Meditation in Motion - My Healing Hula Lesson

Sometimes I am mesmerized by my hula teacher's hands. They move with such grace and fluidity, offering no resistance to the aloha spirit that moves through them. Although I relaxed early on into the body movements of hula, I've had a challenge with my hands.  Despite repeated reminders that the hands should move from the wrist, my hands would seemingly stiffen up and refuse to follow. I felt so awkward, not to mention frustrated! At yesterday's lesson, my teacher danced very close to me, demonstrating with her hands as I watched in awe. I wondered how anyone's hands could move so beautifully and effortlessly. I hoped that maybe, just maybe, I would catch on through "osmosis" as she danced close to me. At one point, she held my wrist and moved my hand for me. I started to feel the right movement. My hands cooperated for a while, only to get quickly "blocked" again.

Once back home from the class, I started to practice in front of a mirror. I did an exercise of slowing waving my arms up and down at my sides, allowing my hands to follow the movement of my wrists. I then placed my arms in position for the basic kahalo step. Suddenly something clicked - a split second before I started to move, an "aha" happened in my brain. The right synapses must have started to fire, because I saw my hands in the mirror undulating like waves, effortlessly, as I started to dance! It was like a frozen river that unfroze and started to flow.

It felt so easy and natural for my hands to move that way. What on earth was stopping them before? As I tuned into the feeling of inhibition that had been in my hands, I remembered how my mother had always tried to get me to stop moving my hands. I am by nature a very expressive person. When I hear music, I can't sit still. My mom found that trait charming when I was a baby bouncing up and down in my crib singing "hubba hubba hubba" to the music, but later she felt she needed to teach me restraint. What particularly worried her was my tendency to gesture with my hands while talking. I would be enthusiastically describing something, hands moving all around, and she'd say "Mary, stop that, stop moving your hands!" She had explained that a refined, lady-like person doesn't do that. (Heaven forbid I should grow up to be unladylike!) This irked me no end, but I somehow took her words to heart. Although I was never able to stop moving my hands entirely, they had been quite well "tamed".

By now the origin of my hula hands block must be obvious. Allowing my hands to move so freely wasn't something I could easily do. It involves a kind of letting go. It's a lot like the letting go of meditation. In meditation, we let go of resistance to what comes naturally. We learn to let go of resistance to the natural movement of the mind. In hula, it's about the natural movement of the body. The traditional hula hand movements are natural and flowing, like the nature they depict.

My teacher has mastered hula with her whole being. Although she may give instructions, her most powerful teaching is from embodying hula. When my teacher danced right next to me, I absorbed something at a deep intuitive level about how she moved. It was as if the "aloha spirit" was being transferred from her to me.

I found a beautiful discussion of the "aloha spirit" at the Cyber Shaman's website:

"The Aloha Spirit is a well known reference to the attitude of friendly acceptance for which the Hawaiian Islands are so famous. However, it also refers to a powerful way to resolve any problem, accomplish any goal, and also to achieve any state of mind or body that you desire."

"In the Hawaiian language, aloha stands for much more than hello or goodbye or love. Its deeper meaning is the joyful (oha) sharing (alo) of life energy (ha) in the present (alo)"

I tell this story in honor of the aloha spirit, and my teacher, Betty Ann. For me, it is a story of healing, and it's healing for me to share it with you. May all of us experience "the joyful sharing of life energy in the present".

Aloha!

No one can teach you to meditate!

Learning meditation is like learning ride a bicycle. Someone can demonstrate how to ride, tell you where to put your feet and hands and so on, but ultimately you have to get the hang of it yourself. A meditation teacher can give you a few pointers about how to start, how to focus your attention, how to handle thoughts and so on; but like bike riding, you ultimately discover how to meditate yourself.

Of course, there are many different kinds of meditation, and this might not be true for all of them. But this is true for meditation styles that induce a deeply relaxed, meditative state. It's a natural state. It happens spontaneously at times. Perhaps you will initially follow some instructions, but then a time comes when you close your eyes and there you are. With repetition it can become automatic. A skillful "teacher" can only guide you to your own discovery.

Actually, I think it could be said that no one can teach you anything. When I was teaching in the healing arts, I was always amazed at how people heard and learned things that I never remembered saying or teaching. People learned what they were ready to learn, and I just provided a catalyst for that learning. If you are using our guided meditations or have taken our Online Course, it is because you were ready to discover something in your own awareness and these tools provided a catalyst.

A teacher is sometimes someone who passes on facts or know how. It might be tempting in that case to feel the teacher is actually teaching you, but you have to be able to absorb the information you are being given and access it when needed. You have your own understanding of the "facts". You have to apply what you've learned in your own way. Two people using exactly the same recipe produce different results. It may seem like a paradox, but ultimately I'd say someone can learn, but no one can teach.

What do you think? Do you feel someone taught you to meditate (or play music, draw, cook or...)? Do you feel you learned it totally on your own? Or has your experience been something in between?

Don't Believe Anything You Think (in Meditation)

When I first read the book title "Don't Believe Everything You Think", I found myself laughing. It created a delightful, meditative moment. I was driving and saw it on a bumper sticker. Probably I was caught up in some story about this or that going on in my mind, and seeing the bumper sticker brought a sudden, refreshing perspective. Given the shift those words created, I wondered how they applied to meditation. With a change in just one word, I realized they apply perfectly to meditation, at least the style of meditation you'll hear on our podcast. When it comes what we think in meditation, don't believe anything! The way I've always put it is "let thoughts be a meaningless activity in the mind". "Don't believe anything you think" works just as well!

Meditation gives the mind the opportunity to disengage, like shifting gears into neutral. Meaning keeps the mind engaged. Believing what we are thinking and that it is important keeps us involved in thoughts. Of course that's going to happen in meditation. It's the habit of the mind. But in meditation we have the opportunity to let that go. Learning to let go of thoughts -- to not resist them and to not purposefully follow them -- is the art of meditation.

Years ago I did the Course in Miracles (the year of daily exercises in the Workbook). Although it doesn't say it's a course in meditation, doing the workbook exercises is a way to learn to meditate. What's interesting is that the very first lesson has to do with letting go of meaning. "Nothing I see means anything" is the title of Lesson One. At the time I did the lesson, it made absolutely no sense to me. I couldn't imagine what the exercise would achieve. Only recently did it occur to me that it related to the ability to allow the mind to disengage from its usual habits and surface appearances. And only now as I am writing this do I see how it was the first step in what amounted to a course in meditation.

So if you find yourself struggling with thoughts in meditation, just remember -- don't believe anything you think!