Brushing Teeth and Meditation

This weekend I went to a talk by Lisa Wimberger, founder of The NeuroScultping Institute. The NSI is an evolution of Lisa's work with neuroscience, trauma, and stress and helping people heal. From the NSI website, 'Her mission to share practical and powerful stress management techniques to those in need caused Lisa to develop her Neurosculpting™ programs combining neuroscience principles with mindfulness and energetic modalities."

Lisa's talk was an introduction to NeuroScuplting, or the idea of how we can as individual change our patterns of belief and therefore our patterns of response. Since this was the very beginnings of her talks, I will describe the technique she uses as a form of meditation. She also referred to these personal journeys as meditation.

Towards the end of the talk, Lisa compared brushing your teeth to meditation. On the surface this may seem like an extraordinary comparison of two seemingly very different experiences. Most of us think of brushing our teeth as a fairly, normal everyday occurrence. Meditation is more commonly thought of in terms of raising awareness and consciousness. It's often thought of as a ritualized experience, even the imagery commonly associated with meditation shows the same.

What Lisa did by comparing brushing your teeth to meditation is bringing them to the same level, with a similar purpose. She brings the ritualized form of meditation to brushing your teeth. For many it truly is a ritual, a common pattern and flow which makes us feel better. It is ordinary in many ways and yet it is important.

Likewise, this brings an ordinary, everyday experience to meditation. We can choose to make time for meditation every day like we do for brushing our teeth. It doesn't take long and it has long-term beneefits.

Lisa talked about brushing our teeth as a daily maintenance. After all brushing our teeth helps to keep a healthy mouth. It takes a daily commitment, even just a few minutes, of brushing our teeth to maintain our health. Meditation has a similar feel - by setting aside a few minutes every day to meditate we bring peace, we strength our mind, we keep our brain and attitude healthy. Meditation also helps maintain our health, albeit in a very different way.

I truly appreciate the reminders of how the ordinary is extraordinary, whether it's brushing your teeth, or being mindful while eating, or any daily experience. It's something I forget still. In this case, I really like bringing an ordinary quality to something even I consider somewhat ritualized and outside an everyday experience.

Thanks Lisa for such a profound comparison! I'm off for my daily brushing, flossing, and rinsing of my mind.

Listening to Levon

Mark Cohn sings a song titled ‘Listening to Levon.’ It’s about a young man on a date with Mary (her name in the song) and while he remembers a few details, he’s elsewhere, listening to Levon (Levon Helm). The chorus is this:

I was lost
I was gone
Listening to Levon
In another place
In some other world
I was was lost
I was gone
Listening to Levon
I was looking at the girl
But I was listening to Levon

I suppose I can relate. I remember dating a woman a while ago who clearly saw I was more interested in cycling than in her. Maybe it might be more precise to say at the time I was more interested in proving something, and cycling was the way to do it. So as the song continues:

Sorry if I hurt you
Mary if you’re out there
You know who you are

I believe we all have activities that pull us in, where we’re lost in another place. It could be fishing, online gaming, church, or any pursuit which truly feeds us. Our deepest interests have their own sacredness and fulfillment to them.

For a long time cycling was it for me. More recently it’s been running, meditation, and yoga. Each one offers a stillness, peace, depth, connection. It’s not unlike listening to Levon. Engrossed and absorbed seem more relevant to what I feel than lost or gone. Truly being in the run, or on the mat – being present and nowhere else. The result being a similar vein of captivation and experience. In that sense, I feel the resonance of Cohn’s chorus. I feel the want for the magnificence and simplicity of those places deeper than being human.

Don’t get me wrong, I love a passionate kiss, a heartfelt embrace, the twinkle in a lover’s eyes, the deep blessings of a woman’s heart. Those truly reflect some of our most profound desires as humans - wanting to be loved, yearning to be connected, being in relationship with someone close. I feel that pull as well.

The truth is we need both and to find a balance of both. We need those places that bring great joy and satisfaction, an inner pace; and we need to acknowledge and meet our human state of being. We need to support this in each other so that each person blossoms in their own interests and then returns with renewed energy for those he loves.

Done well, this is truly having our cake and eating it too! I’m off to bake my cake and then enjoy the delight of human senses!

Meditating with Pink Floyd

Every once in a while I like to lay on the couch, close my eyes, crank up the stereo, and just listen to really good music. Last night was one of those nights. As I lay there listening I had an idea, what if I meditated while doing this?

I decided to try it and sat up into my meditation position on the couch – legs crossed, eyes closed, tall back, hands on my knees, relaxed. Focus on the breathing – and now feel my body.

The next step was to choose some music. I started with some Pink Floyd and from there I tried others - Barrage, Ray Charles, Chris Rea, Seal, Mark Knopfler. The volume was cranked up, well above a conversation level, but not ear-splitting. Enough to feel the music. For me the best music was mostly instrumental and with good, solid bass. My favorites were Sorrow and On the Turning Away by Pink Floyd.

What was really awesome was all the sensations in my body. I could feel the vibration of the low notes coming through the bottom of the couch. I could feel the mid-range and bass notes pulsing from the front speakers into my chest, arms, and face. I could feel the energy in my body following the rhythm of the music, rising, falling, anticipating, cresting almost like an internal dance. And wave after wave after wave of whole body shivers and goosebumps! Top to bottom, left to right, swirls, colors. Through all of this I could easily maintain a focus on my breathe. I’m certain that if I had wanted to choose any meditation style, I could have done that as well I felt so absorbed and aware.

In total I sat for about 90 minutes meditating, breathing, feeling – and one of the most peaceful, dare I say fun, and satisfying meditation experiences I’ve ever had.