Adventures in Meditation

The search for the (series?) of meditation strategies that gel best with my being moves forward... while I have been trying "counting breathes" as a way of practicing "stopping" sitting, I find myself being easily distracted. Now I know that is not a cue to dismiss the strategy as much as it is a recognition of my beginner's standing--it's completely unrealistic to intellectualize one's ability to plop on a pillow, sit, and see "magic colors" pass through my thoughts.

I have been reading and looking at different strategies and one that I came across is called the The Dalai Lama Meditation.

The explanation from the Meditation Society's web page presents this technique in some very "American" terms:

Remember when you were a kid and they often had cartoons where someone had a devil on one shoulder and an angel on the other and they were whispering into an ear -- one encouraging doing "bad" and one doing "good". In a way, that's the basis of the Dalai Lama Meditation technique.

Behaviors I'd like to correct in the interest of better karma? Now, that I can visualize! The thing I'm realizing about meditation (as in most things) is that it is not enough to just "think" about doing something, but to just get on with doing it. Following a brief yoga series this morning, I went about "the doing", and tried this technique. Overall, I felt it was "successful" in that I felt comfortable focusing for a duration without discomfort or distraction.

I think I'll try again tomorrow!

Breathe in, breathe out… YOU AND I ARE ALIVE!