The Energy Center

The Dantian
The energy center of the body is important for proper handling of vial energy and emotions. This center is recognized in various traditions. In Chinese qigong it is known as the Dantian, the Japanese name is Hara, and in the Sufi tradition it is known as the Kath. Dantian is the name most commonly used.

The location of the dantian is in the lower belly, about 4 inches below the navel. When you focus with your attention on the dantian, you can simultaneously sense your entire body, from toes to brilliantined top knot. Because it is the energy center or power center, evergy can be directed to any part of the body when your attention is focused here.

 

Martial arts practitioners keep the attention focused on the diantian in order to easily direct power where it is needed. People recovering from mood disorder can benefit from paying attention to the dantian because all emotions can be sensed through the dantian. To be in touch with the body requires paying attention to the dantian.

Dantian Meditation
Mindfulness may be practiced by focusing the attention on an object, a feeling or a concept. Dantian meditation is practiced by sitting or standing erect and keeping the attention on the dantian. By practicing belly breathing, it's possible to focus the attention on the breath and the dantian simultaneously. When you notice that your attention has drifted away from the dantian, simply take a deep belly breath and return the attention.

It may be helpful to revisit the post on Noticing the Breath or Belly Breathing.

Of course, the practice of qigong may be considered to be a specialized dantian meditation. In addition to the mindfulness benefits, qigong also provides physical and mental healing and building a ready supply of vital energy in the dantian energy store.

 

Moving from your center
In eastern martial arts, the practitioner not only keeps his attention at the Dantian to more easily move his energy, but also to be able to move from the center. By letting one's movements come from the center, they are more easy, and have more strength and power.

In the west, we have traditionally taught focusing on the dantian although the teaching is indirect. For example, in baseball we teach players to swing the bat by swinging through the lower belly--the center of the belly or the power center. The same concept is taught for swinging a golf club and tennis racket. There are countless other sports activities that use the conecpt of the lower abdomen being the power center.

You Are Enough

You are amazing!

Stars are giant fusion reactors that transform hydrogen atoms into all the other elements in the universe. Millions of years ago, when stars went super nova, they spewed those other heavier elements throughout the universe. That’s where the oxygen in our lungs and the iron in our blood came from. You are made of stardust.

I am here today partially because the descendants of the Maya moved north from Central Mexico and then east into what is now the southeastern U.S around 800 AD. I’m here partially because a Serbian nationalist assassinated Archduke Ferdinand to precipitate the First World War. You are here, with your bodies of stardust, as the result of your own very amazing stories.

Accept All of You.

Most of our experiences, good and bad, are incorporated into our unconscious in what is called implicit memory. Implicit memory shapes our inner world and determines what it feels like to be ourselves. It gives us expectations, models for relationships, emotional tendencies, and our general world outlook.

Being mindful of your inner world—what you feel and sense and interpret about your outer experiences—helps to heal the damage of past injustices, even those that occurred when you were younger. Mindful attention to your own experience activates many of the same circuits that are stimulated in childhood by the caring attention of others.

Treat Yourself Kindly

Throughout the day, deliberately bring kindness into your actions, your speech, and most of all, your thoughts. Try to interject more themes of kindness in the movies in your mind—the simulator. The more your simulator fires the neural networks with kindness, the more the neural networks are reorganized to support more kindness and the more kindness turns up in the real world.

Welcome the Visitor

I practice mindfulness for many reasons although the biggest reason I practice is because it makes me feel better. I am one of the 21 million adults in the U. S. alone who is easily swept away by powerful emotions.

In the 13th Century, the Persian poet, Rumi, told us that being human is like running a guest house. Every morning, according to him, there is an unexpected visitor at our door. The visitor may be joy or perhaps anxiety, depression or mania.

But even if we are met by a crowd of sorrows, he instructs us to "Welcome and entertain them all equally. Meet them at the door laughing and treat them honorably." Why? Because he says, they have been sent to us as guides and that they come to prepare us for new delights.

