The Happiest I've ever been
During Covid I decided to start an experiment. I knew that being forced to stay inside was going to be challenging for me and my health and I wanted to prepare for the experience and learn how to better take care of myself.
I had already been practicing meditation for close to 10 years but the practice wasn't consistent. My experiment was to take my inconsistent 10-20 minute meditation practice and make it a consistent daily practice where I add 1 minute of time to my practice until I was sitting in meditation for 1 hour.
This proved to be really challenging as I found all the typical discomforts you might expect; around physical pain, emotional upheavals and the consistent monkey mind distracting me every other second. I had heard of a technique which said all you need to do is allow whatever to come up to arise and watch the thoughts.
I did this and after getting to 45 minutes of sitting meditation I decided to jump ahead to 1 hour in silence. Something really remarkable happened in my life at this time; I realized I was happier than I had ever been. Despite all the challenges I faced and the world faced during COVID I had this one hour of time in my day when I experienced how grateful I was for what I did have.
Life Distractions
As is very common, life went on and my hour long practice began to wane and became less long and less consistent. I started practicing meditation in different ways. I began Wim Hoff breathing and found the experience of meditation in other times by mindfully washing dishes, raking leaves and going for walks.
At the end of 2024 I took my first Yoga Teacher Training with Sama Yoga and it deepened both my practice and understanding of the great spiritual path of Yoga. Until that time I didn't know that yoga was mainly a system of meditation for a long history before it became the modern pratice of intentional body movements we know of it today.
One of my teachers at my training, Alyona Skvortsova, shared with me some beautiful and powerful insights that I still use today.
For instance, when I sat in my meditation practice after COVID days I had given up on using a cushion and instead sat on the edge of a chair or couch as my back and body would hurt a great deal while sitting on the floor. What I've discovered is that by sitting on the floor I am more fully connected with my entire body, I am making my body stronger and more able to go for longer sits and less likely to slip into distraction. The basic teachings of how to sit properly is a foundational aspect to developing a strong meditation practice.
Perhaps not everyone can sit on the floor like I do due to some physical injuries or other challenges but I am a young healthy man and despite my back hurting a bit at times I can tell my pain is temporary and my practice is making my back stronger for time on and off the mat.
Alyona also showed me the power of the subtle breath and the practice of pranayama which is a slow controlled breathing technique that can unlock great potential in the body. When I was teaching yoga I always like to include some pranayama practices at the beginning of my classes as I've found them to be so helpful and connecting for all the students and myself.
Learning how to meditate
Simply observing the breath and the mind with whatever comes up is a great open technique for meditation. Time spent using this technique is not wasted at all. However, I have found that I would day dream often and plan other things that were to happen in the day or week ahead of me and would be consistently pulled away from the present moment.
Fortuantely there are actual subtle techniques that can help us train the mind, body and breath to focus and build the ability to stay focused and undistracted from the past and future in the present moment.
Brahmavihara Arama
Bali's largest Buddhist monastery
I had known about Alyona and Marie's meditation retreat in Bali before I made the move so it was on my mind to attend one of the trainings when I got a chance. This past August I attended my first Vipassana meditation retreat with these incredible instructors and it was a powerful experience that awakened inside me something profound.
It was both challenging and easy, insightful and boring, a place that brought me ecstatic positive emotions of tearful joy and the opposite. This duality showed me a powerful daoist experience of the yin and yang from inside myself as we all held space for 5 days of noble silence with meditation, lectures, yoga classes and vegetarian food.
It was a restrictive environment that was depriving in many ways yet by stripping away distractions and luxury we were able to experience something deep within ourselves. The afterglow I felt when leaving had a sort of "spiritual high" which lasted a few nights.
The best thing that happened from this short retreat, which felt very long while it was happening, was that it showed me the real value of meditation and what it could do in my life. Not just as a thing to show off, as a "quick fix" to any issue, or as panacea.
A panacea is a cure all, any supposed remedy that is claimed to cure all diseases and prolong life indefinitely.
I don't believe there is a panacea in life yet if there was one I would think this ancient yoga practice is the one.
Today
I now practice my once again hour long practice daily and feel again that I'm living happier than I've ever lived due to this practice. Yet, this time with a few more years and maturity it is a more subtle feeling of happiness. I also know now more techniques to use and how my mind operates to allow me the ability to build more precious ability to pay attention and focus to very simple sensations and presence.
I would highly recommend anyone interested in deepening in their practice to explore from another perspective if your practice has become stale and uninteresting.
One book I've been reading to help me better understand the practice of meditation is "The Mind Illuminated". It has been an invaluable guide for me to further my understanding and implement these subtlties in my life.
Namaste
