Myth Of Meditation & The Million $ Secret
THE MYTH OF MEDITATION – AND THE MILLION DOLLAR SECRET ~ ISSUE 205 ~ MARCH 15, 2016
By Diane Gold
The myth of meditation is the “we can do it” myth. We hear talk about different kinds of meditation as well as unique results from various people. So, what’s the myth? Myth Of Meditation
DEFINITIONS
Let’s define meditation as taking the time to get the self to a state of chaoslessness. Others call it contemplation, but that is only part of the process which meditation is and, not starting with the clarity to contemplate, does not signify failure. We have to train in any discipline. The act of taking the time to begin is the process of meditation.
The definition of myth is a false idea that is widely held (such as the idea that the heart stops when we sneeze which resulted in our blessing each other because of the danger).
So the myth of meditation is a false idea about taking the time to get peaceful.
THE MYTH
Here is the myth of meditation: that all we need do to do meditation is one of many step-by-step procedures, and, if we do this, we will succeed. The reason I say it is the “we can do it” myth is that teachers tell meditators they can do it and give them a method. The glitch in that system is that the method prescribed often lacks a crucial element.
Yes, it’s a given that if we take time out to sit in a corner, listen to quiet music while lying on a couch, smell our favorite fragrance, sit on the beach in quietude, we will be enhancing ourselves at that very time. But, the myth prevails because many how-tos have the same weakness, the inability to lead the meditator to do one action at a time.
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This article is dedicated to Sassy, a gentle spirit of a dog for whom I was given the privilege of part-time guardian. We miss you, Sassy Machine. Shout out to her human parents for bravely living the lesson that we must put the good of our honorable animals ahead of our own desires to keep them with us when it is time for them to go.
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THE WANDERING MIND
What we remember when we are coming up with methods on how to meditate is that we are looking for the monk mind, the focused mind. What we forget is that it is our mind’s job to grab stimuli and explore, unless we train it otherwise. Therefore, to start, most of us will get distracted by every external thing. That includes being distracted by the very things that are part of our given how-to for the purpose of quieting the mind, like listening to temple music, saying a mantra (repeating a word over and over in the mind), picturing a color or image, all while we are breathing to sustain ourselves and get the self to a state of chaoslessness.
MINIMIZING THE CHAOS
So, we need some technique that immediately eliminates stimuli. That means the joy of learning something new, hearing a new sound, smelling a new smell, feeling a new feeling, seeing a new sight, tasting a new taste must be replaced with a technique that eliminates these things so that the hungry mind learns another way. Here’s something that might help.
ACTION STEPS – THE BASIC COURSE CORRECTION FOR ANY MEDITATION METHOD
1) Know that if you are doing anything other than watching your breathing, you are doing more than one thing at a time.
Here’s a cut and dry way of looking at doing one thing at a time: take the example that, while standing with no other supports, we cannot lift both legs at the same time without falling. We know that if we are standing on our L leg with the R knee raised high, we cannot lift the L leg off the standing surface because the L leg must remain as support. We know this because the body would react by falling if we did. Similar in concept is the example of breathing and doing some other meditate-y thing like saying a mantra. We actually cannot do breathing and something else and be attentive to both. Because we don’t fall down from breathing and doing something else, we don’t notice that we are splitting our attention in two. Many well-meaning meditation guides do not notice it either and build failure into their step-by-step how-tos. When our minds start wandering, we wonder what is wrong with us. The answer is: nothing; the method may need adjustment.
Can you ask your how-to mentor about this? Once you accept someone as your leader of how-to meditation technology, until you have done the step-by-step technique 1000 or more times, no matter what your question, you are not qualified to understand the answer. This is not because the teacher is grand, and you are not. It’s because it takes experiential training to have a framework from which to hear and understand what you are asking. Just keep in mind that the method may include splitting your attention, the opposite of the goal. If the teacher knows, the teacher may have some other opportunity in mind. If the teacher does not know, the method may be unworthy. Hard to know, since it takes 20 years to understand the ways of a teacher.
2) Know that doing any how-to method you trust will give you wonderful benefits, so begin now. If you are taking this time to do a meditation how-to, you are certainly not robbing a bank or selling your watch to buy crack. This is good. If you are taking this special time for meditation, you are quieting the mind in some way by the nature of your preparing and beginning. And you may work through any flaw in the how-to system as a result.
