The 22 Things Happy People Do Differently

Number 16: Meditate

Meditating silences your mind and helps you find inner peace. You don’t have to be a zen master to pull it off. Happy people know how to silence their minds anywhere and anytime they need to calm their nerves.

Original article: http://successify.net/2012/10/31/22-things-happy-people-do-differently/

Qigong in the News: find the right kind of meditation

The right kind of meditation for you; Mantra, mindfulness, zen, and qigong visualization are different ways to relax

New research suggests you could be missing out on all the health benefits of meditation by simply starting out with a technique not well matched to your personal tastes.

NY Daily News : Wednesday, July 11, 2012, 11:32 AM

Did you give meditation a chance and decide it's not your cup of tea? New research suggests you could be missing out on all the health benefits of meditation by simply starting out with a technique not well matched to your personal tastes.

Adam Burke, director of San Francisco State University's Institute for Holistic Health Studies, suggests trying another method to see which one is best suited to you.

"If someone is exposed to a particular technique through the media or a health care provider, they might assume because it's popular, it's the best for everyone," he said. "But that's like saying because a pink dress or a blue sport coat is popular this year, it's going to look good on everybody. In truth, different people like different things."

Burke and colleagues recently conducted a study of college students new to meditation and their preferences among four meditation techniques -- mantra, mindfulness, zen, and qigong visualization.

The participants learned all four different techniques, with 31 percent rating mantra as their preferred choice and another 31 percent choosing mindfulness. However, 22 percent said zen was their favorite, and 15 percent voted for qigong. Participants who opted for mantra and mindfulness said they thought the techniques were easier to practice, more calming, and less complex.

Partly accounting for the differences in tastes, the researchers note, is age, with older participants opting for zen, while younger participants preferred mindfulness. The results of the study appear in the July 7 issue of the journal Explore: The Journal of Science and Healing.

Another type of mindfulness meditation known as integrative body-mind training (which focuses on breathing and posture awareness) has recently been a hot topic in the media with a new study that found that the technique can have a positive physical effect on the brain, boosting connectivity and efficiency. The study appears in the June issue of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Meditation shopping? While it may seem strange, it is perhaps the best approach to finding a technique that works for you, at least according to a new study from San Francisco State University's Institute for Holistic Health Studies.

Published on July 7 in the journal Explore: The Journal of Science and Healing, the findings reveal that by finding a form of meditation that works for you, you are less likely to quit. The result of sticking with it? Research-backed benefits of reduced stress, lower blood pressure, and help with addiction problems.

While meditation styles vary, you'll want a comfortable, quiet room, perhaps a cushion to sit on, and anywhere from five to 20 minutes for beginners.

Here are a few traditional seated meditation techniques used in the study that you may want to try:

Vipassana (or mindfulness) - This meditation dates back to the times of Gautama Buddha and translates to "seeing deeply." You can start out by breath awareness and then advance to stages of being mindful of your perceptions and thoughts at any time, regardless of what you are doing. Some people attend 10-day Vipassana retreats, or "bootcamps," to delve deeper into the practice.

Mantra - This style involves the repetition of a word, phrase, or sound, or repeatedly envisioning a specific image. In the San Francisco State University study, participants imagined a ball of light in the area of their heart. For sounds or words, basically every sound-vibration you can think of is a potential mantra, but one of the most popular ones is Om.

Zen - Zen is similar to mindfulness in its focus on presence of mind, but it involves a more general awareness, rather than a focus on something specific. The practice typically asks you to silently focus on breathing and posture with eyes open in a quiet place and to dismiss any thoughts that pop into your head, essentially "thinking nothing."

Qigong visualization - This Taoist practice utilizes several techniques to help restore health and balance to the body, including the Inner Smile, visualizing "smile-energy" penetrating your internal organs; Moon on Lake, visualizing the moon's reflection on a lake; and Holding Heaven in the Palm of Your Hand, imagining the energy of the galaxy in the palm of your hand. Other simpler techniques, such as those used in the study, involve imagining a beam of light running along the spine.

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Tonight, we meet in the basement of the prestigious Kresge Auditorium from 7-8pm. See you there! To join our email list for updates on locations and special events, click here: http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/qigong

Meditation Training for the Martial Arts

Meditation Training for the Martial Arts

By Sifu Zopa Gyatso

Meditate on the unborn nature of mind:
Like space, no center, no limit;
Like the sun and moon, bright and clear:
Like a mountain, unmoving, unshakeable;
Like the ocean, deep, unfathomable.
- Jetsun Milarepa 

Just as they hone the fitness of their bodies and their reactions, many martial artists practice meditation to hone and control their minds. Meditation can assist martial arts training and performance by giving the practitioner the ability to focus and relax the mind. In combat a relaxed but focused mind is essential and may well be the factor which ensures you are a survivor. Japanese samurai well understood this and sought out Zen masters to learn this skill and studied it assiduously. Likewise, Chinese masters, both Buddhist and Taoist, in various martial traditions, have stressed the necessity of mind training to attain superior skills. This is especially marked with respect to the internal systems, some of which have extensive chi gung and meditation curricula. Wing Chun Kuen, of course, has its Siu Lien Tao form, the first section of which can (and in my view, should) be used as meditative exercise.

