{"id":8395,"date":"2015-03-13T20:15:50","date_gmt":"2015-03-14T03:15:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wagayoga.com\/blog\/?p=8395"},"modified":"2015-03-17T23:40:45","modified_gmt":"2015-03-18T06:40:45","slug":"why-we-meditate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/wagayoga.com\/blog\/yoga\/why-we-meditate\/","title":{"rendered":"Sand Dollars…"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"sm_IMG_0239\"<\/a> \u6d77 \u3046\u307f UMI translates to “ocean” in Japanese but “mother” in Arabic – really?\"sm_IMG_0237\"<\/a>waves approaching…\"sm_IMG_0238\"<\/a> Crashing onto the beach – Where are you hiding? SOAKED. \"sm_IMG_0258\"<\/a>The tide recedes back into auspiciousness, once again, leaving a shining gift…\"sm_IMG_0247\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Ultimate goal of yoga is … unifying the mind-body-spirit through meditation, even though what makes yoga popular is the physical aspects – all those poses and the movements, especially if you claim it’s good for dieting\/weight loss and age-reversing effects or stress management… and.. yes, indeed, medically proven, they are. Yet the asanas(poses) were designed to be only a means to an end…while some require so much focus, it’s likened to a moving meditation. I was surprised when I learned of this in my formal training as I thought I had signed up to learn to do “advance” poses and memorize all the names of the poses in Sanskrit:) Pretty naive, wasn’t I back then? Turns out that the real purpose meshed so well with what I actually needed – more than the physical practice of yoga I just loved so so much. The system was devised to bring about as an end, the practice of meditation. That’s the prize, the reward to our hard? work. And one may ask – why?<\/p>\n

It’s not because yogis want their grey matter<\/a> to develop and grow smarter (I would not mind:)… that’s just a by-product… At least, I am not concerned with that so much as …wanting to be in that place of “interbeing” he calls it, a Buddhist monk teaching mindfulness; yogis call it “being present” or “liberation”*:<\/p>\n

In Buddhism, sometimes we use images when we meditate.<\/p>\n

We can visualize a wave on the surface of an ocean. Every wave
\nhas her wave body and the wave body is fragile and impermanent,
\nsubject to being and non-being, subject to birth and death. <\/p>\n

Butlooking deeply, we see that every wave also has her ocean body.
\nHer ocean body is not outside of her. Her ocean body is inside
\nof her; she doesn\u2019t have to look for it. If the wave recognizes her
\nocean body, she will no longer be scared. She is free from the
\nnotion of being and non-being, birth and death.<\/p>\n

We have our physical body, but that is not our only body.
\nWe also have our cosmic body. Everything from the cosmic body
\nhas produced this physical body. The cosmic body is like God,
\nthe ultimate. If you are able to touch your cosmic body, you are
\nno longer afraid of being and non-being, birth and death. So a
\npractitioner of meditation needs to meditate on this important
\nissue and be free of fear.<\/p>\n

In the Buddhist tradition, there is the wonderful teaching of
\ninterbeing. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

– Thich Nhat Hanh
\n\"sm_IMG_0225\"<\/a> Gifts from the sea…so rich with dollars to deposit into…?\"sm_IMG_0298\"<\/a>Time for reflection. We are One.<\/p>\n

* liberation here does not mean – freedom as in anything goes – but liberation from fear, from …suffering.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u6d77 \u3046\u307f UMI translates to “ocean” in Japanese but “mother” in Arabic – really?waves approaching… Crashing onto the beach – Where are you hiding? SOAKED. The tide recedes back into auspiciousness, once again, leaving a shining gift… Ultimate goal of yoga is … unifying the mind-body-spirit through meditation, even though what makes yoga popular is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/wagayoga.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8395"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/wagayoga.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/wagayoga.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wagayoga.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wagayoga.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8395"}],"version-history":[{"count":39,"href":"http:\/\/wagayoga.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8395\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8494,"href":"http:\/\/wagayoga.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8395\/revisions\/8494"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/wagayoga.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8395"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wagayoga.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8395"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wagayoga.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8395"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}