the way of wujimon

Earlier this month, I started reading Mindfulness in Plain English by Bhante Henepola Gunaratana.  The book is basically a practical manual on practice of mindfulness meditation (vipassana aka insight meditation).  I have been doing this meditation at least daily, sometimes twice daily since ordering the book. Over the weekend while driving through the local downtown center, I noted a sign for a new yoga studio and their web address. Today, I logged onto the website and noticed they have a monthly class on meditation. Upon further inspection of the details, the class is taught by a monk from Sri Lanka teaching Theravada Buddhism, the tradition in which vipassana meditation is generally associated with. I have pre-registered for the hour and a half course on meditation. Synchronicity?

Synchronicity is the experience of two or more events that are apparently causally unrelated occurring together in a meaningful manner. To count as synchronicity, the events should be unlikely to occur together by chance. -- Wikipedia

… The challenge is this: from Ash Wednesday (Feb 17) until Easter (April 4), train every day, without fail, no excuses; even if you have to move mountains. Simple enough said, a little harder to do.

It's not as easy as it sounds; things come up. Some days, you might only be able to get a few minutes of training in; but the point is to do it everyday, no matter what.

It doesn't have to be martial arts training either. Whatever it is that you need to really rededicate yourself to: studying, practicing an instrument, walking, watching what you eat; anything - do it every day, without fail.

-- Source: 2010 Lenten Challenge | Cook Ding’s Kitchen

The 2010 Lenten Challenge begins TODAY!  As for myself, I will be participating in the Lenten Challenge however I will not be doing any type of martial arts training. Instead, my challenge is to meditate each and every day for the duration of the challenge. I have already been doing this on my own missing a day here or there, but now I will dedicate myself to this practice each and every day.

On January 15, I started meditating using the Natural Stress Relief method.  There are many meditation methods out there, breath awareness based meditation, insight based meditations, mantra based meditations etc.  I’ve chosen a mantra based meditation as I feel the mantra helps to calm my monkey-mind.  Other popular mantra-based meditations are Transcendental Meditation and Primordial Sound Meditation.  Basically, mantra based meditations consists of the effortless repetition of a mantra with no breath control.

Anyhoo, both my wife and I have committed to meditation for the 2010 Lenten challenge.  For more on the challenge, click through to Rick’s blog, Cook Ding’s Kitchen.

The four requirements for eliciting the Relaxation Response:

1. A Quiet Environment
2. A Mental Device
3. A Passive Attitude
4. A Comfortable Position

The Relaxation Response by Herbert Benson outlines a simple method of meditation.  The general idea is to meditate twice a day for 20 minutes. The first session should be prior to breakfast and the second session prior to dinner. Yesterday before dinner, I did a 15 minute session as outlined by Dr. Herbert Benson. How is this different from seated meditation or standing zhan zhuang?  One of the main difference is the posture or comfortable position.  When I do seated meditation, I sit on the edge of the chair with my feet directly in front of me and with a straight back. In the Relaxation Response (RR), I adopted a very comfortable position, basically same chair except I tilted back into the seat my chair. Little effort was needed to maintain this posture, unlike that of my other seated meditation practice. The mental device in the Relaxation Response is to basically repeat a sound, word or phrase repeatedly.  In the example given in the book, the word “one” is repeated on every exhale of the breath.  In my seated meditation practice, I would normally just focus on the exhale of my breath or I would count breaths. After some time, I realized that counting breaths was not very conducive to relaxation as I would try to reach a goal, 25 breaths per session/posture.  Also, just focusing on the breathing was a bit boring and my mind would often wander.  With the repetition of a single phrase, I found it easier to maintain awareness without agitation. My first session was approximately 15 minutes and was done in the early evening, around 5pm.  I sat in my home office with my office chair turned to face a wall. The wall is blank and painted in a light earth tone brown.  In front of the wall is a small dark brown filing cabinet.  On top of the filing cabinet rests a yellow vanilla candle, a plant, my wireless router, and a burgundy colored small Zen fountain.  I placed my watch on top of the cabinet to keep track of time.  In the background, I could hear the sound of tricking water from an aquarium. I closed by eyes and sat comfortably in the chair.  I thought about releasing tension from my body. I started with my feet and slowly worked my way up to the top of my head.  I sat quietly for about 30 seconds before I began focusing on in the inhale/exhale of my breathing. On each exhale, I repeated the phrase “one” in my head.  At first, my breathing was a bit hurried, like I was trying to force the breath.  I noticed this and relaxed into my breathing. After about 5 minutes or so, I began feeling like I was sinking.  This is the same sensation I used to feel when I would conjure the images of my body sinking during my power naps.  During my power napping days, I thought it was a form of induced self-hypnosis, but maybe what I was doing was eliciting the Relaxation Response? The feelings of sinking were soon replaced by this feeling of expansion. As I was sitting, I felt as if my awareness expanded beyond the physical confines of my body.  This was sort of like my Zhan Zhuang Expansive Effects that I had felt before. After a while, I noticed the sound of footsteps and it was my wife coming over to see what I was doing as she had not heard any sounds coming from my home office. I told her I was meditating and that I would be down shortly for dinner. I looked at my watch and noticed that 15 minutes had passed.  Time moved by pretty quickly as the 15 minutes felt more like 5. This was my first time trying out the Relaxation Response and I plan to continue the training.  After the session, I felt very relaxed and all fatigue/tiredness was gone from my body and mind.  I decided to look into meditation techniques to try and counter balance the stressors of everyday life.  I have been reading that some pains/aches are the effects of stress on our body.  At first I thought this was just physical stress, but this also includes mental stress.  Perhaps the Relaxation Response can help out with my recent knee pains.

