nice little voice in my head that comes from a great big source. It says, \u201cThere is no try. Only do.\u201d Ha. But … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[23],"class_list":["post-1","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-healthandfitness","tag-meditation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kivatherapeutics.com\/b\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kivatherapeutics.com\/b\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kivatherapeutics.com\/b\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kivatherapeutics.com\/b\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kivatherapeutics.com\/b\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/www.kivatherapeutics.com\/b\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":182,"href":"http:\/\/www.kivatherapeutics.com\/b\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1\/revisions\/182"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kivatherapeutics.com\/b\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kivatherapeutics.com\/b\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kivatherapeutics.com\/b\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}