Lorin Roche Is Still The Coolest Meditation Teacher

I got a nice little email from Lorin Roche today.  And even though I’ve already mentioned him previously in this blog, I just wanted to take a moment to give him a whole-hearted round of applause.

 You see, Lorin Roche is the coolest meditation teacher around.  Seriously.  I don’t teach meditation–I teach meditation alternatives–but if I did, I’d want to do it the way Lorin does. 

He keeps it real.  REALLY real.  He talks about meditation the same way I do (as in Keep-It-Simple) and then he goes on and TEACHES the easiest, simplest way to do it. 

My favorite part of his website (www.lorinroche.com ) is this:

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Things That Have Nothing to Do With Meditation:

Detachment
Egolessness
Emptying your mind
Gurus and master/slave relationships
Historical re-enactment of the Feudal system
Bowing down to pictures of dead Asian males
Vegetarianism
Hindu gods or Buddhist non-gods
Reincarnation
Incense
Devotion
Sitting cross-legged
Cultivating disgust for women
Cultivating hatred of the human body
Trying to kill desire and lust

. . .These Will Not Help You Meditate

These are all just aspects of Asian culture and religion for recluses.

Embracing one or more of these will not help you meditate – far from it, they are just a set of Sanskrit or Tibetan terms to describe the way you just compromised your integrity. They will just interfere with your ability to meditate and translate the benefits of meditation into something useful for your daily life.

Most likely, tangling with these superstitions will make you quit meditating – about 95% or more of Americans who start meditating with Asian-flavored religions quit. This is actually healthy because it is better to quit than to persist in doing a technique that is bad for you, even if it has a cool name.

Many meditation teachers are actually priests and missionaries, and offer much more than I do: a religion, a diet, a cult, a set of rules, an altar to bow down to, and a sense of being dominated and controlled. These are all totally separate issues from each other, and each is a world of confusion, and none of them have anything at all to do with meditation. They DO have a little to do with historical re-enactment of the situations that gave rise to Buddha or Krishna.

The missionaries create an atmosphere rich in propaganda encouraging you to adopt at least some aspects of their religion, usually Hinduism or Buddhism, with their spiritual hierarchies, and the importance of obeying spiritual authorities. All this can be entertaining and hypnotic, but actually it has little or nothing to do with meditation.

Keep in mind, I have never in my life (in the 37 years I have been meditating) had a bad experience with a monk or nun, whether they be Hindu, Buddhist, Catholic, whatever. I love them. I feel deeply enriched by my exposure to the religious orders. But I am also an American, and it’s my job to tell the truth about meditation.

Meditation is so often mixed in with these elements from Asian religion and culture that the actual skills of meditation are mostly overlooked. I have met innumerable people over the decades who sit cross-legged until their knees have arthritis, have photos of gurus on their altar, burn incense, live on high-concept diets that make them malnourished, and have taken initiations from high-ranking lamas, and they still don’t know the first thing about meditation. They struggle with their thoughts, even after years and years of trying. They approach meditation as blanking out the mind, creating a white noise to drown the bickering voices in their heads. They have the paraphernalia but did not get the basic skills of meditation. Every year they are more pale and wan, more dissociated, less creative, more afraid and more obsessed with obtaining the guru’s approval.

Learning the customs of India and Tibet is interesting, but it has nothing to with learning to meditate. And usually, the more complicated you make learning a skill, the worse you will do. If you want to use a computer, you don’t have to bow down in the direction of Silicon Valley, and put a vacuum tube on a table and worship it as the Incarnation of the Deity of Electricity.

So – throw away everything you have ever thought or seen about meditation. Let’s start fresh. Take a breath. Whew! Take another breath and make a whooshing sound, whew or huuuu.

Meditation can be a place and a time where you are suberbly relaxed and at home in yourself. That is what Instinctive Meditation is about.”

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Okay, Maya here again. Do you see why I love Lorin’s approach? 

For more info, go to www.LorinRoche.com. 

Tricking Your Brain With Meditation

We’re all reading so much these days about the powerful effects of meditation.  Yes, we know about reduced blood pressure, the possibility of relieving mild depression and anxiety, etc.  But overall, the benefits of meditation are really derived from some physiological factors that are trickling down to affect our bodies–and behaviors–in numerous ways. 

I like this description of what happens during meditation (from an article by R. J. Ignelzi): 

Through the brain’s hard wiring (the nerves) and the soft wiring (hormones), the brain is “perpetually informing the body if the world is safe or threatening,” says Dr. David Simon, a San Diego neurologist and the medical director for the Chopra Center at La Costa Resort in Carlsbad, Calif.