I have been following a great series on the Urban Samurai blog, here’s a little snippet:

I believe that training the mind is just as important as training the body, for were the mind goes the body follows, something many of us forget in our pursuit of physical mastery. It is almost impossible to achieve our full potential as martial artists unless we acknowledge the fact that the mind plays a significant role in our over all development. It is the key to all growth and without it we are merely puppets on a string, all physical movement and lacking in the depth and understanding that’s absolutely necessary to take us to the higher levels of mastery.

-- Mind Training for Martial Artists| Part 1: Introduction

Other topics in the series include: meditation, visualization, focus, NLP, etc.  Neil Martin, author of the Urban Samurai blog, is putting out some great content. While he does not write directly about taiji, a lot of his topics are important for all martial artists.

I have this issue in standing zhan zhuang that I call my “floating right hip”. Ever since I received a zhan zhuang correction from Chen Xiaowang where he slightly shifted my whole centerline/torso to the left, I have been cognizant of bearing too much weight on my right leg during standing meditation. 

The past couple of nights, I have made sure to adjust my centerline, but in doing so, my floating right hip is making it’s way back into my body. Basically, it feels like my right hip is much, much higher than my left hip.  I have to make sure that I am sitting into my right hip/kua.  Even after that, I will tend to shift my centerline over to the right! Doh! That’s what I get for not doing my standing on a regular basis!  I’ve been slipping for the past couple of weeks.

On a side note, I recently got asked how much time do I practice taiji on a daily basis?  The answer to that question really is “not enough”! But to be truthful, I can say I roughly spend about 1 hour a day plus/minus. I will usually do 30-40 mins over the lunch time and perhaps another 30-40 mins in the evening. Sometimes I will fit in 15-20 mins right before dinner or even do some foundational exercises while watching TV. As can be seen, it’s really a mish mash and whenever I can fit in some training. However, I did make note that will often think about taiji A LOT.  Perhaps I’m more destined to be an “armchair warrior” lol…

So, to wrap things up, what am I going to do about this floating right hip?  Right now, my solution is to do more standing zhan zhuang practices with the above points in mind. Also, I am starting to focus on really trying to relax my glute muscles, in turn relaxing the lower back, thereby elongating the spine.  Previously, I was pulling down my tailbone (not tucking, but pulling down). Thanks for the hat tip wujifa! ;)

Do you engage in training when you're a bit tipsy from alcohol? Yesterday, I shared a single bottle of beer with my wife while watching the super bowl. While this is not a lot, it was enough to make me a bit tipsy.  After the super bowl, I headed into my office with the intention of doing some meditation work, but when I closed my eyes, I started to sway a bit. Not a good idea, I thought to myself.

Not wanting to make all a lost, I decided to do some silk reeling exercises instead. I began doing some positive/negative circles from the Hong Practical Method as well as playing around with some single/double handed silk reeling from the Chen Xiaowang line.  I felt I was actually able to do these quite easily and the bit of alcohol didn't really hamper my training.  I did not feel much swaying at all, most likely due to the fact that I kept my eyes opened the whole time.

