April 26, 2012: Meditation as Contemplative Inquiry presented by Sharleen.

     Sharleen attended a workshop on Meditation based on a book by Arthur Zajonc, entitled Meditation as Contemplative Inquiry: When Knowing Becomes Love.  Published by Lidisfarne Books 2009.

Be sure to read the comments, especially my third one. It explains the white outs.

February 23, 2012: Tibetan Book of the Dead

     One of our members presented The Tibetan Book of the Dead. The English translation that is edited by W. Y> Evans-Wentz. This translation was first published in 1927, but a later edition from 1960s contains an Introduction by Carl Jung which in itself is an interesting article demonstrating the application of this book to a psychology for more modern times in the Western world.

     The title of the Tibetan death text was originally The Great Liberation upon Hearing in the Intermediate State. It is also known as the Bardo Thodol which means "liberation by hearing on the after death plane." Origninally written in about the 8th century, attributed to Padma Sambhava, an Indian mystic who history suggests introduced Buddhism to Tibet. The story goes that Padma did not think Tibetans were ready for these texts so he hid various copies of these writings in remote places so that they would be found later when Tibetan spirituality had evolved to understan the message in these texts. Karma Lingpa (1350) found several hidden texts when he was 15 years old. Contained within these findings were the now famous Great Liberation upon Hearing in the Bardo. Dr. Walter Y. Evans-Wentz, ,a Theosophist and devotee to Neo-Vedantic Hinduism, edited and commented on the translation fro Oxford University Press in the 1927 edition.

      These writings were meant to be read to those who have died but are still passing through the Planes of Bardo, a supposed time spent in transition from the current life to some sort of interlife and then for getting ready for the next reincarnation.

     Since the Tibetan Book of the Dead, or at least The Great Liberation upon Hearing in the Intermediate State is in the public domain, it can be found online at various sites for free. I have found this site where the entire book can be found. There are also videos with commentary that might be of interest for anyone wishing to study these writings further. They are not easy and the commentary perhaps helps our Western mind proceed through the readings better.
http://www.summum.us/mummification/tbotd/#summumtv

      It was suggested at our discussion that these readings be used as meditations. A few members of the groups have used them in that fashion, reading a section every day. Also two members of the group have read the text to someone who was dying or at least very very ill. All thought that this would be a loving tribute for a loved one -- to read the text to them as they became ill unto death. Our session leader this time suggested reading these days meditations as a tantric ritual. Tantric means a 'being' practice. It is an experiential practice, not an intellectual practice.You visualize deeply -- inside yourself. The goal is to get past duality and become one. Jamie commented that the Tibetan method suited her monkey mind. Tibetan visualizations were so busy that they kept her monkey mind busy. It is noted that we all have trouble understanding our absence of individual consciousness. We can not conceive of our own non existence. From there we create fantasies. We make ourselves exist in a relational way. What would it be like to have a non relational existence. The mind is just a phenomenon of a sensory existence.

 

March 31, 2011 Guenther Pohlmann Society: presented by Heidi, his daughter

Guenther Pohlmann Society: Heidi presented a reading of his writing on meditations entitled:
Meditation and the Christian Faith, An Outline.
Hit Read More below. There is a lot more if you do.

Meditation and prayer Ceremony by Jean H.

We have a very talented prayer leader in our Spirit Mind Body Group. Jean H. leads us in guided meditation and prayer several times a year. This morning Jean moved us all by conducting such a service/ceremony. She wished our spiritual potential would grow into much more than we think we are and she hoped this ceremony would enable that goal.  Calmed by music (first one of my favorites Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata) and Jean's calming voice, we relaxed our body piece by piece, joint by joint and got ourselves ready for the prayer service. Then Jean guided us in "relaxing our heart", that is opening ourselves to receive the serenity of the occasion. We used our breath to guide us in this opening segment. Jean said, "Breath is spirit and spirit is life!"

Then we spent a short time in silence to let Jean's many guiding words soak in and to become as serene as we possibly could, escaping from the whirlwind of this season into this small Mindfulness Center with our friends from our Spirit Mind Body Group.

Jean usually conducts candle lighting with her ceremonies because the light is so calming and symbolizes in many religions serenity, spirituality and opening of the heart, to make the light shine within.

Jean then lit her candle and spoke of a characteristic or quality within herself for which she is thankful. She then passed the light on to the person next to her, lighting that person's candle. Then that person and each in his/her turn passed the light around the room each recognizing and giving thanks for an inner quality for which they are thankful. It is easier to thank and recognize others for their gifts, but sometimes it is difficult to recognize, confess and be thankful for inner qualities that we all have and recognize them as allowing us to move forward in our spiritual evolution.

After all the candles were lit and each of us had spoken our little piece, we randomly spoke the name of people that we wanted to include in our prayers. Then we mindfully and prayerfully placed the candle in the receptical near the altar prepared by Jean. We observed a moment of serenity with these candles all lit. Each person had taken a message from a small dish. These messages were single words that might be a beacon for going forth from this ceremony. Perhaps it would apply to something we had to accomplish, or to something that we wanted to achieve, or to our current meditations. They were single words like honesty, clarity, courage, resilience, happiness, joy, serenity, hope etc. The group broke up discussing their word and how it applied to them or their current activites in life.

