Meditation and Memories

Meditation is a fascinating exploration of the self. At times I actually crave quiet settling and meditation. In its most quiet sustained moments, some images present themselves without thinking. They just come.

It's fascinating how such relaxed moments produce memories in extraordinary detail.

Not all memories are in pictures. Some are sound, smell or even touch. This discovery was a surprise of sorts.

While settling this past couple of weeks, reoccurring images of the ocean at night have come to me. Here's what presented itself: Deep blue to black, with flattening, over lapping light lines of the layers of dark water. The thinning water becomes almost clear over the gray level sand—I stand there. My feet pressing into firm damp sand.

The ocean at night, appears vast and open. It stretches to a far curving horizon. In the image, there is the noise of breaking water, the smell of moisture in bits and fragments. Over the dark as far as peripheral vision will take, my eyes are wide open. Sometimes as I settle in, the image of a dark horizon and the whole panorama becomes more an more clear, almost like a glossy finish of a quality photograph. Then in the far left side and upper corner, a brilliant green flash. I had been told by the locals that I was seeing the occasional flash of the light house, out of sight, down below the horizon. The flash reflecting off of moisture in the air. Sometimes, behind me, I hear voices, commotion and laughter of the houses back along the shore road. Still that is back ground. The vast deep blue to black in front, across and to the sides dominates.

Now this night water horizon, I see the constellations breaking as my eyes adjust more and more to the dark. Now there are patterns that can be seen along with the haze of the milky way, and a million stars appearing in every direction. It is contrast of starlight and darkness over the deep black water. Its motion, its shear mass and vastness, its movement now is less and less. Water hoizon becomes more and more settled and level. The magnificent and clam vastness envelopes me. It is curious that there is no sense of fear or smallness or in significance. It is just the opposite-- calm, peaceful, immediate, here and now. The longer my breaths, the more glossy blue to black, the more stars and over light of the light house become.

Now the most amazing part. In wuji, my arms relaxed at my side, while below, I feel a slight pressure, then becoming a touch, to a light holding clasp. A small hand now holds mine around the tips of my first two fingers.

This memory was one of touch. It brought me out of the meditation. Now halfway thinking and halfway in the “zone” I looked down. It was my youngest daughter with her flashlight in one small hand while holding my hand with her other. I remembered her hair in tight braids and beads done by a lady who weaved them at the beach. She kept that weave in her hair for weeks afterwards. The beads were sky blue.

Stability, Great River, Expolorers of Ourselves

Bagua practice is always a series of small corrections—several fine points give much insight.

One of the pieces that really hit home was in the simple –but not so easy—shifting exercise with the 5 circles. In going over the fine points of the shift, Dr. Painter pointed out that the turn with the weight shift occurs in the hip crease so that your arms and torso turn as a unit. This small point of turning at the crease, actually made the shift exercise feel quite different. I felt much more stable.

The image that popped into my head was that my legs and hips were an “A” shaped hoist. I thought of the portable type of hoist that when I was a teenager we used to rent from the tool shop to lift an engine from the hood of a car. I hadn’t thought of that particular tool for years. I thought of late nights at my friends house, and we'd cranking up an old straight 6 out of the car on that hoist.

With this image, my legs and the apex of the hips felt very stable.

Another small correction occurred on working the square stepping. There were two points—one was using the turning thigh to turn the leg. This thought helped me prevent any twisting at the knee during the square step. The second was his direction that as you rotate around the square, the turning point of each step is the leading hip socket. Keeping my focus on that point of turning at the hip joint with each step definitely added a sense of stability with little or now sway and helped keep a feeling of the ridgepole in tact.

One of the most interesting pieces in the body mechanics end of things was the detailed look at the “crossing the great river” principal. I thought I understood this concept, however, I missed it in part. Specifically, it was the point that the emphasis/majority of force shifts at the centerline. So that with the hands in the rolling pearl posture there is a pulling with one active hand and at the center, begins to shift to a pushing with the opposite—now more active—hand. Previously, I was working double weighted for the first half of the turning movement. I noticed that in the past week as I have practiced linear walking and focusing on the great river that this sense has actually transferred to my legs. It actually seems to help/complement the sense of pulling with lead leg and pushing with the back leg. This “enhancement” just happened along with the corrected focus on the great river and noticing the change in active hands.

For me the meditation discussions are always fascinating. This weekend, I was particularly interested in the how the sense of focusing on how in a very real way this is really about self exploration. It is about learning to read and feel very minute bits and pieces in your body, very subtle differences and changes. Being able to relax small parts and let go of tension. Sometimes you can discover tension and not even realize that you are tense on one area or another. It is a remarkable discovery to suddenly realize for example that there are places in you body you are holding tight. In someways it is about control of you own body, but first you have to find those distant places and signals.

So in a sense we are all explorers. But explorers of ourselves--our own mind-body connections in the tiniest details. We are looking into rooms and spaces were we have always dwelled, but have never been able to turn a light on them.