Thursday, December 8, 2016

Meditation

Many are familiar with the many different forms of meditation that are out there.  Meditation is an essential part of Buddhism. Many meditate while doing yoga.  Still others, while maybe not realizing it meditate during the day.  Some refer to it as “Day dreaming”. 

I first leaned self hypnosis back in the late 1970s.  The person I learned it from told the class a statement that has stuck with me all of these years.  He said, "Many of us claim we don't have an extra minute in our day, but what is it that you do when you go to the bathroom?  Do you just stare at the wall?  It is a perfect time to do self hypnosis to build you up."

In 2009, I was introduced to meditation.  During that time, the members of the class and I experienced a period of silence where we put our feet flat on the floor, sat back in our chair and then closed our eyes.  We built our time up from five minutes to a period of twenty minutes.  Then the teacher would ask, "How was that?"  Each of the members of the class had a different experience during their period of meditation.

For me, meditation is not necessarily closing my eyes and going "Ummmmmmmm" while I am out in the world.  Far from it, my method is to listen to music with some noise cancelling headphones that help to separate me from the rest of the world.  I listen to music that has a lot of water in it.  Music that has sounds like ocean waves, babbling brooks or even waterfalls occupies a good portion of my playlist.  I also enjoy instrumental music from artist like Kenny G and others.  I find that music transports me away from what is going on around me.  In my mind, it must do something because I have noticed a trend of people that seem to run around with ear buds in their ear listening to something.  I have even heard disc jockeys and sports casters that have music of what to me sounds like a metal brush on a snare drum to help them speak in a rhythmic manner.

Have you ever wondered why we enjoy pictures that have water in them?  Could it be that our bodies are made up of approximately 70% water and as such, water brings peacefulness to us?  I think so, at least for me it does.

The next time you go out taking pictures, try listening to music that transports you to a different place.  You just might find that you make more interesting pictures.  I encourage you to share your experiences.

In my next article, I will write on mindfulness, the practice of maintaining a nonjudgmental state of heightened or complete awareness of one's thoughts, emotions or experiences on a moment to moment basis.

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