Jean recommends the Jesuit prayers and chants at the following website: http://www.pray-as-you-go.org/

Following are some photos of a sacred place that you might contemplate with your meditations: These are photos of the Cologne, Germany Cathedral.

Guenther Pohlmann Society Meeting, July 30, 2010

      On July 30, 2010, our group read together a portion of a monograph by Guenther P. Pohlmann MD entitled The Nature of Our Religiosity, An Array of My Thoughts.  We read two sections: The Layered Backgrounds of My Own Ontogeny and Observations and Reflections on Our Spiritual Nature.

July 15, 2010 Unplanned Bake Off

Varanasi, India: cleansing meditation in the Holy Ganges River

  
     Chuck was supposed to lead the discussion this week, but there might have been some miscommunication. At any rate we ended up doing a make shift Bake Off.

     Eric mentioned that he had been angry at someone and he went to mow the lawn. At first he was aggressively mowing the lawn and thinking aggressive thoughts but then there was a switch to accepting the anger, naming it, and then focusing on the present moment. We discussed how this could have happened. The Buddhists, if angry, often do walking meditation.
    
    You need to name the anger, recognize it, tell the person you are angry and that you are suffering with it, try to talk it out, then one needs to let it go. Forgiveness may be involved at this point. Anger itself if allowed to proceed reinforces the process of getting angry. If we are able to stop this circling process, we will be able to take the novelty and surprise out of the anger, move the anger from the amygdala and put it in the frontal lobes where it becomes less threatening and less damaging.

     Our heart become involved in this as well and even as in HeartMath, gratitude and appreciation enter into the thinking. We may even be able to walk with tonglen during our walking meditation. Some traditions try to throw anger and negative emotions into the earth just as we do with our human waste at the dump site, and earth will transform these wastes into flowers and trees. Just so with our anger, it will transform the anger into positive emotions.

     Hitting pillows does not work. You just get very good at hitting pillows. The only value to such an aggressive practice such as hitting pillows would be to get over repression of the anger to bring it forward so that it might be recognized, named and then dealt with.

     The idea that someone made you angry is a faulty perception. This perception waters the seeds of anger. A better term is to say or think: "I have anger" rather than "I am angry."

     Dick showed us a form of walking meditation that uses the phrase: "Lift up your heart." While walking, hold one hand on your heart and the other hand over your abdomen. While meditating and walking, try to separate these hands slightly; the movement apart with only be a centimeter or so. But this is actually lifting up your heart, as it says in the Bible. We tried this walking meditation briefly. Someone else recalls a form of meditation where one puts one's hand on another's heart and even breath together with the other person. Some say in certain yoga practices, your "lead with your heart." Jean described that during her yoga practice she has moved to put her hands one on top of the other in front of her heart with the palms facing upward as though receiving a gift. All of these comments proved to us how important posture is during these different practices, especially if the posture is symbolic and becomes a natural part of the practice.

     Again we discussed about the necessity of regular meditation practice. People often give excuses why they are not meditating regularly, sometimes saying they forgot to meditate. Indeed, change to a regular practice is hard. There is a part of our brain that doesn't want us to meditate because such regular practice is putting that part of the brain out of business, so to speak. There are two recommendations for overcoming these excuses and moving to regular meditation practice: 1.) Have a place set up for meditation that you go to regularly. It might be set up with your cushion, with a Buddha, or with candles, other paraphenalia for meditation, or it just might be a corner or wall with a comfortable chair. 2.) Hook meditation to something that you do every day. For example, take your toothbrush with you to meditation and only put the toothbrush away after your meditation. Then if you do not do the meditation, and put your toothbrush away first, you will feel strongly that something is missing.

     In the end, our discussion shifted to work and jobs Sharleen asked two questions about work. 1) Do we work to serve others in the workplace? or 2) What in the work makes you happy? The former is extrinsic, and the latter intrinsic. Tim discussed this briefly and gave us a preview of his planned discussion on the schedule for August.

     Next week is Jean's healing prayer service for Todd. Be sure to come.

  

The Guenther Pohlman Society Meeting, April 29, 2010

      Since this was the 5th Thursday of the month, this meeting was a meeting of the Guenther Pohlman Society Meeting. His daughter Heidi B brought a lovely poem favored by her father. She first read the following poem in German and then Todd D read it in English.

Mindfullness Based Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

Todd D. presented a summary of some of the lessons that he teaches in a course he is leading, called Minfulness Based CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy).  He calls this Emotional Recalibration.

Techniques to Achieve Divine States

Dick Y. led our discussion on April 15, 2010. He has studied various practices to change his consciousness now for more than 30 years. He has read about and tried a multitude of techniques and felt stongly that he wanted to teach the group at least some of these techniques.