Many assume that the process of breathing is only about your physical nature, but that is not the case. The process of breathing is much more than an essential function of your physical body. Indeed, it is the flowing of Spirit to you, and through you. That is the reason that when the focusing of Spirit through your physical body ceases, your breathing ceases, also.

Our meditation experience will induce a convergence of beneficial aspects for you, for as you relax into the natural rhythm of perfect breathing while hearing these spoken words, the Vibration of your physical being will gently surrender to the Vibrational frequency of your Source, and you will become one with your Source, inside the Vortex.

Through the hearing of our words in your relaxed state of allowing, you will allow the gentle tuning of your Vibrational frequency to match the frequency of your Source.

This will not be an exercise of effort or trying, but instead an exercise of releasing and allowing…gently allowing yourself to be who-you-really-are.

— Abraham

Excerpted from the Getting into the Vortex Guided Meditation CD and User Guide # 272

- C.G. Deuter

Each meditation is so different. Today, as I settled into my breath, I was immediately aware of a great deal of mental pain. The pain didn’t seem to be tied to anything in particular, but was more an existential kind of pain—just the fact of “being” hurt.

One I got mentally quiet enough to feel its full intensity, this background pain wanted all of my attention. I knew that if I just ignored it, or tried to push it away, it would only get worse, and it would be impossible to develop any concentration and insight. So, what to do?

Sometimes, when the existential pain is that bad, I’ve found that it’s wise to just stop trying to meditate, and turn one’s whole attention to the pain. Sometimes this means just exploring the pain—seeing what its nature is and, especially, what it feels like in the body. One looks into the pain or angst with a non-judgmental curiosity. You just want to see what’s going on, so to speak, and you do it with as much compassion and loving-kindness as you can.

If the pain really roars when you look into it with non-judgmental interest, and you don’t seem to be getting a handle on its causes, then it may be well to step back and begin doing metta, loving-kindness, meditation for oneself: “May I be free of this pain, and the causes of this pain. May I have peace of mind and know the causes of peace of mind.”

Or, you may want to address the pain directly, as my heart teacher, Thich Nhat Hanh, likes to say, as dealing with a crying baby: “Dear pain, I hear your cries! I do not reject you! I will not lock you away in some other room of my mind and let you wail! (I would hear you anyway!) I am here for you, dear pain. I hold you in my heart, even though it hurts to much. I want to know what you are all about, and set this painful energy free, for you and I are not different, but the same. The pain is me, and I am the pain. I will not reject myself, but look deeply, with love and compassion, so that I may be free.”

Giving some mental pain all one’s attention, like this, can be very skillful—or very unskillful! It all depends on whether we can hold the pain in thought and our heart, without getting sucked into the pains’ story line or getting overwhelmed by the emotions and images that may arise as we pay attention.

Again, if one feels overwhelmed, then it’s usually skillful to just stop, back away, and give oneself and the pain some space. In some cases, it might be wise to just turn one’s thought entirely away from the pain and go do something else—take a walk, do some housework, listen to some music, or talk to a friend. Is this “abandoning” the baby? Not really. It’s not like you’ll won’t hear it in the background! But the fact is, if you are utterly overwhelmed by some mental pain, you won’t be a very good or skillful “mother” or “father” to the pain, and your unskillful attention will actually just make matters worse!

Giving yourself some mental space, you will find that after a while you can usually return to giving yourself metta—loving and embracing yourself in heartfelt well-wishes and the aspiration that you be free of mental entanglements and tight emotional knots. If you find you can return to mindfulness of the pain, and begin to investigate again with fearless, non-judgmental curiosity, that’s great. But if not, then my experience is that staying with the metta, with the loving-kindness work, is the most skillful thing you can do.

Selfless love can heal as much as insight can, and a deep, unconditional love always brings insight. Likewise, with insight into the “not self” nature of the mental things that plague us, one gains equanimity and often the compassion that comes from deeply understanding the nature of something. Understanding often leads to forgiveness, of ourselves, and of others, but only when we’ve plumbed the depths of our hurt and seen through the pain that binds us.