In this article I will restrict myself to discussing seated meditation. Standing meditation is slightly physically different but involves essentially the same mental processes. Likewise I refrain here from commenting on chi gung. The thing to bear in mind, in both martial art and meditation, is that you must seek transfer of training to application. In other words, the calmness you achieve in practice must be transferred to the normal world by consciously practising the transfer. Otherwise, you are simply training something in isolation, "in an incense-filled room", as some-one recently put it. You need to practice your calm relaxation during training and to be aware of it during an actual self-defence encounter.

In the Tibetan tradition of mind training there are two types of meditation. These are: Shi-ne (Tibetan), Samatha (Sanskrit) or Calm Abiding meditation (English) and Lhag mthong (Tibetan), Vipasyana (Sanskrit) or Insight Meditation (English). Both are essential but one must master Shi-ne before Lhag mthong can yield any benefits. This article focuses on Shi-ne. In the words of my lama, Lama Choedak, Shi-ne tunes our minds to the wave length of spaciousness, freedom and happiness.

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Here are the reflections on Shi-ne meditation: 

My mind has long been lost in search of happiness Without knowing how transient all things are. Seeing the unsatisfactoriness of real life experiences, I will not allow my mind to wander outside.

Turning back the forcers of harmful habitual inclinations And holding firmly to the peace and tranquility within I rejoice in the store of joy I have discovered I the happiness of observing the intrinsic calmness. Let this clear and luminous state of mind Not be overshadowed by my habitual tendencies; Abiding in the natural calmness and serenity of the mind Let me see all perceptions as nothing but its mere reflection.

Neither grasping nor rejecting any sensory perceptions. I shall see them as adventitious ripples and waves Of the sea of my mind in deep meditation And absorb them into the ocean of clear mind.

As I focus my mind to sit in the correct meditation posture Let the physical self express the deep yearning To experience the calm, still and spacious nature of the mind And transcend the problems I have with this body.

The incoming breath brings in all the positive things outside me And permeates the whole nervous system of my body; As the rays of the morning sun dispel the darkness It soothes the pain and temporary discomfort.

As I retain my breath, let me sustain The vital energy of wakefulness and awareness Enabling me to let go and forgive the past And enjoy the fresh manifestation of this bare moment. My outgoing breath releases all feelings Of tension, anger, stress, anxiety and worry As the masses of dark clouds suddenly disappear Let the adventitious circumstances lapse to dawn a new beginning.

Breathing and observing the bare moment of awareness Without assuming what it will become May I live every moment with pristine awareness Without delaying an unforeseen future to cultivate it.

Following the wise sages by respecting their words of wisdom Let me remember skillful ways to apply them to everything I do, say and think, so that my conduct brings no harm to others And may I not become a victim of what I do, say and think.

While watching the constant flow of thoughts Without discriminating between those that are good or bad Let me neither be overjoyed with meditation Nor depressed by my lack of concentration Sinking in a withdrawal of the senses Is relaxation of the conscious self, but not meditation. Let me not be excited by the slight virtues of concentration I have just begun to experience.

Holding the rope of mindfulness and the hook of alertness May I resolve to tame this mind which is like a wild elephant.

Steadily focusing the mind with moderate application of antidotes May I discover what causes its restlessness.

When I find no sensory objects which are not in my reflection All visions and experiences are the circumference of my self. Like trees, mountains, rivers and heaven and earth My existence is to give and share what I have with others.

How can I cling to and grasp what I have obtained from others? As soon as I let something go, I create space and experience joy. As soon as I give things away, I find a joy not found in keeping them. Learning to cherish others will bring me happiness that will last.

***

If you decide to add meditation practice to your training then you will not regret it. In my view meditation is an essential component of training in martial arts both for the practical benefits which flow from it in application but also for the training of a calm mind which can express Mo Duk .

The Five Origins of Traditional Qigong

Qi for Life

By David Cowan

Traditionally, all qigongs come to us from five distinct schools of philosophy—these are the Confucian, Daoist, Buddhist, Martial and Medical schools of qigong. Each qigong school shares similarities in form and principals of practice but emphasizes a distinctly different goal.

• Confucian qigong—as practiced by the ruling elite—the goal was to train oneself to remain emotionally detached and centered no matter what the situation.

• Daoist qigong focused primarily on increasing longevity which led to the pursuit of alchemy—the turning of base metals into gold—and an attempt to discover: Dan, the ‘Elixir of Life.’ The goal of Daoist qigong is Immortality.

• Buddhist qigong focuses on the attainment of Enlightenment. The goal of all Buddhist practices is to become a Buddha sustained by undisturbed inner-peace gained through the practice of meditation.

• Martial qigong’s goal is to become invincible in any fight—a supreme martial artist. Kung fu masters train themselves to become impervious to injury and perform amazing feats of skill and agility due to their years of intensive physical, mental discipline, and their heightened body awareness.

• Medical qigong’s goal is the alleviation of illness, freedom from sickness, good health and long life.

Many medical qigongs are Daoist in origin, but Indian and Buddhist yoga is strongly influential too. Interestingly, the fateful blending of Chinese Daoism and Indian Buddhism gave rise to a powerful new branch of Buddhism known as Chan Buddhism—or as it is commonly known in the West—Zen.