Raise your hand if you watched the Harry Potter Series. Do you remember the train to Hogwarts? The location was in a space between spaces? Students had to run THROUGH a wall to get there. Hold that picture in your mind for just a moment. Now think about the imaginary fork in the road at the end of “Outside In” (my last post.) Left takes you back to the past, straight ahead changes nothing, or to the right leading to the Oasis for rest, respite and restoration. Of course, whatever your mind leads you to do, is where your reality is headed. So mindfulness is huge! And who knows more about, mindfulness, pathways to peace and enlightenment than the Dalai Lama? Buddhist have sought to use various types of Meditation to improve mental and physical health for over 2,500 years. Even tho, I am ‘one of those” (a believer) all people religions (or not) NEED SELF DEVELOPMENT (and deserve to be happy.) And I endeavor to provide knowledge from various places to create an equal opportunity for all.. Man, I wanted to provide stats and hard proof to confirm the benefit of Meditation, how it can impact the mind, emotions and even one’s life experiences. To be honest, I started with a Christian Neuroscientis whose work was on the rise connecting praise and worship to healing the brain… but her educational background didn’t support her work and thus it’s been heavily scrutinized. It seems the world needs scientific proof to be credible. So what I sought to make the connection between science and documented experience and this is what I found.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison released an article outlining a “convergence of spirituality and science” focusing on a series of meetings with the Dalai Lama (news.wisc.edu, 5/25/2001). Out of those meetings came others: Transformation of Mind, Brain and Emotion: Neurobiological and Bio-Behavioral Research on Meditation with Mind and Life Institute of Boulder CO. And Fifteen years later the same university completed a study and published a research-based article “Reconstructing and deconstruction the self: Cognitive mechanisms in meditation practice” which was featured in Trends in Cognitive Science (CJ. Dahl, et al, Trends Cogn Sci. 2015 Sep; 19(9): 515–523.) Using Buddhist and other traditions, the authors focused on different meditation processes which they grouped into 3 areas: Attentional, Constructive and Deconstructive. The Attentional process contained: Focusing attention, breathing, body awareness and “Mantra Recitation” and more. And what I noticed is ABIDE Christian meditation follows the same basic structure (plus or minus a few steps.) Either way you’ll find atmosphere and mindfulness. Lets take a quick turn for a second to a story, follow me now, I am going somewhere with this, I promise.
You the story of The Woman at the Well? I can imagine that she’s not unlike many of us, desperately needing love and attempting to fill a vacuum need… probably grew up on an attention or affection deficit home (maybe dad was gone.) And her lifestyle SCREAMED “thirsty.” Apparently she was a serial dater, and the other women coming to the well during the day no doubt gave her the stink eye and whispered behind her back. (“YOU KNOW THEY’RE HAVING SEX” she’s a hoe.”) I bet none of those married-up, 5 kids, double tent, and livestock having women ever bothered to reach out to this broken, vulnerable, lonely… needy woman. So, to keep down the drama, she started fetching water at night, until this one day… probably while dude #5 was laid up at the pad, she took her “thirsty SELF” to the well and up walked a man. Back in the day, over there men like that didn’t speak to women like her. But he asked for a drink, told her about her self, and the conversation changed her life. This was “The Oasis” in the midst of a very dry and thirsty land. Obviously you can’t go there but it this same Oasis does still exist. Its a wrinkle in time… and if you create the right atmosphere (through praise and worship), and your spirit and mind are lined up, this SAME traveler (who lives OUTSIDE OF TIME) will meet you there, just like he did the Woman at the Well. This is what makes Christian Meditation different from all the rest. The traveler is the One who actually made heaven and earth, Who is Omnipresent, Omnipotent and all knowing and if you answer the door where he is knocking he will take you on a marvelous journey to find SELF, to heal and change your life.
For Meditations check out ABIDE, and if you need help… I’m here for you, just CLICK!