I hope what I’ve shared here is helpful to you. One never knows what will show up when one sits down to meditate. Part of the practice is learning how to deal with what arises skillfully. Though I’ve explained here what to do when one is overwhelmed by pain or angst or some powerful emotion, there are times when one can simply note some lesser pain, some thought that would snag us, and then just smile, and gently return to the breath and the concentration.

You’ll have to see for yourself what works best, and each time is different. There are times to resist the tug of some thought or emotion and to resolutely stick with the breath. The “monkey mind” will want to say everything that arises in our thought is important and that everything we can think or feel should be followed and chased after. Don’t be fooled! Don’t chase the monkey’s tempting bananas! Meditation is indeed a discipline. It takes hard work and an ardent desire to awaken from the monkey mind’s entanglements and delusions.

I can happily report that as I have stuck with meditation practice, and as I’ve gained more skill as a meditator, I’m far less likely to follow some “banana” thought, incidental pain, or fascinating feeling into its imaginary, self-justifying world of pleasures and pains. But, yes, when some mental pain is truly great, when we get overwhelmed, there are times to stop working on concentration and to turn our attention to the cry of our being, to the crying baby within us.

If we investigate mental pain with the twin tools of non-judgmental curiosity and loving-kindness, we will find the way to heal ourselves and gain our freedom.  With each day’s practice, whether on or off “the cushion,” we will learn how to live life more fully and skillfully.  It’s all a matter of learning how to pay attention, even when our “monkey mind” wants to swing from thought to thought—and how to love unconditionally, even in the face of great, screaming pain. My friend, I can testify from my own trial and errors, you can learn how to do it!

Sunday, October 23 (6:15) 6:30-8 pm

RSVP as space is limited. 541/343-4415. Please plan to arrive 15 minutes early to get settled.

Bend OR:

Friday, October 29 6-8 pm

Hawthorn Healing Arts

39 NW Louisiana Avenue

RSVP as space is limited. 541/343-4415 or Hawthorn 541/330-0334

You, who are the source of all power

Whose rays illuminate the whole world

Illuminate also my heart

So that it too can do your work

-from the Gayatri:

Midline Meditation is a practice which assists us moving from brain dominance to a state of heart dominance: we exchange thinking for sensing and feeling. As we reorient our inner ‘resting place’ from the head to the heart, belly and body- the place  from which we orient our Presence-

            stress and fight/flight/freeze responses ease

            heart -centered consciousness naturally arises

            heart coherence comes back “on line” and choreographs all the systems of our bodymind (see below)

            an innate sense of our wholeness arises, rather than an ego (brain) driven sense of separateness, including our sense of our own bodies

The effects of consistently reorienting our awareness to our midlines, finding a place of rest in our more INNER, heart-centered, feeling centers is cumulative and progressive.

Like training a new ‘muscle’,  our abilities to relax our busy mind/nervous system dominance becomes easier and more instinctual. We are more able to move to this inner awareness throughout our day, in all situations. From this place we find that it is easier to ALLOW life to unfold without needing to “go out” and react/try to change the events and people in our lives.

 We are cultivating a restful sanctuary within ourselves, that strengthens and stabilizes each time we bring our awareness within.

 Over time, we also notice that this stillness and sense of wholeness begins to permeate our entire being. The stillness which we have cultivated within the midline has come to radiate and infuse every cell of our body. As we move through our day and our lives, we literally move into the world as Stillness, radiating this heartcentered Presence into every encounter and environment.

 This radiant Presence is brought into our lives, and through the coherence of our heart fields, we offer the possibility to every other heart field to begin to entrain and awaken. Again, we are not GOING OUT to ‘make something happen’, but are simply cultivating our own inner Stillness/heart coherence and moving into Life as that, embodied.

 Our bodies, then,  literally become agents of transformation through our own willingness to cultivate this within ourselves.

