Exercise Series Two

Preparation

The next step in the learning awareness program is to begin the standing meditation exercise. It is beneficial for you to be stable in your walking meditational exercise before beginning this one. It is important to be able to attain and maintain the light trance state. Again, find a space which is serene and secure. It will be easier since all you need to do is stand. Do be aware of the environment and plan accordingly, being comfortable.

Standing meditation takes awareness of the physical body and the light trance state associated with it and moves then to awareness of the mind and its machinations in an even more subtle state of altered consciousness.

Exercise Protocol

Pick your spot and simply stand with your eyes closed and your hands overlapping as described before. You will find that you will not be able to stand for long without standing straight. At least your posture will improve if nothing else. Thus, at first you will focus on maintaining your balance and standing straight comfortably. This will mean finding out how to stand without tensing any muscles by relaxing those muscles not needed and strengthening those muscles necessary. This will take some time and requires patience until all settles down again without your becoming tired. Take your time, do not rush things! As you achieve your balance and stand comfortably, allow your focus to move to the whole body awareness which you learned with the walking meditation. This time, since you are not moving, the awareness of what the mind is involved with comes to the fore. What am I doing? Am I doing it correctly? This is absurd! Why Am I thinking about that? How do I resolve that issue? What do I do next? What is going to happen next?

Keep up the exercise for at least one hour, your ability to be able to guesstimate time flow will greatly improve as your practice sharpens. Your having a clock to peak at will help. This gives you the time to begin to experience the flow of your thoughts. Eventually, you will discover a pattern to your thoughts. This awareness will now enable you to be able to separate the content of your thoughts from the source of your thoughts. Each may be addressed as separate issues. Deal with the patterns of content first. What is it that you think about? What comes up to your consciousness? How much deals with your body? How much deals with your interactions with others? How much deals with your plans for the day? How much deals with getting rid of unwanted emotions? How do I deal with the memories associated with the unwanted emotions?

What then is the source of these patterns? Where do my thoughts come from? They come from reverbrating neuronal networks called Central Pattern Generators (CPGs) in the Cerebrum. Eventually, you begin the process of categorizing the motivations behind your thoughts. This sets the stage for dealing with and resolving in an objective manner the issues which seem to go around and around without leading anywhere. You learn not to invest energy in circular thinking habits, to deal with issues as they arise and more importantly to understand why the same types of experiences keep repeating themselves. Is this repetition due to desire or to lack of understanding until you get it right? As you practice this exercise, you achieve a state of consciousness wherein your thoughts pass away naturally and your mind becomes calm, still acutely aware and crystal clear. The CPGs are still there but no content arises to deal with. Ah, a fresh start on living!

At this point, you are now ready to start the search for the pattern of energy flow within your body. Refocus the attention on the whole body awareness and the pattern discrimination you learned. Those areas of the body that seek your attention, hurts and healings are usually the first order of business. Any burnings are inflammations and need cooling and smoothing. Itching denotes healing at work. Blank and dark spaces need energy so visually focus a bright light upon these areas until they feel "right" (this intuitive sense of right takes a bit of practice). Any muscle tenseness needs to be relaxed. Stiffness needs to be gently stretched. Do pay attention to all that makes its presence felt. With practice, the time between "injury" and healing will decrease dramatically. Those aspects which appear to block the flow of energies will come to the fore. You will learn to viaualize and allow the flows to circulate freely. Now the patterns of the energy flow begin to become more evident. The easiest to discern first is the left and right hand energies.

Allow your body to sway from left to right and back again in small arcs from the midline of the body. A natural rhythm will occur that will pass from the surface of the body to the interior. As this proceeds, you will begin by feeling a connection running from inside to each hand. You will notice that when you sway to the right, energy moves into the right hand, and soon you feel the energy also moving into the right foot. With practice, you are able to realize that the energy actually moves from the inside, to the outside and back again in waves or actually oscillations. Begin to play with these energies in a manner which feels comfortable to you. For instance, sway one way and stop. See and feel what happens, physically, emotionally and mentally. Where does your focus now move?

Next, begin to sway front to back and tune into and resonate with the front to back energies. It takes a bit of perseverance as it is a more subtle energy. Continue in much the same manner as before. Hopefully, a natural sense of your energies spinning will evolve. As you are very well rooted in body awareness and stable in your posture and balance, this sense of spinning will be your energies in their natural flow which you feel and not a sense of loosing your balance and falling down. The energies will rotate in circles and spirals and will cross the midline of the body through areas of the chest. As your awareness of these energies deepens, you will begin to feel them moving at will into whatever portion of the body you wish it to move. When you finish, no matter what exercises you perform, move back to the whole body awareness in the reverse order of your entry. Then actively visualize your energies as complete, harmonized and moving freely before you completely finish with the exercise. This will ensure that you do not set up any deleterious energy flows which would result in causing a dis-eased state.