for suk wah it is huge progress

going places is fun. being with kind and wonderful people is a delight. having said that i have to admit that there's nothing like back on my own meditation mat and meditate away. bar none. i am saying this from my own experience. i was in a safari back when most of the world didn't know what this word was. unless they've read hemmingway. by the way, it is truly an astonishing discovery to see elephant running in the wild. i did not know they could run this fast. and speaking of delight. that's how i feel when i wake up in the room high up on a tree and see this sweet giraffe face passing by the window. nonetheless the sweetness passing through me in gentle waves deep in meditation is beyond comparison. as i revel in the elegance of my upright and steady posture more than an hour into sitting i recall vividly the elegance of the hippopotamus swimming like a masterful ballerina in the depths of lake.

so do i want to go to a safari again? i don't know. this much i know for sure about my life now. i need quite a bit of equipment to support my posture. a suitcase of them. i have the tahoe trips to prove it. so when a trip involves air travel i have to go into alternate modes of meditation. meaning i have to sit in a chair, lie horizontal on a hotel bed, or whatever bed i happen to be in.

also because of evening activities i have to get up later and meditate less than i do at home. so with this observation i am happy to congratulate myself. suk wah, your discrimination and willpower have definitely improved. your capability to make choices that are for long term benefit has come a long way. i am serious. this involves hard and difficult decision. like when i am offered a fantastic cheese at dinner i have to say no. okay, i admit i cannot say no outright. but i don't munch on the cheese like a squirrel. i only have a couple of bites. and that, for suk wah, is huge progress.

the inner self gets a little bigger

i went to bed last night thinking i would not meditate this morning since i'll be in a meditation retreat today so i'll be meditating all day long. but i was wide awake 2.50am. what to do?!:) what a treat.

a really nice thing happened. i've been propping up my crossed legs with extra pillows. at some point while i was paying attention to the column of light running from the crown of head to the base of spine and enjoying the lovely humming sound in the breath i just knew i could remove some of those pillows. i did. the foundation of the posture opened up. i experienced an expansion within. the inner self which has no limits has just become a little bit bigger.

it's gonna be a great day of meditation.

healing lights all the way

i meditate for about 2 hours. i can't get over my posture. so comfortable. so upright. so still. on one hand i have to give credit to my effort. on one hand i know there's a gentle force holding it in place and it comes from deep within. i watch the force doing its thing. i feel it. i am in awe. i love it.

i digress.

this morning my friend is having a surgery. to remove a brain tumor. i hold her in my awareness. i send healing lights. healing lights fill up the surgical theater. healing lights flow through everyone on the surgical team, surgeon, anethesiologist, nurses, and so on. healing lights permeate all the surgical instruments and equipment. healing lights infusing the tumor. healing lights in my friend's breath, consciousness. healing lights permeate the operation from start to conclusion. healing lights all the way. healing lights all around.

meditation: connection technology, mobile experience device. 40 m + 29 m

coming out of meditation today is like rising up from somewhere deep within at a slow, steady pace. i'm not a diver but it comes to me this is probably sort of like a diver rising up from the ocean deep.

the feeling is exquisite beyond measure. the firmament of consciousness is fundamentally an enigma. yet quietly humming from its vast space is a complex, symphonic sense that holds the synergy of so many wonderful things. in one moment i taste delightful sweetness, in that moment vibrant contentment, and, in another, bright aliveness. together they become one sense, the sense that i own phenomenal magic within.

humming mmm is my new habit. 41 m + 34 m

i notice a new habit is shaping up.

it all began at the beginning of the year. and spontaneously too. after i finish singing 36 rounds of aum, i would glide into humming the extended resonance mmmm. the buzz would build and build. it would fill up the arms, hands, until the fingers feel like living, warm water balloons bouncing gently.

soon molecules and cells from deep within the body respond and reverberate in sync. there's something phenomenally calming and settling about it. sweet too. 

meditation is my connection technology. 39 m + 37 m

an instructive comes through clearly and gently as i prepare the body into the easy lotus posture. pay kaiser bill today.

i immediately know that i have forgotten all about this one amidst getting the month-end and year-end financial data ready.

but, here's the deal. i notice a few things about my inner state. first, it's utterly unperturbed. the tendency to beat myself up is nowhere. second, i realize when i send out the payment today i am not paying ahead of time, nor behind, but, rather, right on time. so it's not too much time, too little time, but, just enough time.

