My Journey with Meditation

Intensively, since about 2017, I’ve been on a quest to understand and make meditation accessible and effective in my own life.

I’ve studied many forms of meditation, learning differing approaches and insights from the masters. A few examples:

• From Buddhist Monk, Shinzen Young’s course, the basics of Zen Buddhist meditation. Buddha teaches, “right thinking” is the way.

• From Sadhguru’s yogic “inner Engineering”, that there is no such thing as meditation, only stillness and the quest for “pleasantness”.

• From Edgar Cayce, that meditation and hypnosis are the same thing. (I became a certified hypnotherapist)

• From Paramahansa Yogananda’s stringent methodology based on ancient Kriya Yogic practices, “Self-Realization”

• From Dr. Joe Dispenza’s scientific approach tracing brainwave states, that everything is energy and vibrations contain healing information.

• From the HeartMath Institute, the importance of heart-brain coherence.

• From Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces, the universality of the Hero's Journey.

• From Carl Jung, Myers-Briggs personality research and astrological analysis, self-knowledge and changeability of personality.
  

My Philosophical approach to Meditation

Meditation is not hard. Change is hard. Meditation makes it easier.

In combining, experiencing, practicing and fine-tuning all of these techniques and perspectives, I concluded that your life is not mine nor anyone else’s. Your journey with meditation is as unique to you as is your journey through life. And both are absolutely journeys, not quick fixes, but life itself.

Think about it.

Has anyone else on this earth experienced exactly all of the same traumas, the same learning experiences, the same relationships, or even lived in the same body as you? If your fingerprints are unique to you isn’t the composite of your life unique to you? Through all of that, is anyone else at the same stage of development as you? Aren’t the things you want to overcome and the journey to overcome them, unique to you? Isn’t the way you interpret, think about, feel, or find meaning in life unique? If meditation is a method of change, shouldn’t that method be custom made for you?

So what did the Buddha mean when he said the key is “right thinking”?
If meditation is about eliminating thought, how does that square with right thinking? Is there only one way to achieve “right thought”?

An old Japanese proverb says “there are many ways to the top of the mountain”.

You can change whatever you want in your life. But first you must know who you are and what you want to change. Only then does the next step on your journey to the top of the mountain, “the way”, become clear.

The Kaizen Approach

Meditation is all about changing your life for the better. In Japanese, the word Kaizen embodies a Zen perspective on life.
The Japanese effectively apply it to business and manufacturing as well as life. Breaking it down, Kai (Change) + Zen (Good) = Change for the better.
In the Christian tradition, Jesus and John the Baptist called it something that has been translated into English as “repentance”. Back then it was a very positive term without the modern association with sin and guilt.
In either case, it implies slow, incremental, focused, step-by-step improvement.

Are you ready to make your life better?

More Peaceful, Loving, Focused, Effective, Productive?

Jump in!