That's clear enough but not so easy to do without a little help. That's where mindful practice comes in. Enlightenment brings us to a place of freedom and joy, a state of timeless grace, where we are transformed from shy, timid creatures into fearless ones. But you don't have to practice mindfulness for years in some secluded spot high in the mountains or deep in the forests. Enlightenment is a common occurrence and it is close at hand. It happens every time we meditate.

How does mindfulness work to help us stay calm and carry on normally when depression and anxiety begin to stir? The simplest explanation for the immediate effect is that meditation encourages the formation of the "feel good" brain chemicals. The long term effect results from the formation of new neural pathways in the brain that transform our "normal" way of seeing the world from a negative set of expectations to a more positive one.

The first noble truth of the Buddha is that life is suffering. For me, that suffering is most often recognized as anxiety and depression. Buddhist thought offers an antidote for this suffering in the cessation of craving. Just stop trying to change everything and accept life as it comes. It seems impossible until we realize that we don't have to do it forever, just for right now, in this moment.

That's mindful meditation in a nutshell. For just this moment, I can let it all go and just be content with things as they are. Soon, another disturbing thought will arise and I will be carried away with it's story. My anxiety will resurface and I will be uneasy and uncomfortable. Fortunately, the mindfulness monitor will detect my distraction from the innate calm that resides deep within, and I will remember once more that I can release those thoughts, allow them to dissolve, and I simply accept things exactly the way they are, just for this moment.

Meditation--many short moments of healing, transformative calmness that arise from my conscious decision to accept life on life's terms right now.   

It is through meditation that we transform the visitor we find at our door. We welcome them all equally and then soothe the anxious, cheer the depressed and calm the manic. Fighting them only feeds them and gives them more power. We don't fight them, we face them without fear remembering the words of Rumi.

Introduction to Mudras

Mudras are often thought of as stylized positioning of hands and fingers for the purpose of affecting the vital energy or enhancing mood but a particular mudra may involve the whole body.

The most well-known mudras are probably the ones used in meditation. Many people sitting in meditation with crossed legs will place the hands on the knees, with the tips of the thumbs and index fingers touching. 

Another common mudra is placing the hands in the lap with the fingers of one hand resting on the palm of the other. The Indian “Namaste” greeting with hands held in front of the chest, palms touching is familiar to most of us. And the Christian practice of interlacing the fingers of both hands in prayer is yet another common mudra. The Christian gesture draws the attention within, while opening the heart.

The Indian gestures puts one into a mood of respect.

There is at least one mudras performed spontaneously by many people. It is called the Hakini mudra, where the tips of all fingers of the right hand touch the fingertips of the left. This mudra helps to focus the attention.

Hakini mudra

Using Mudras

The Indian Namaste and the Buddhist whatever are usually performed for a few seconds when used in greeting or to show respect. Still, in most settings it's recommended that a mudra be held for at least a couple of minutes or longer. 

Hold the finger-positions with both hands, at the same time. This will have a more powerful effect than doing a mudra with just one hand. Using mudras in meditation is a particularly effective way to focus the attention and establish intent. 

Mudras may be quite simple like the set of four used to balance vital energy in the body or they may be more elaborate such as these meditation mudras.

Three Simple Meditation Exercises

                                                        

Exercise 1: One Minute of Mindfulness

For the next 60 seconds your task is to focus all your attention on nothing. That's right, nothing. For one minute, sit comfortably with your hands placed in your lap or on your thighs. Take a few breaths and release any tension in your body, especially the neck and shoulders. Gaze at a spot on the floor a few feet in front of you with soft focus--you look at it but you aren't really seeing it. Allow the eyelids to close half way. 

Don't focus your attention, just sit there and do nothing. Breathe normally. If you mind wanders, notice that you are having thoughts and then let them dissolve and then allow the mind to empty again.

This exercise is simply for practice. It's not a personal challenge. Don't try to accomplish anything, just allow yourself the freedom to be whatever you are in the moment.

