Post by Mystik on Jul 6, 2007 2:47:14 GMT -5
Ki Meditation
Equipment (completely optional)
Whatever music, incense etc. relaxes you. Not absolutely essential.
A Buddhist sound bowl.
(This is a bowl which, when struck, makes a lovely chime which gradually fades away).
If you have someone who could strike it for you, it would be helpful, or you could make a recording).
Background.
Your thoughts are like the ripples that flow outward when someone drops a stone into a pool. To be in a truly meditative state of mind, it is necessary to make the surface of your mind calm. However every thought you use to try to calm your mind is like trying to make the water calm by smothing it with your hand. Inevitably this creates more ripples than it stills and has the same effect as dropping another stone into the pool. One way to calm the ripples of your mind is by focussing on the "one point".
Sit in a comfortable position and relax properly.
Breathe gently in through the nose and out through the mouth. Let your mind sink to the one point in your lower abdomen. (Try the location of your sacral chakra if you don't know what 'one point' is)
As your mind reaches the one point, visualise the size of the one point decreasing by half, then by half again, and by half again.
Keep this up for as long as you can. Just visualise that your one poiint is decreasing by half, half, half to infinity. Ki is "the infinite gathering of infinitely small particles". However much you continue to reduce your one point by half, it will not disappear. It will become infinitely smaller and smaller.
By doing this exercise, you will calm your mind and feel great relaxation.
When you get tired of reducing the one point by half and half, focus on increasing it by half and half. You can be as small as a particle of infinite ki or as large as the world, or even the universe. It is a very exhilarating feeling.
Why use the "bowl"?
This is an aid. When the bowl is struck it makes a chime sound which gradually dies away. As the sound dies away, you visualise the one point gradually decreasing by half, half, half.
How long should you do it for?
As long as you like. Perhaps thirty minutes a day, once or twice a day is a good length of time.