On a side note, I have noticed my leg strength increasing as I was able to do the silk reeling sets without feeling much tension/pain in the legs. This is most likely due to the increase duration of standing meditation as well as more work on silk reeling. The Chen Zhonghua workshop is soon approaching and I think I have gotten the positive/negative circles at a somewhat decent level where I will not be a complete n00b.  I must thank one of my taiji buddies who trains in the method for the feedback and guidance!

So, what say you? Do you bust out the training when you're a bit tipsy?

Wow, I can't believe it's already the end of January! Instead of making New Year resolutions, I decided to just add small new habits throughout the year. Every evening, I have a very limited amount of time to squeeze in activities. In between family time and bed time, I have at most 2 hours.  Not a whole lot of time, but by putting in the big rocks first, I have been pretty successful in fostering new habits.

One of the big rocks in my life include taking care of household tasks like bills and financial planning. I am one of those guys that used to track spending down to the cent during college.  This habit has stayed with me and I will touchbase and process my inbox every other day. This includes taking care of any bills, balancing finances and any other household need.  When I am finished with these tasks, I will work on progressing one of my projects or just chill out (surf the web, read email, watch a TV episode, etc) depending on my energy level.

The other big rock I have if general fitness, which includes heading to the gym.  I will do my workout on my 'off' household tasks days.  This habit actually started towards the last quarter of 2008, but has been solidifying itself in January.  My workout includes cardio exercise to increase my overall cardiovascular health and conditioning as well as some light weight and body exercises.  I have definitely noticed a shift in my energy level and I am getting physical feedback from the conditioning as I am more tone in areas that were not as tone before ;)

The 2 big rocks above usually take a bit over 1 hour to complete which leaves me with less than an hour for other habits. Starting this year, I wanted to regularly meditate, whether it be sitting (zazen) or standing meditation (zhan zhuang).  I have been quite successful in making this a habit, though it was difficult at first. Before, I would try to set a lot of goals concurrently but by focusing my energy on the creation of one new habit at a time, the success rate is much higher. I must give some kudos to the Zen Habits blog for this approach!

By the time I am done with meditation, it's bedtime! That's it.  Well, you may think that doesn't sound like a lot is being done.  You're right, while it's not a lot, it is what I can accomplish in my limited amount of time!  However, I did want to squeeze in another new habit and that is doing Yoga.  Instead of doing Yoga during the evening, I incorporated the Sun Salutation into my morning routine and it has worked out beautifully!

I was talking with a buddy of mine on the phone recently and he commented on how it looks like I am keeping to my New Year resolutions.  I told him the answer was quite simple.  All I did was set limits on what was essential and remove the fluff.  For me, this meant removing video games, more specifically World of Warcraft (WoW) from my daily routine. For those not in the know, World of Warcraft is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) that can really drain a lot of time if one is not careful.  Before, I would spend roughly and hour or so a night playing WoW, which left very little time for anything else and would often affect my rest time.  I still have a lot of friends who play WoW in real life and while they are having fun in the game, my own priorities have shifted a bit and I am feeling much happier and healthier with my new habits.

What's next? For the month of February, I want to make a new habit of doing taiji silk reeling exercises or some type foundational training exercise on a regular basis. This could include things like Chen taiji single/double handed silk reeling or Hong Practical Method positive/negative circle or even Yang style movement. In other words, incorporate jibengong (foundational exercises) into my daily routine.  Wish me luck ;)

Last night, the 'monkey mind' side tracked me more than a couple of times. I had to consciously tell myself to just relax and let the thoughts go. "Listen behind" and focus on the breath. Additionally, I noticed my breathing a bit more shallow than usual. Perhaps it's true that missing one day is like taking 3 steps back.  In my case, I missed my meditation session on Fri and Sat.  It's really hard for me to maintain the schedule on the weekends, especially when my wife and I will usually watch a movie and/or do go out for our date nights.

Roughly 25 mins into the standing meditation, I have been noticing my thighs getting sore.  Most likely because I am still using my thigh muscles to some extent.  Also, the outer should muscles have been straining too. I am usually in the 'stand in the river' posture and instead of doing 25 breath counts, I cut it down to 10 breath counts and then went back to wuji and made up the difference.