When the body calls us back, we begin to find that we have a partner on the spiritual path that we didn’t know about–the body itself. In our meditation and in our surrounding lives, the body becomes a teacher, one that does not communicate in words but tends to speak out of the shadows. Moreover, rather than being able to require the body to adapt to our conscious ideas and intentions, we find that we have to begin to learn the language that the body naturally speaks. As we come under the tutelage of the body, we often think we know what is going on, only to discover, over and over, that we have completely missed the point. And then, just when we think we are completely confused, we come to see that we have understood something much more profound and far-reaching than anything we could have imagined. It is all very puzzling but, in meditating with the body as our guide, we come to feel that, perhaps for the first time in our lives, we are in the presence of a being, our own body, that is wise, loving, flawlessly reliable, and, strange to say, worthy of our deepest devotion.

In entering into this process of developing somatic awareness, we are not simply making peace with our physical existence. In fact, we are entering into a process that lies right at the heart of the spiritual life itself, something the Buddha saw a very long time ago. He saw that while spiritual strategies of disembodiment may yield apparent short-term gains, in the long run they land us right back in the mess we began with, perhaps more deeply than before.

In meditating with the body, the awareness itself is being retrained and reeducated. We begin to live our life as a continual welling up from the depths of our soma, of our pores, our tissues, and our cells. Rather than thinking that the conscious mind is or should be the engineer of our lives, we begin to realize that the conscious mind is actually more appropriately the handmaiden of the body. The body becomes the continual source of what we need in order to live, the unending fount of the water of life.

from: “Touching Enlightenment”  by Reggie Ray

Cultivating body-centered Stillness

and deep relaxation in a nurturing group field 

Thursday, June 16 (6:45) 7-8:30 pm

Sunday, June 26 (6:15) 6:30-8 pm

Thursday, July 7 (6:45) 7-8:30 pm

Midline Meditation is a guided 30-40 minute body-centered meditation and progressive relaxation experience, with time on your own to rest in quiet at the completion. We will then have the opportunity to share our experiences afterward in the circle (always optional).

What to bring:  Whatever you need to sit comfortably and warm (we have pillows). We will be sitting in straight back chairs. Some participants like to bring a shawl for extra coziness.

Go to our Blog Site for more information and for new postings: http://midlinemedittion.wordpress.com/

Cost: $10-$20

 ”Since noise is increasing in all directions, the psychology of silence has taken on a special meaning. We are already so adapted to an abundance of screeching sound that we are surprised when stillness suddenly envelopes us. Not that this happens very often.

We begin to see that the whole question of our relation to the world , both positive and negative, centers in something like silence.

So our service to the world might be simply to keep a place where there is no noise, where people can be silent  together.”

Thomas Merton  ”The Springs Of Contemplation”

If you cannot join us in person, we invite you to sit with us at the same time wherever you may be. Midline Meditation CDs and MP3 direct downloads are available on our blog at : http://midlinemeditation.wordpress.com/

Although much is written about stress, today I would like to focus on an antidote.  Let’s call stress the Freeze Response and its variations from micro levels in the cellular structure to macro levels in your physical, emotional and mental bodies.  The Freeze Response is the intense cry from your organism for everything to please JUST SLOW DOWN.  In a word, the system is completely overwhelmed and simply shuts down.  This survival mechanism is called playing ‘dead’ in the hopes that the stressor will go away.  But really, once the system shuts down, what could bring it to life again?  Where is the switch for that?                 

If you understand that stress = contraction/freeze and health = relaxation/flow, then lets choose an image that conveys the answer.  A metaphor I like to use is… just imagine an ice cube set to float in a bowl of water.  Let yourself perceive how those ice crystals dissolve and move into an expanded microscopic flow of joining the water around them, free to move now in any direction… free to respond again to Life.              

