Day 16: Meditation Challenge ~ Chakra Meditation

Welcome, to my 28-Meditation Challenge.

If you have joined us late, that is just fine. If you'd like to "officially" join in, simply leave a comment here that says, "I'm in!" and I will add you to the Challenge Roster. Or, send me an e-mail through the Contact Box at my website: awakenedliving.com. You may want to catch up by reading the previous posts. We are glad you are here! 

Each day we come here, even if we have not meditated as we'd hoped, we begin again.
Start where you are ... 

Welcome back to one of our meditation "experts," Lisa Erickson—beloved by many on the web as Mommy Mystic. 

As you may recall, Lisa is a meditation teacher from S. CA, and a student of interspiritual practices. She teaches two types of meditation classes: her primary ongoing classes mostly draw on chakra and kundalini meditation (which is prevalent in both Indian yogic and some Tibetan Vajrayana traditions.) She also leads stress-reduction deep-breathing type meditation for corporate and organizational settings.

If you're one of our participants who has been exploring and trying new forms of meditation on for size, you are in for a treat. Enjoy Lisa and this meditation ~

Thanks Jan, it’s an honor to be part of your amazing Meditation Challenge series. It is exciting to see so many people involved, and to read about so many different approaches. I personally believe each of us is intuitively drawn to the approach and/or teacher that will work for us at a given time.

Chakra and kundalini meditation are my own core practices (although I like to experiment with others), so I wanted to share a basic chakra meditation technique that anyone can try. Chakras are energy centers, intersections of mind, body, and spirit, associated with certain physical locations in our body. In the West, we are most familiar with Indian Hindu-based chakra mappings, but there are also other chakra systems in some Tibetan Buddhist, Sufi, Qabbalah and Native American traditions.

Although colors, mantras (chants), and symbols are often associated with each chakra, you don’t need to be familiar with these to begin to connect to yours. Here’s a basic meditation focusing on the navel, heart, and forehead (third eye) chakras:

1. Sit comfortably, with a straight back if possible (but don’t stress about that!)

2. Start with 10-15 minutes and gradually increase the time if you wish. Divide your meditation time into thirds. You can use a simple kitchen timer for this, or select three musical selections that are about the right length. You can also just wing it, and let your intuition decide when to move from chakra to chakra - don’t worry about meditating on each for exactly the same length of time.

3. Picture a luminous, gentle, white ball of light about 1 inch below your navel. You can place your hands over your belly if this helps you focus. This is your third chakra, associated with personal power and self-definition (note that in some systems the focus for this chakra is a little higher, in the solar plexus - either location is fine.) Each time your mind wanders, just gently pull it back to your visualization.

4. When you are ready (or your timer or music signal to you) shift your focus to your heart chakra, in the center of your chest at your breastbone. Picture a luminous white ball of light in this area, again holding your hands there if you like. This center is associated with love, compassion, and joy. Take some deep breaths if you are feeling stressed, and relax into this center.

5. When you are ready, shift your focus to your ‘third eye’. This is located in your forehead, a little above the midpoint between your eyebrows, and is the center of intuition, insight and wisdom. Again, picture a luminous, gentle sphere of white light.

6. If you like, you can complete your meditation by focusing on each chakra one last time for a few seconds, and then just sitting quietly with no particular focus.

7. I like to conclude with a bow to the universe, in gratitude for this opportunity to sit, but this is a personal choice.

Note that on any of the chakras, if you start to feel a warmth, tingle, or tickle, you can focus on that physical sensation instead. The visualizations are meant to be aids for beginning to feel the chakras, and work better for some people than others.

Happy meditating!

Lisa has just posted a companion piece for our Challenge over at her blog: "Meditation: How Often and How Long?" It is excellent and may address many of your meditation concerns around these issues. Click here to read more. Thank you for creating this, Lisa, and for being with us today!


Lisa Erickson, creator of the blog Mommy Mystic, is a meditation teacher in So. California, as well as the Buddhism Editor at Bella Online. She has kindly recommended some further reading for us so check out the Resources section below.

So, what's on your mind? Lisa and I welcome your thoughts ...


Blessings,

Jan


(Chakra image courtesy of www.truenaturewellness.com)

Read on ...

From Where I Sit — Day 16,  My Meditation Experience

Yesterday I did an extended metta (60 min.) with the help of a guided meditation by Kamala Masters. Beautiful!



   

Recommended Resources:
From Lisa:
If you want to explore chakra meditation in more depth you might want to check
out Chakra Yoga: Balancing Energy for Physical, Spiritual, and Mental Well-being by Alan Finger, which includes a guided meditation CD. If you already practice physical yoga, you will especially appreciate this book, because it lays out the asanas (poses) associated with each chakra.

Also Anatomy of the Spirit by Carolyn Myss, though its offers more of a medical/health approach to the chakras.

Inspiration:

To seriously follow the spiritual journey, particularly amid our world's busyness, one must learn to guard the preciousness of time by savoring the beauty of our periods of prayer or meditation, reflection, reading, work, study, and relaxation. Awareness of time's value and a commitment to live one's spiritual journey in this consciousness is a test of the maturity of one's spirituality. Only by guarding one's time against the onslaught of distraction can we advance in our commitment to the mystical dimension of our existence. Only when we regard time's precious relationship to our inner life, only if we understand its necessity for spiritual growth, can we begin to use time more wisely. 

~Brother Wayne Teasdale, A Monk in the World: Cultivating A Spiritual Life