Morning Mindfulness - A Few Positive Minutes to Start Your Day With

If you are on the Path of mindfulness, if you are developing your mind, body & spirit, there’s one the most significant, in my opinion, question you have to answer: are you just fooling yourself unintentionally?

One of the main issues I see today is that we live in a fast pace “microwave” society. We want everything yesterday. Many people look at meditation as a headache pill: take it now and it starts working five minutes ago. 

Water. Look at it: it is soft and flexible enough to run around even tiny obstacles, but it is powerful and persistent to create a Grand Canyon. 

There’s a concept of lateral thinking. It suggests that we explore all possible solutions. Even sometimes they may sound like total bizarre. You don’t have to go in depth, just think so you exercise your creativity. Or at least you may be able to identify and prevent possible problems if only you ask yourself one question: "what if…?” 

In my classes I am teaching about being the Water. What am I trying to get out of it? To me, being like water means don’t over-react, don’t resist, be flexible, take any shape you need, but still be who you are. 

I've seen large boulders the water pushed out of the way. So, what may happen to the rock? I would answer, it depends on the shape and size of the rock. Also, are we talking about still water, slow river or fast stream? What is the shape and inclination of the river bed? There's a big chance that the powerful stream will push the rock out of the way. For how long? For as long as the force of the resistance is less than the strength of the water.

I used to think that I need a specific place and specific time to meditate. I used to get up as early as 4:30 in the morning for Yoga and meditation practice. I love practicing at the sunrise. There’s nothing like sitting in Lotus posture on the top of the hill at 5 AM, breathing fresh air and watching the sun going up. I still love it! I must admit those memories are still inside my head like a standard of training for me. I also love the ocean. All this is great! Gardens, mountains, waterfall, sunrise, sunset are amazing for practice, if you have them handy. What if you don’t?

The word meditation is used in the West to describe variety of techniques from different traditions and religions. And if we are not careful we may fall into stereotyping without any knowledge to support out conclusion.

Do you practice meditation? I am sure you do even if you don’t know that. Even if you are against meditation, you still do practice it under a different name.