A Couple of Quotes for Today

You cannot hope to build a better world without improving the individuals.

To that end, each of us must work for his own improvement,

and at the same time share a general responsibility for all humanity.

(Marie Curie)

We must come to see that the end we seek is a society at peace with itself,

a society that can live with its conscience.

(Martin Luther King, Jr.)

Yin and Yang Breathing

     While I was reading Richard Wolf's book In Tune: Music as the Bridge to Mindfulness, I was noticing that the majority of his exercises described breaths which are controlled and regulated by the mind.  I know there are schools of thought in which controlling the breath can produce certain mental states and that can be very useful for many people.

     For someone like me, however, I find that I need to let go of controlled, "yang" breathing techniques at times because I have control-freak tendencies to begin with and these techniques just reinforce that, I believe.  I need to balance that with times when I just allow my body to breathe at its own pace and watch that breath.  It's a challenge for someone like me to be "yin" and just allow the body to breathe without my interference!  Once I start observing my breath, I find that I have to be very careful not to start controlling when the next breath comes.  It's a good challenge, though.

(photo courtesy of pixabay.com)

An Unusual Book on Meditation, Part 3

     Last week I was describing a meditation technique from Richard Wolf's book In Tune: Music as the Bridge to Mindfulness that I have found useful.  This week I will describe another.

    In this one, you need to divide your breaths into four beats.  One thing that Wolf stresses over and over again is that as you become more relaxed, your breaths will naturally be longer and slower, so your beats will slow down.  That is OK.  It's better to have the beats match your breath than to force your breath to match your beats.

     In this technique, you assign one internally-heard pitch each of the four beats.  Wolf recommends using Pythagorean intervals, so I will describe that here.  One such set of intervals is 1-4-5-1, or do-fa-sol-do.  If you play an instrument, you could play it as C-F-G-C.

     Here's how the technique goes.  Breathe in and hear internally (don't sing this out loud) C-C-C-C in four even beats.  Hold the breath and count four silent beats.  Breathe out and hear internally F-F-F-F in four even beats.  Hold the breath and count four silent beats.  Breathe in and hear internally G-G-G-G in four even beats.  Hold the breath and count four silent beats.  Breathe out and hear internally C-C-C-C in four even beats.  Hold the breath and count four silent beats.  Repeat.

     I don't know why, but I find this just complex enough to keep my mind engaged while producing a deep calm at the same time.  Perhaps it will help you as well.

An Unusual Book on Meditation, Part 2

     Last week I was discussing Richard Wolf's book In Tune: Music as the Bridge to Mindfulness.  This week and next I would like to share a couple of meditation exercises from this book that I find I keep returning to again and again.

     The first combines both simple words and single pitches that one hears in one's head.  That means you must be able to "sing" a single note inside your mind without actually singing it out loud.  If this seems doable to you, then read on.

     With each in-breath, you mentally hold a pitch and sing internally one word, which I will give in a moment.  With each out-breath, you listen to external sounds with detachment.  Got that?  Breathe in and hear a single note in your mind, breathe out and objectively listen to the world around you.  You may keep the same pitch with each in-breath if you want, but I like to change it each time.  You can decide what works best for you.

     Now to add a single word for each in-breath.  They are:  Calm, Relaxed, Peaceful, and Now.

     So, here's how it goes.  Breathe in and mentally sing "calm" on a single note.  Breathe out and listen with detachment.  Breathe in and mentally sing "relaxed" on a single note.  Breathe out and listen with detachment.  Breathe in and mentally sing "peaceful" on a single note.  Breathe out and listen with detachment.  Breathe in a mentally sing "now" on a single note.  Breathe out and listen with detachment.  Repeat.

     I like to create a four-note melody that I repeat with each round of those four words.  I also find that when I am in stressful situations, I can start mentally singing that four-note melody and it helps me to recover a calmer state.  I hope this also helps you as well.

An Unusual Book on Meditation

     I just finished an interesting book on meditation with an unusual twist:  it uses music as a bridge to meditative states.  No, I'm not talking about listening to New Age music while meditating, but rather using certain musical principles to help induce meditative states.  Interested?  Read on.

     Written by Richard Wolf, In Tune: Music as the Bridge to Mindfulness could be a valuable resource for a people who would like new and different methods for their meditative practice.  Richard Wolf, by the way, is an Emmy Award-winning composer, music producer, and professor at UCLA's school of music.

     Of course, I think this book would be best suited for people who have at least some musical training and know what a beat is, what a 4-beat measure is all about, and have some familiarity with intervals (measuring the distance between two pitches).  I've had a bit of musical training, so most of this book made sense to me.

     First, this is not at all like Anthony de Mello's books on meditation, where he gets right to it and describes one method after another, along with helpful hints and caveats.  No.  Wolf gently leads the reader from one concept to another, sometimes offering inside looks at his interactions with various famous musicians over his long career.  This is a gentle, leisurely book.  However, I did find a few of his meditation techniques very helpful and I often come back to them again and again.

     A recommended book, especially if you have a little musical training and want some new and unique techniques for your meditation practice.

To Free Minds

A couple of quotes for today:

"Think for yourself . . . or others will gladly think FOR you."
 (Dana Gore)

"Nothing threatens a corrupt system more than a free mind."  
(Suzy Kassem)

(photo courtesy of pixabay.com)

For Free Minds: How to Avoid Mind Control, Part 2

     Last week we were examining how people try to control our minds through fear, anger or outrage, and greed.  Today we will look at how often-anonymous people in social media try to influence what we think and do.

     I have a friend who gets almost all of his news from a prominent social media site.  Sadly, much of the news that he chooses to click on is fake.  They have provocative headlines that are designed to elicit fear, anger or outrage, or greed.  One of his favorites are conspiracy theories, which mix fear and outrage.  The problem is, whenever he clicks on one of these stories, the website remembers and generates more articles along that vein.  So, he clicks on more, and more appear.  In a sense, he is creating his own hall of mirrors.  The sad thing is that these fake news articles are designed not only to get him to read more like them, but they are also created to influence how he votes, how he views certain ethnic groups, and how he becomes more ingrained in a certain world view.  It's very sad.

     Stay free of this.  Do not click on articles that you can tell are appealing to your lower emotional centers.  Check "facts" in these articles with Snopes.com or other fact-checking sites.  Be objective.

     Similarly, the non-anonymous talking heads on the daily news channels, especially the ones that run 24/7, use your base emotions to continue watching.  Anger, fear and outrage are particularly common emotions that they elicit in order to keep you glued to the TV.  After all, they are in the business of selling commercial time, and the longer you watch, the more commercials you will see.  Of course, I am not saying that you should avoid being informed and watching the news, but be aware of how the different news organizations make you feel.  Do you feel angry, afraid, or upset?  Do those emotions make it hard for you to pull away from the TV?  Or do you feel informed, where the news is presented in a logical, even-handed way?  That is probably the better choice for getting your information.

     We all make choices in how we stay informed in this world.  By making wise choices, we can avoid the chance that we might come under someone's influence through the manipulation of our emotions.  Be wise.  Stay free.