CONCLUSION AND MILLION DOLLAR SECRET
The myth of meditation exists because people do not talk about meditation as a process. They talk as if monkhood or pure concentration will arrive immediately. It could, but it most likely will require long term study and work to achieve such a state. And we prefer to talk about special spiritual music, special places in which to meditate or images as tools. And we rarely talk about the glitch in the method, because we don’t realize it or we are too busy.
To simplify things and the fastest way to dispel the myth of meditation along with getting some bang for your hard-earned buck (meditation work) is to focus on the air as it enters and leaves your body.
As you take a slow breath in, watch the air as it floats up to the top of the head, then down to the groin. As you slowly breathe out, watch the air as it goes up the body and comes out the front of the head.
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Know that you can reach out to a fellow human, probably to the person right next to you. If that interaction works out poorly, do it again. It’s worth it, since most people are nice and want to connect with you.
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Thanks.
DIANE GOLD, PUBLISHER AND AUTHOR
Diane Gold, Founder of Warriors of Weight, Turning Habits Into Health, has been a mentor in tai chi, kung fu and meditation, has been a music, fitness and stress expert, dedicated mom, studying peaceful conflict resolution, habit replacement and has been certified in plant-based nutrition.
She believes it’s important to share the truth. She says,
“What I mean by the truth is something that occurs the same way over and over again. So, with meditation, when I have watched all sorts of methods be too complex for people, I am choosing to come forward and simplify what is being said. Let’s have a success experience right away. It will not be the success of trance-ing out because we have become enlightened masters in a moment (although it could go that way). For most of us, it will be the success of beginning a journey where each time we take the time to jump into the meditation process, we know it is a process and this knowledge is a joy. We become more and more relaxed and more and more comfortable with whatever we are doing, knowing that the doing is the goal.
“Take a chance, watch your breath, and have a nice day. What could go wrong? If you don’t like it, you can choose not to do it. But there should be something glorious in every day. It just could be the meditation process.
“Please write and tell me your story, especially about meditation. I will drink it up, if you do.
“Finally, let’s take overall good care of ourselves – including loving ourselves and our fellow beings at all costs – because we are always worth it.”
EXERCISE OF THE WEEK:
STANDING, SITTING OR LYING DOWN, ALONE IN A BATHROOM OR OTHER PRIVATE PLACE, CLOSE YOUR EYES AND, SLOWLY, BREATHE IN AND, SLOWLY, BREATHE OUT. OPEN YOUR EYES. DO THIS ONCE. IF YOU LIKE IT, DO IT ONCE A DAY FOR A WEEK. IF YOU LIKE IT, CONTINUE.
Food habits are developed in all of us. We consume the same foods or types of foods over and over again because we like the result. When we do a behavior repetitively to satisfy a certain desire, we have a habit. It becomes something we can do without thinking, and we find ourselves doing it almost automatically.
Balance in our lives seems like a “played out” expression, verbal hype that marketers, coaches or therapists (sometimes hard to tell them apart until we look at their wall) use to lure us into buying their coaching programs. But the reason so many people seek out the programs (like 
The balance in our lives is really a process. It’s not one place we obtain and stay. As with the wind, there are always new goals, new conditions, new feelings, new advantages, new obstacles for which or from which to adapt.
Our habit of not paying for our food is common. Since most of us are basically moral and would not thoughtfully take food without growing it or compensating the grower for it, this statement needs further discussion. We’ll start with the upfront premise that it is our duty to preserve our humanity and whatever else lives on our planet with good food.
Newsflash! Currently, no one pays a monetary price for this. Everyone’s grandchildren will pay for it.
This means no one pays financially for the circumstances we create, and no one pays to clean what we dirty.
(If we wanted to look from a health perspective, we also pay because eating meat, fish, fowl and dairy cause health issues. So, we pay with our health.)
If we don’t educate ourselves because we listen to Big News which is close friends with Big Agro which miseducates us or omits how agriculture drives global depletion fueled by our gluttony; we are closing our eyes and failing to learn. Many teachers are not yet aware of the vast differences in land, oceans, air, soil used to farm animals or plants. Even if we don’t mean to do it, if we don’t investigate how we are not paying, we perpetuate the hurt.
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John Perkins told a story about the Shuar Tribe in Ecuador. One of the community came back to the elders with news that a plant along the trail was healthy when he went by, but 72 hours later, when he came back, the plant was sick. The elders had a council meeting, conferring with a wise one who said the plant gave a sign that the path was overused. They decided to take community responsibility and ruled to close the path.
5 Ways To Improve Your Health And Mine will pick areas that are commonly important to us all. How can we go wrong with these options? Feeling healthy makes us feel happier, be more self-sufficient, be stronger on a daily basis, build our body’s foundation and position ourselves for a longer life. So, let’s consider whatever of these ways makes sense and add one to our lives for the new year.