“Meditation fools the brain into perceiving the world as not so threatening, so the brain then sends out hormones and electrical signs telling the body to relax a bit.

The changes that happen physiologically when we practice meditation are the opposite of and counterbalance those (physiological changes) that occur in the fight-or-flight response that we experience when we’re stressed. The heart rate slows, the blood pressure comes down, breathing slows. We neutralize the harmful effects of stress on our system.”
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Meditation fools the brain?  Well, that’s okay by me.  The reality is that we DO have threats to our safety and health but our perception of those threats is often greater than the likelihood we will suffer from a particular threatening element.

So, yes, let’s fool our brains.  Let’s put them into a soothing state of calm, tricking ourselves into believing we are safe and secure.  We know that we believe whatever our brains believe, so let’s not have any qualms about getting our brains geared up in the right direction–even if we have to be sneaky about it.  

And what about playing with mindfulness?  Does that trick us into feeling calm and help our bodies release endorphins?  Well, nobody is researching the concept of playing with mindfulness.    But it follows that if you are paying attention and watching your thoughts–and if you learn how to see them clearly without reacting–you will certainly become more capable of avoiding the stressful stories that stir up all that stress in the body. 

Remember, it’s not necessarily the physical STILLNESS that reduces stress–it’s the change in the brainwaves created by the focus on awareness of thoughts.  If being still was enough to reduce stress, all those couch potatoes would be blissful, right? 

So, whenever you are in the process of noticing your triggers, paying attention to cues for greater awareness, and playing with mindfulness by seizing opportunities for moments of calm and clarity, you are giving your body and brain those same benefits of meditation. 

If you’re not into meditation, don’t worry–just keep playing with mindfulness and you’ll still be tricking your brain.

Mindfulness, Simplicity and Karen Bishop

It’s a whole lot easier to be mindful if you live a simple life. 

Here’s a piece I like written by Karen Bishop, who has a fascinating website about energy and how it affects people and the planet.

 

“Simplicity greatly frees us up to become a part of the moment. It frees us up to be much more present for what truly matters to us. As we become weary and apathetic through the ascension process, we cannot help but end up with a more simplistic life-style. With a busy, hectic life-style, we are really neither here nor there. And even though we may complain that ascension has taken so much from us, it has really left only what matters behind.

In simplicity, we have few responsibilities. We are so much more free, and we have all complained that we truly value our freedom! Within the freedom of simplicity, we can connect much more easily to Source. Our time is our own. We are removed from that busy and hectic world. In simplicity, we are able to see things we never had the time to notice before. Our lives move at a much slower pace. We can be present for others. We can be present for ourselves. “

Well said. 

To read more from Karen, visit her site at www.WhatsUpOnPlanetEarth.com  And just so you know:  it’s pretty woo-woo, but worth paying attention to!

The Secret Isn’t Really A Secret, Is It?

There’s a DVD called “The Secret” that has been making the rounds for about a year and remains a hot topic among everyone interested in personal growth and self improvement.  “The Secret” is a series of stories and questions from several extremely successful people who are living well–and LARGE–by tapping into the Law Of Attraction (LOA). 

In “The Secret” you can hear their stories and understand more about what is really a very, very basic concept:  you manifest whatever you think about.  It’s been said in countless ways over the years by countless teachers, and it’s absolutely true:  whatever you think about becomes your reality. 

Don’t believe it?  Take a look at your own life–or if it’s easier, pick someone close to you.   What do they always talk about?  What do they spend their time focusing on?  What do they project of themselves to the world around them? 

Do they talk about being healthy?  Happy?  In love?  Successful?  Or do they talk about their illnesses, how much they hate their job, how they can’t ever have a decent relationship, how they never seem to have enough money? 

And–drum roll, please–are they manifesting EXACTLY what they think/say/write/focus on?  I’m guessing they do.

And what about you?  What do you talk about?  What are you telling the world about what’s going on in your life?  What goes through your own head about how you feel? 

The secret is this:  you get what you think about, so be very, very aware of what’s in your head!!!

In other words, PAY ATTENTION to your thoughts and OPEN YOUR EYES to your own possibilities. 

It’s not a secret, really, but it IS an extremely powerful little kernel of truth that can absolutely change your life.

If you want to learn more about the Law of Attraction, watch “The Secret”.  But if you want to get started RIGHT NOW on tapping into the power of this law, simply start PAYING ATTENTION to what you think and say. 

You might be surprised at what pops into your brain on a regular basis–and what comes out of your mouth.

**Need some help with this?  Try my online course called “Awakening Awareness”–it’s simple, fun, guaranteed and it’s only $27.  Learn more at http://www.Real-WorldMindfulness.com/awakening-awareness.htm