This exercise can be used often to calm the mind and restore clarity. You can gradually extend the duration of the exercise into longer periods.

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Exercise 2: Conscious Observation

Pick up an object that you have lying around. Any everyday object that you can easily hold in your hand will do. Allow your attention to become slowly and fully absorbed by the object. Just observe it as it is. Don’t critique it or try to imagine how it was formed our how it came to be in your possession. Just notice it's shape, it's color, it's hardness, it's weight, all it's properties without judgment or analysis.

You may feel a heightened sense of awareness or "being awake" during this exercise. Conscious observation is a subtle but very powerful form of meditation.

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Exercise 3: Mindfulness Triggers

In this exercise you pay attention to nothing or to your breath. It doesn't matter if your mind wanders because you will hear a bell at regular intervals that will remind you to drop the thinking and refocus. 

This exercise was designed for one of my classes and I was ringing the bell but you can use this technique during the day by choosing any environment trigger you like. I know one guy who has chosen to use traffic lights to remind him to pay attention to the moment. You might choose to become mindful every time you look in the mirror or wash your hands. I'm practicing becoming mindful every time I hear the words, "You ought to...."

Mindfulness triggers is an excellent technique designed to snap you out of the unconscious “autopilot” state of mind. 

Following the Breath

                                    

Sit with posture erect and hands resting comfortable in the lap. Hold the head erect and close the eyes. Breathe normally and pay close attention to what it feels like to breath. You may notice the rush of air past the nostrils or the expanding chest cavity or the movement of the abdomen. Movement in the abdomen is very important since abdominal breathing (noted by the slight expansion of the belly when breathing in) is the most efficient method of breathing. If your breathing causes a lot of movement in the upper chest and very little movement in the abdomen, you should practice breathing into the belly.

That's it. We're done.

Well, not exactly done. Paying attention to breathing is all we're doing with this meditation technique but we find that our minds are constantly busy thinking up very interesting ideas that tend to grab our attention. The thoughts may be pleasurable, although studies show that most often they are not, but no matter what the thought (or emotion) our minds get carried away with the story the thoughts are telling. At some point we realize we are 'thinking' and we intentionally let the thought go and bring our attention back to breathing.

You might think of thoughts as soap bubbles that come floating into view from the dark recesses of the mind. The bubbles shimmer with attractive colors and we begin paying attention to them instead of our breath. When we become aware of the distraction, we allow the bubble to pop and concentrate on our breath once more. The process repeats. Eventually, we find that we have fewer distracting thoughts and longer periods of time between them.

It takes practice. But don't be discouraged. Mindfulness is described as paying close attention, without judgement and without striving. That means we don't criticize ourselves for being distracted and we don't try really, really hard to stop thinking. We can't stop thinking anyway, no more than we can stop breathing.

Here's another piece of visual imagery that is popular with my students. A pebble falls into a still pool of water. Ripples disturb the surface of the water. The pebble falls straight to the bottom of the pool where it nestles snugly into the wet sand. Here the pebble is supported, stable and it abides for a while, for a long while in fact. The ripples on the surface of the water break up the light and patterns of shadow move across the surface of the pebble. Debris from the bottom of the pool is thrown up at impact and swirl around the pebble. Yet, through all this, the pebble is not distracted from the act of being a pebble. The pebble remains a pebble.

When you seat yourself and close your eyes, you become the pebble falling into the water. At first, the mind disperses debris in the form of thoughts into the pool of your mind. The thoughts swirl around but you pay no attention to them and just like that pool of water, the debris will settle down again and all will become still and quiet.

Just be you. Just be the pebble. Don't be the bubble.

Hints:

• Don't try to stop your thoughts, simply notice your thoughts and bring attention back to breathing
• Don't criticize yourself for not "doing it properly"
• Don't try to stop thinking
• Determine how long you will meditate and stay seated in practice for that specific time
• Eventually your mind will get the message and remain relatively quiet until you open your eyes