5 meditations for the senses

Iron stone pebbles, to listen to singing birds, to savor the chocolate... If these simple steps are to implement slowly and deliberately, they can turn into a real meditation, become one of ways of relaxation, recuperation, harmonization of body and soul.

The benefits of meditation for health and emotional balance confirmed by the doctors. However, most of us are convinced that this is some incredibly difficult task that requires expertise, special training, special time and place. In fact, meditation is not an occupation for the elite, it is available for everyone. It is enough just to organise a daily break and use it for meditation, to remove muscular and nervous tension, and the brain freed from its overload.

The essence of meditation is to temporarily suspend intellectual activity and to concentrate on the perception of our senses. Vision, hearing, touch, smell, and taste are the keys to meditation practice. "Meditation, writes Erwin Ingold (Ingold Erwin), the author of Little exercises in meditation, consists in using sensual observation to stay in the here and now, is to allow yourself to sit in silence and become aware of what blocks the road to freedom and happiness."

We took a sample of these exercises to perform five meditations with different senses. Flower, music, rock pebbles, incense stick and chocolate are the starting points that allow you to make a more subtle sensation, to develop focus and internal susceptibility.

Try practicing each of the five meditations for one or two weeks. Then keep practicing the ones that seemed the most difficult. The secret of success is regularity, whether in the morning or evening, but preferably at the same time. Find a shelter – a place where no one and nothing will bother you, choose the spacious and comfortable clothes and warn your loved ones that you will disappear for half an hour.

VISION

We are immersed in a culture of images and are constantly exposed to the bombardment of visual information, manufacturers which aim to make it more impressive, bright, shock. Our perception is dulled: we look, but rarely see.Starting point: flower

Sit with your back straight, shoulders relaxed, breathing freely and smooth. Flower should be at eye level, approximately 60 cm in front of you. First, peering into the flower as a whole – its shape, size, color. Then close your eyes and mentally recreate the image you just saw. Start again as long as the playback is as accurate as possible. Then go to a more detailed observation. Hold your attention on the petals, stem and leaves, note the different nuances in their color, shape, and density. Imagine that you are examining the flower from the inside, walking on those petals. The smallest of them will become infinitely large, as if the flower was a whole world that surrounds you.

HEARING

Starting point: music

Crowded noise of the environment makes us insensitive to the sounds, stopping to listen, to separate them from each other, to recognize and acknowledge their emotions – negative or positive – that they cause.

Select the drive that you like (nature sounds, birds singing, drum or flute). Take a seat sitting or lying down, eyes closed or half-closed, breathing free and deep, the muscles are relaxed. First, let the sounds lull you to enter into a pleasant drowsy state. Music has the ability to communicate directly with our unconscious mind and our imagination – let me be free to appear vague memories or associations which it awakens. Let them appear and float by like clouds in the sky. "Come in" to the music, concentrate on its rhythm, melody and instruments, immerse yourself in it as if you are swimming in the open sea. In addition to the sound, in which you are immersed and which, it seems, feel the skin, nothing else exists.

TOUCH Starting point: stone pebbles

Visual intellectual culture leaves us less room for physicality, to physical contact. Meanwhile, the tactile sensations are our fundamental emotional need.

Sit with a straight back, pick up run-water rock-gravel; the breath is calm, steady, gaze is directed into space at a distance of about five feet in front of you. Important: you shouldn't look at pebbles. Examine the shape, volume, weight and density. Roll it on the back of the hand, weigh in the hands, let it slip between your fingers. Change the rhythm, then very slowly moving his fingers, exploring the stone millimeter by millimeter, then faster. Feel like a rock is heated and becomes more humid as you touch it. Continue until you have a very clear visual picture of the stone. Continue until, until you feel that it has become a part of you and that your consciousness is entirely in your hands.





SMELL Starting point: incense stick

The sense of smell is directly linked to the limbic system, the center of our emotions, which explains the incredible power that have over us smells... Select the fragrances with the most pleasant natural aroma: Lotus, lavender, Lily or rose.

Light the aromatic stick a meter away, sit back, closing or poluprecnik eyes. Relax your muscles and breathe evenly. Likely, you will begin to overwhelm the images, thoughts, memories – let those visions to follow by, as if it were the passing scenery outside the Windows of the train, think, and then let go of them. Inhaling the aroma, visualize its passage in the nose, throat and lungs, then exhale, imagine it the opposite way, imagining along with it goes the tension. Imagine how your skin absorbs a subtle flavor all its pores, allow yourself the pleasure to envelop them and to feel covering you relaxation. The body becomes soft, transparent, amorphous and completely soluble in this smell.

TASTE Starting point: chocolate.

Meditation and chocolate – this combination raises a smile for those for whom the spiritual life consonant with austere penance. However, to spend time enjoying food – it means to show gratitude to life. Foods we take several times a day, but the slowness, thoughtfulness and good quality food is what we almost always lacking.

Biting off a small piece of chocolate, pay attention to its shape, gradually changing the language. The sound with what it bites off, or perekidyvaem in the mouth, its aroma and finally taste all its shades: sweet, bitter, slightly spicy. Meditation through taste is an opportunity to recognize the connection between our emotions and food. That's why it's important to recognize the emotions that rise in you: impatience, guilt, satisfaction... gourmet the Goal of this meditation is to remind you that we are living beings of flesh and blood, emotions and intelligence and that good health (mental and physical) is not in excess and not in restraint, but is inextricably linked with a sense of proportion.

 

источник:psychologies.ru

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