sucking bone, inner self. 45 m + 33 m

it isn't until i hear the timer going ugg-ugh-ugh that it occurs to me i drop out in the midst of singing aum.

truly it's a wonderful and marvelous thing. i'm filled with this buoyancy spiced with this robust buzz in the arms, hands and fingers. i feel so safe in the strong and sturdy posture. the comfort level is way high, beyond measure. the spine is a masterfully constructed column permeating delicious lights. at one point i remember two of my all time favorite eating pleasures: sucking the tiny bit of fluid between vertebrae and joints, extracting bone marrow. in fact, i just had a great time last night sorting through a big pot of soup of lamb shanks and fresh ginger that was cooked for six hours. i guess i could call that meditation in action:)

writing new apps for the mental circuitry. 38 m + 8 m

floating on little pockets of light.

yes, that's what's happening in the spine as i enjoy my steady and easy lotus posture.

your new year promise? mine is...38 m + 4 m

i ask my cool friend millie, what's your new year resolution? pausing momentarily she bursts into a sunny smile and says, i prefer the word 'promise.'

i like that.

my meditation practice is the goal in itself. 38 m + 41 m

this is a truly special holy-day gift. this is the gift i want.

no sooner than i began aumming i see with the inner eye that lord buddha is meditating in me. our meditation postures are one. with this vision an opening sensation quietly ripples through the body, synchronizing with the breath, and the mind expands into a serene realm.

meditating on chinese mind, american mind, calling mother. 38 m + 6 m

it's been a while since the residuals of guilt, suspicion, distrust, regrets appear in the mind. and here i am, while reveling in the nourishing sound of aum sweetly and kindly reverberating in the steady and easy breath that is irrigating everywhere in the strong and upright meditation posture, i watch these old habitual tendencies misting my consciousness.

breath is my yellow brick road. 39 m + 13 m

i never know when an answer to my question might come from.

case in point. i went about my day yesterday with a question lingering in consciousness. why is it still so hard to get up in the morning? i made sure the tone didn't carry any trace self-beating. i acknowledged that i had come a long way but it was obvious that there's still work to be done. all i want is to dig deeper, know better so i can do better in the coming mornings.

don't stick my head into garbage. 38 m + 18 m

as i am arranging the body into the easy-lotus meditation posture i go, whoops, here they are, those residual tendencies.

what are they about? what should i do about them?

thank you, my inner self, thank you. 41 m + 13 m

today i have a new-found awe for my meditation posture.

i sure have come a long way. hwubby says, yeah, you have.

he is not referring to my meditation posture.

i digress.

what is grace really? 38 m + 8 m

can't think of a better way to wake up. there's only the soothing sound of the moving breath.

all that i am aware of is, really, there's no bounds to my consciousness. it's quiet, it's vast, it's...alive.

i am alive.

the body is totally still. it feels just right to allow it to move at its own pace in its own time.

the truth of the matter is i don't want to be anywhere else other than being in the nurturing womb of the breath.

as i am preparing for my meditation posture a thought appears in the clear, quiet mind. i know immediately what this is. the solution to a situation that has been hanging around for a while.

face to face with my own self. aum. 38 m + 8 m

each meditation is a face to face encounter with my own inner self.

i am doing nothing hard. i'm actually enjoying my self, relaxing in my hard-earned upright, steady, comfortable posture, allowing the spectrum of sounds in aum to flow to all corners of consciousness.

i am in awe of how vast i am. a open, bright being with no horizon in sight.

every now and then, sparks come to mind, illuminating the way to taking care of a worldly task. by now i am not even worried that i would forget it. i simply keep my attention on the breathing movement and the residual resonance of aum in the body.

the fingertips are like inflated balloons, pumped up with vibrant mmmmmm. feels good.

38 m + 34 m, hwubby comes to my rescue:)

 frigid cold makes it a little more difficult to convince the body and mind to get out of the warm bed. the short distance to the meditation closet becomes a daunting journey.

this day, hwubby's snoring comes to my rescue. it's one of those occasions that his power snores actually shakes the bed.

i quickly come to the conclusion there's no way i can go back to sleep even with ear plugs.

once i settle into the meditation posture, i'm even more grateful to hwubby. there is this marvelously soothing sensation that spread from somewhere deeper than the bones all the way to the skin from head to toe. and beyond.

this is relaxation as i know it up another few notches. it's like all the cells are having their own personal, top quality masseurs working on them.