Obviously, we are involved in breathing all day. The body regulates this action automatically, if we don’t. But we can pay deliberate attention to it for extra health. When we slow down and pay attention to the air that goes in and the air that comes out, we build up life energy, almost as if we are storing valuables in a vault. Not much time is needed here, either. Just consistency.
Water is crucial. The more fruits and veggies we eat, the more water we have to drink as water. As long as we keep our body’s water balanced, 65% of our body mass, we will be in good shape. The body has water inside our cells, called intracellular fluid. It also has water outside the cells, extracellular fluid, such as water in blood, spine, stomach, both of which have to be kept balanced. Food and salt intake concentrate the “out of cell” fluid while less dilute it.
The great news about stretching is that we can do it almost anywhere. We have joints that move while we are stationary, so we can think of a body part and begin to move it. Moving it brings heat, blood with life-sustaining oxygen, and flexibility. We do not need any special exercise.
In the past several decades, in the United States, there has been talk about superfoods. The word, superfoods, has been so overused by the nutritional supplement industry that it’s hard to know what’s marketing and what’s science.
Whether we sleep alone or together, taking a short moment to put a smile into ourselves before we fall asleep will cause relaxed mind and muscles and make for good dreams and restful sleep.
There is a ritual of creating the New Year’s Resolution. This ritual is popular, so it turns into a habit by the very nature of peers questioning,
It is crucial to understand the difference between personally subscribing to peer pressure and externally accommodating the rules of peer pressure to be in harmony with society. We can decide that we, personally, do not put much value in the group ethic or what the group of peers is saying, or I may care about one group, and you may care about another. It’s important to act our truth. We may decide to act in a particular social manner so that peers can enjoy interacting with us and eventually understand our focus. We choose how far we compromise our ultimate truth, if, at all.
Let’s say there are two kinds of clothing to wear, and, for today’s example, we don’t have the opportunity to make or obtain any other kind. One kind is stylish and looks runway-model-like. It is made from a combination of genetically modified cotton (which most of our cotton is) and a petroleum based fabric, polyester.
The Airplane Workout
There are 815 million U.S. travelers per year (rita.dot.gov), meaning 135,000 are subject to clotting in flight . According to hopkinsmedicine.org, 3% end up with a pulmonary embolism that ends up in death. That’s 4,000 people per year in the U.S. alone who could die from a clot that originated on an airplane.
Let’s talk about how we perceive the flight itself. Most of us figure we can get some rest, listen to music, engage in friendly talk with our neighbor, or do some business with no interruption. We could also dedicate our time to eating genetically modified peanuts, full of the worst kind of salt, as we progress along on our journey.
When we think about it, airplane time is the perfect arena for tuning up on fitness. There isn’t the distraction of other gym goers with whom to compare or socially pursue. There isn’t a lot of space to divert our attention. We can’t leave. And we don’t need any equipment.
Be someone’s vitamin and let kindness save us from our every day habit of rushing. What if we spared one minute for someone else? And what if we started to do this on a daily basis?
Let’s look from a different perspective. What if we needed someone’s time that would mean the difference between life and death: help making a decision about how worthwhile our life was or help deciding whether or not to leave on a round-the-world cruise when the seasick medicine didn’t work from the start or help evaluating a crucial decision in the life of our child.
As with so many things, we ask what the personal benefit is. It’s nice that we can use the standard, if not overused, buzzwords,
When we are doing the act of giving, we have slowed down and stopped our rushing.
Take the time to say hello to someone who lives outside or who looks unhappy and could use a smile. This nourishes like a vitamin. I would suggest doing this in public during daylight hours, so there is no chance you will become a victim for your kindness. Many people thrive on that one smile or that one kind word. One kind hello probably takes less than 5 seconds. That would leave 86,370 seconds more in the day. Can we spare it? Even if we took an entire minute to show human decency to someone, that would leave 1439 and a half other minutes in our day.
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Picture a nice hot summer day at the beach with friends. Someone hands out a pretty, colored spray bottle filled with water to each person. In a playful crowd, it will take little time for someone to get a playful desire (the urge) to depress the lever of the spray bottle (the action) which would result in an expulsion of water on our friends (the reward). On a hot, sunny day, this would be harmless and probably welcome.
One of the mistakes we all make, at one time or other, is that we decide to take action to wrench something or many things out of our lives. We actually sit around dreaming about being a different being devoid of the habits that are causing us discomfort.
