Meditation
Submitted by Charlene Jones on Fri, 2006-07-21 13:54.
Bob from our regular group offers his meditation experience, describing it in ancient terms with a fresh twist.
Some reflections on my meditation...
On the human plane, where there is much anger and fear, and often little
compassion, the "impure" action of one person can offset the "compassionate"
efforts, rooted in truth, of 1000 people.
But on the divine plane, the opposite is true.
On a spiritual level, the actions of one compassionate and mindful person,
acting on his/her truth, is more valuable to the energy of the universe, and
more than offsets the uncompassionate acts of a 1000 people.
Consider the candle...
The light of one candle can light another 1000 candles. With this
expansiveneess, it is possible that the entire world can become enlightened.
Consider the sacredness of the lite candle...
Where the initial spark come from? Is it merely a conscious choice?
But once lite, all the essential elements converge and then transform.
The water and earth, contained in the candles mass are drawn to the wick,
meeting the air and the fire. This convergance causes the burning, the elements
are transformed and eventual die, but light is created in the process.
This to me is what makes a transformative process sacred, revealed in a simple
and ancient tradition of burning a candle.
Enjoy...Bob
Bob's candle
Nice images here. Thanks for sparking some thoughts. I first thought about how true it is that one person with a negative action can wipe out my whole day of meeting nice wonderful people. After working with the public if I take anyone on the walk home it's that rotten so-and-so that made my life sting for a brief moment.
So your train of thoughts led me to wonder why this is so? It's not like there aren't examples of compassionate and mindful people. Big names like Gandhi, Christ, Mother Teresa, Buddha! Still, I've always felt that we push these individuals into some sort of special category which permits me to continue my "unmindful" life. They are special, I am not special and therefore I give myself permission to not even try.
Now I would like to contemplate one thing - All of these special people started out pretty much the same way I did.
So what's my excuse now?
Catherine
One Candle and Anonymous
The second comment to Bob's piece started with a reminder of the meditation instruction to not meditate on the single flame of a candle.
This is important and here's why...
The meditation on fire is one of the classic forty meditations explained in the Visuddhimagga, the oldest extant text by some readings, of writing in the world. The Kasina meditations, earth, water, fire and air, are four in a category by themselves. They provide a powerful basis for realization of the components of not only our own bodies but of much of the material world.
Instructions for the fire meditation are very clear: the (monk) meditates on the tongues of fire leaping from the base of a fire he/she has made. In other words the tongues of flame that dart forward and up and out then disappear so quickly are the point of held view. The mind is thereby invited to contemplate among other things, impermanence.
The opposite can happen with the steady glowing single flame of one candle. It's apparent consistency invites a different experience: sometimes, the sudden and complete explosion of what is called the tigle, up through the spine.
If this experience is not approached with a qualified teacher in appropriate settings it can lead to a fracture in the psyche. This fracture would likely take the form of mania, uncontained energy in all directions, followed by a flattening of the energy or depression. The picture of classic
bi-polar symptoms emerge.
It is to be avoided. Just as a sudden kundalini experience can knock the consciousness for a loop which takes the rest of the life to mend, so too can meditating on the single flame of a candle create such a difficulty that the rest of this lifetime is devoted to trying to create health again.
The aim of meditation is to augment the health which already exists. We pursue meditations which help us gain strength in our healthy consciousness so the eruptions of the negative, of hindrances and cracks, arises in a sea of calm strength and is allowed to heal.
No single flame of a candle meditations for you!
bob's burning candle
I like this image, Bob. It sparks a few thoughts, one of which niggles - the advice not to meditate on one candle. I'll have to think more on that.
However, you caught me right from the start with this piece. Working with the public it's so true that it doesn't matter that most people I encounter each day are nice, it's that one "impure" person who I end up carting home with me after work unless I'm lucky enough to bump them off in a bush along the way. Not to scare anybody but that's actually getting easier and yet the same is not necessarily true for re-focusing on the one compassionate example. There are certainly great examples of these "ones" - Christ, Gandhi, Mother Teresa, of course Buddha!
So there are models. I guess it's just tough to remember that they all started out small and unassuming before lighting the thousands of other candles. It would make sense that there are models all around if I could just remember to look. This reminds me of the hermit card in the tarot. He holds a lantern to light the way. Sometimes it's interpreted as lighting out into the darkness to find something. Sometimes it's lighting the way *to* the hermit. The answer could be anywhere.
Thanks, Bob.