Your natural state is a quiet place of letting go of control and surrendering into an open relaxation.  Your natural state is like a column of stillness in the very midline of your body and, paradoxically, where the Breath of Life breathes into that Stillness the forces of creation for your structure and being.  This is the primordial Breath that brings potency, buoyancy, expansion and evolution to every level of your beingness.  This is the Way Home to peace.

Each day cultivate the practice of sitting quietly and ‘backing up’ into your midline, contacting the Stillness, and melting your ice cubes into that pool-like place. Here is your response to any thoughts that arise as you do this:  “Let it be.  Leave it as it is.  I surrender into open relaxation.”  Allow your body to feel and integrate all the sensations that were numbed out by the freeze and become the finely tuned instrument of Life that was intended for your pleasure.

Wren Breedlove, senior instructor with Sandra N. Wheeler www.dynamicstillness.com

June 1 and 8,   6-8 pm (arrive 5:45)

$50,  includes Midline Meditation CD

Preregistration is required, as space is limited

This class is designed for all levels of experience

The Midline is our first embryonic structure. Within the midline is a core of Stillness, which is present from the moment of conception, and is radiating throughout our lives.

Every form and function of our being is created upon this inherent stillness.

An open, vibrant midline is essential in creating, repairing and sustaining health on all levels: physical, mental, emotional, spiritual.

The Midline is the portal through which we evolve in consciousness: it is our direct channel to Source. The Breath of Life – the unimpeded flow of Source through the Midline – is the wellspring of our health, inner guidance, intuition and destiny.

IN THIS SUPPORTIVE, EXPERIENTIAL AND INFORMATIVE MIDLINE MEDITATION CLASS…

YOU WILL LEARN:

- a meditation practice that assists you to feel and rest in the inner Stillness in your midline and body

- how to reduce the stress and brain hyperactivity that depletes our health

-how to recognize the “buzz” of brain hyperactivity and overwhelm in the nervous system

-how to rest back into Stillness in the midst of the inevitable challenges of life

-how the practice of this meditation reorients our system back to wholeness and ease

YOU WILL EXPERIENCE:

- the restful depths of your own inner Stillness

- your central nervous system, brain and nervous system become open and receptive

-the resurgence of warmth, relaxation, ease as your awareness rests in the Midline, bringing centeredness and calm

TO REGISTER:

A few spaces are still available. Call 541/343-4415 to reserve your space.

Instructor: Sandra N. Wheeler, LMT #1610 (www.sandranwheeler.com)

Sandra is a gifted healer, mentor and teacher in private practice in Eugene OR, and is committed to the process of wholeness and thriving in our lives. These meditations are an expression of that commitment. She is a Senior Instructor in Biodynamic Cranial Touch. (www.dynamicstillness.com)

For much more information about this meditation, its extensive benefits, & resources on stress,

please go to www.midlinemeditation.wordpress.com

“Only from the heart can you touch the sky”  Rumi

An excellent resource for understanding heart centered awareness is the book: The Secret Teachings of Plants: The Intelligence of the Heart in the Direct Perception of Nature, by Stephen Harrod Buhner. Here is a mini-review written by a practitioner of Midline Meditation……

The electromagnetic field produced by the heart is 5000 times larger than that produced by the brain. Our heart field expands outward in all directions, gathering information, storing emotional memory, perceiving spaces and the other fields we come into contact with.

Our most sensitive scientific instruments detect the human heart field ten feet out from our body. But this measurement only reflects the limitations of these instruments, not the reach of the heart’s electromagnetic field. Like radio waves, the vibrations emitted by our hearts expand out to infinity.

“We are meant to feel the touch of the world upon us,” Harrod writes. By listening deeply to the information perceived by our hearts– by trusting our hearts as powerful organs of perception– we can gain profound insight into ourselves and our fellow beings– humans, animals, and plants alike. (shared by Lucius Wheeler luciuswheeler.wordpress.com)

There is a light that shines beyond all things on earth, beyond us all,

beyond the heavens, beyond the highest, the very highest heavens.

This is the light that shines in our heart.

Chandogya Upanishad