Unit 5 The Subtle Mind Practice

First I want to start by saying… Where has this meditation exercise been all my life?!

I don’t even know where to start with why I love it so much! So first I’ll just explain my experience.

I did the 10 deep breaths in and out and then focused on my breathing as the exercise said to and chose a focal point. I noticed the thoughts (but didn’t cling!) and returned myself back to focus on my breathing. I laid there for what felt like a few minutes, but I have no idea (I had not timer, I didn’t care how long this took), but the most wonderful thing happened. I am going to use an analogy to explain… Picture a movie, now imagine I setting it on fast-forward. That is what my mind does, it races like a movie fast forwarding. No press play, as the images change more slowly, that’s what my mind did. Then imagine someone just shutting the TV off. That is what happened. My mental “TV” was finally off! I felt at ease, I felt the weight of my body that was sunk into my bed, I didn’t move, and almost couldn’t because I didn’t want to disturb this process. I was at peace with myself. There was no color, no images, no thoughts… just silence. It felt like nothing else, it was incredible to me. I could not believe how amazing this was and that I was capable of it. Since I’ve been practicing daily I am more aware, my focus is much better, and I don’t feel a lot of anxiety anymore. I think this meditation needs to be done by all people with ADD or ADHD, anxiety, and for soldiers with PTSD. Well really though, so many people could benefit from this exercise. I know I won’t give it up.

Now how it compares to the loving-kindness exercise, the calm-abiding had less steps to it and felt much easier to follow and maintain. I was not a fan of the loving-kindness one, so I told my counselor at the Veteran Affairs (VA) about it and he gave me some new exercises. I also think that this calm-abiding should have been practiced before loving-kindness (metta, as my counselor told me), so that we could all learn to focus much better. Even though the calm-abiding is about stillness, it still has helped me with focus when I am alert and not meditating. It can help people not cling to thoughts or images, therefore I believe it’d be beneficial to people to do first.

One of the exercises is to first picture someone (even an animal). Then you wish them love, happiness, kindness, safeness, and a few more. Then you turn it into wishing you both that. Then you turn it into wishing you peace, love, happiness, kindness, and whatever else. It’s pretty great!

The connection of between spiritual wellness to mental and physical wellness are substantial! It takes spiritual well-being to have better mental and physical well-being. The body can heal better, be less stressed, and be happier (or in better condition) if spiritual wellness is achieved. I can apply this in my own life by practicing the new meditations 1-2 times daily. When I do this practicing, as a result I can feel less pain, less frustration, more self-love, more love for others, and less anxiety. I used to feel this race against time, but with this calm-abiding meditation, I haven’t felt it anymore.