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Stroking a pebble stone, listening to the birds singing, savoring chocolate… If these simple actions are carried out slowly and consciously, they can turn into a real meditation, become one of the ways of relaxation, recuperation, harmonization of the soul and body.
The benefits of meditation for health and emotional balance are confirmed by doctors. However, some of us are convinced that this is some kind of difficult occupation that requires knowledge, special training, a special place and time.
In fact, meditation is not at all an occupation for the elite, it is available to everyone. It is enough just to organize a daily break for yourself and use it so that muscle and nervous tension disappears, and the brain is freed from everything that overloads it.
The essence of meditation is to temporarily suspend intellectual activity and concentrate on the perception of our senses. Sight, hearing, touch, smell and taste are the keys to meditation practice.
“Meditation,” writes Erwin Ingold, author of “Little Exercises in Meditation” (E. Ingold “Petits Exercises de meditations.” Jouvence, 2006), “is to use sensory observation to stay in the here and now, to allow yourself sit in silence and realize what blocks the road to freedom and happiness.
We have taken these exercises as a model for doing five meditations with the help of different senses. Flower, music, pebble, incense stick and chocolate are the starting points that allow you to fine-tune the sensual sensation, develop attention and inner receptivity.
Try practicing each of the five meditations for one or two weeks. Then keep practicing the ones that seem the most difficult.
The secret of success is regularity, whether it be in the morning or in the evening, but preferably at the same time. Find yourself a shelter – a place where no one and nothing will disturb you, choose spacious and comfortable clothes and warn your loved ones that you will disappear for half an hour.
Vision
Starting point: flower
We are immersed in the culture of images and are constantly bombarded with visual information, the producers of which strive to make it as impressive, bright, and shocking as possible. Our perception is dulled: we look, but rarely see.
Sit with a straight back, shoulders relaxed, breathing free and even. The flower should be at eye level, about 60 cm directly in front of you. First, look at the flower as a whole – at its shape, volume, color. Then close your eyes and mentally recreate the image you just saw. Start again until this reproduction is as accurate as possible.
Then move on to more detailed observation. Keep your attention on the petals, stem, and leaves, and notice the various nuances in their color, shape, and density. Imagine that you are exploring a flower from the inside, walking through these petals. The smallest of them will turn into infinitely large, as if this flower were the whole world that surrounds you.
Hearing
Starting point: music
A noisy environment makes us insensitive to sounds, prevents us from listening, separating them from each other, recognizing and being aware of our emotions – negative or positive – that they cause.
Choose the playlist you like – nature sounds, birdsong or flute. Sit or lie down, eyes closed or half-closed, breathing is free and deep, muscles are relaxed. To begin, let the sounds lull you into a pleasant semi-drowsy state.
Music has the ability to communicate directly with our unconscious and imagination – let the vague memories or associations it evokes come out freely. Let them appear and float by like clouds in the sky.
“Enter” the music, concentrate on its rhythm, on the melody and on the instruments, immerse yourself in it as if you are swimming in the open sea. Apart from the sounds that you are immersed in and that you seem to feel with your skin, nothing else exists.
Touch
Starting point: pebble stone
Visual intellectual culture leaves us less and less room for physicality, for physical contacts. Meanwhile, tactile sensations are our fundamental emotional need.
Sit with a straight back, pick up a pebble-pebble rolled in water. The breathing is calm, even, the gaze is directed into space at a distance of about one and a half meters directly in front of you. Important: You must not look at the pebbles. Study with your hands its shape, volume, weight and density. Roll it on the back of your hand, weigh it in your palms, let it slide between your fingers.
Change the rhythm, moving your fingers very slowly, examining the pebble millimeter by millimeter, then faster. Feel the pebbles warm up and get wetter as you touch them. Continue until you have a very clear internal visual representation of the stone. And further until you feel that it has become a part of you and that your consciousness is entirely in your palms.
Smell
Starting point: incense stick
The sense of smell is directly connected to the limbic brain, the center of our emotions, which explains the incredible power that smells have over us … Choose incense with the most pleasant natural aroma for you: lotus, lavender, lily or rose.
Light an incense stick a meter away from you, sit comfortably with your eyes closed or half closed. Relax your muscles and breathe evenly. Probably, images, thoughts, memories will begin to overwhelm you – let these visions pass by, as if they are passing landscapes outside the windows of the train, perceive, and then let them go.
As you inhale the fragrance, visualize it passing through your nose, throat, and lungs, then as you exhale, imagine its return journey, imagining the tension leaving with it. Imagine how your skin absorbs the delicate fragrance with all its pores, let yourself be enveloped in it with pleasure and feel the relaxation that surrounds you.
The body becomes soft, transparent, amorphous and completely dissolves in this smell.
Taste
Starting point: chocolate
Meditation and chocolate – this combination brings a smile to those for whom the spiritual life is consonant with severe austerity. However, spending time enjoying food is showing gratitude for life. We eat several times a day, but slowness, thoughtfulness and good quality food are what we almost always lack.
After biting off a small piece of chocolate, pay attention to its shape, gradually changing on the tongue. To the sound with which we bite it or roll it in our mouths, to its aroma and, finally, to the taste with all its shades: sweet, bitter, slightly spicy.
Meditation through taste allows us to become aware of the connection between our emotions and food. That’s why it’s important to recognize the emotions that come up: impatience, guilt, satisfaction… The purpose of this gourmet meditation is to remind us that we are living beings of flesh and blood, emotions and intellect, and that well-being (mental and bodily) is not in excess and not in self-restraint, but inextricably linked with a sense of proportion.