Principles of Self-Pleasure: MEDITATION

Category: Sex Education

It is essential to establish a daily meditation practice. In doing so, you connect with your inner wisdom and strength. To truly hear that quiet voice, we must be present, relaxed and aware. Throughout the day the mind locks onto constant chatter, an inner dialogue. Traces of emotion that build up during the day remain within our bodies and minds, and commentary about events keeps circling through our thoughts.

Our inner critic constantly tells us what is good and what is bad, what we should be ashamed of, whether we ought to feel proud, and what we should have done to be better.

The fundamental aim of meditation is to cultivate presence. Not all methods are alike. In the era of New Age techniques it can be difficult to discern what is truly worth adopting. The surest way to know whether your meditation is effective is to look at your daily life, because your experiences begin to change for the better.

Here are several signs that confirm your meditation is genuinely beneficial and guiding you toward the right destination:

1. You feel calmer within and notice fewer negative thoughts
2. You feel compassion for yourself and for others
3. You feel more connected with all forms of life: people, insects and animals
4. Your intuition and sense of knowing grow stronger, clearer and more accurate
5. You simply KNOW how to resolve matters and you begin to display greater ability in all your skills
6. Your overall health and resilience to illness improve
7. You begin to notice an inner feeling of contentment and a joy that defies explanation
8. Your overall sense of happiness increases and life circumstances that suit you start to appear more often

These signs do not arrive one after another, nor do they follow a fixed order. Meditation is a lifelong process and it takes time for its influence to show in everyday life. The time required depends entirely on us and is unique to each person.

In practice, most people first notice their thoughts settling and growing quieter.

Meditations

The first two meditations are used by practitioners of Buddhist Tantra and they serve as foundational exercises for higher forms of Tantric Yoga.

During the first practice you follow twenty one inhalations and exhalations. This method has been used for about 2600 years to reach a relaxed, focused state of awareness.

Many people ask why it is necessary to count the breaths rather than simply observe them. The answer lies in intention. The intention is to maintain presence. It is easier to be aware of the breath without counting and to assume we are truly present. In reality the mind wanders freely, often without our noticing. When we give the mind a task not only to be aware of the breath but also to count it, we notice how easy it is to drift into thought and forget where we are in the count. The aim is to remain so focused and aware that whatever arises in our thoughts or in our surroundings, we do not lose focus or make a mistake in counting.

If you cannot stay with twenty one breaths in one go, it means the tail is wagging the dog. In other words, your mind is out of control and has very little focus or discipline. Laser like concentration is the key to achieving all that we want in life.

First Exercise

• Pay attention to the five key physical foundations of meditation:
  1. A straight spine
  2. The head and chin are slightly lowered to align the chakras with the central channel
  3. The tongue touches the upper point just behind the front teeth
  4. Hands rest in a comfortable position
  5. The eyes look forward at a point roughly 0.5 to 1.5 m in front of you

In Tantra meditation is practised with the eyes gently open so that outer experience can be integrated with the inner.

• Place your attention on the nose. As you inhale and exhale through the nose, follow the natural rhythm of your breath
• Now count twenty one inhalations and exhalations. Finish the count at the end of each exhalation. One inhalation and one exhalation equal one breath.
• Count from 1 to 21 and then stop. If you lose the count, pause and start again. This prevents the formation of poor meditation habits. Remember that the aim is conscious presence. If you lost the count, you lost focus. Simply begin again.

Second Exercise

This meditation is also called “color breathing”. It is an original Tibetan Tantric meditation that has been used for thousands of years to purify the mind and reveal our true, boundless awareness. As mentioned earlier, Tantra literally means “to weave light and sound”, and this practice shows you exactly how.

This meditation should be practised after you complete the twenty one breath count.

• After twenty one breaths stop counting and simply inhale and exhale a few times without numbers
• Now, as you inhale, color the breath white in your mind or imagine white light entering through the nose

PAUSE Change the color of the breath you have taken in to RED. The air within you is now red.

EXHALE Blue light flows out through the nose

REPEAT THIS THREE TIMES Remember that one inhalation and one exhalation count as one round

• As you breathe in the white light, imagine the sound OM

Change the color within the body from white to red and think AH

Exhale blue light and imagine HUNG

Repeat everything three times

• Finish by following your breath. Rather than coloring the breath, imagine that you inhale and exhale pure light. You may remain here for as long as you wish. There is no need to count. Simply stay relaxed and aware.

Third Exercise

The third meditation works with the fire element. This element is located in the pelvic bowl, in front of the spine and behind the pubic bone, along the central channel. Its color is red, its form is a three dimensional red pyramid, and its seed syllable, Bija in Sanskrit, is RAM.

This element governs the sexual system and the muscular structure, and it is the antidote or medicine for emotional pain and trauma.

Daily practice of this meditation and its integration with sexual pleasure will begin to dissolve energetic and physical blocks in the sexual system. At the same time you will activate, heal and enrich this element in your body and enjoy the rewards that arise as it functions more efficiently.

Most women who begin practicing Tantra start on their own and are not in relationships. As they master the exercises, cultivate their sexuality and meditate with this fire element, they attract better and more compatible partners into their lives. It is unfortunate, although understandable, that women often wait to have a partner before they begin to cultivate their sexuality, when in reality this work can flourish even when we are on our own. By using the fire element correctly during meditation we slowly begin to break apart our deep conditioning around relationships and we clear obstacles we may have had toward intimacy and sexuality without even being aware of them. Many women have discovered that in a very short time their view of relationships and intimacy changes. It becomes more empowered and healthier, with less need for dependency, greater emotional freedom and a renewed focus on personal fulfillment.

Such women attract partners who mirror their new state and who are equally interested in cultivating meaningful intimate relationships.

Always keep in mind that our inner state is reflected outward. As we transform and heal our inner experience, our outer experience naturally begins to mirror that inner growth.

This exercise should follow the color breathing meditation.

• Complete the twenty one breath exercise and the color breathing meditation as described above
• Begin to visualize a red point of light placed at the center of the heart within the body, directly in front of the spine. Imagine and see how this point grows into a three dimensional red luminous circle about the size of a large grape.
• See the circle travel downward along the central channel, through the middle of your body, and settle in the pelvic cavity.
• See how the red circle changes into a three dimensional red pyramid with the apex pointing upward
• Within the radiant red light that streams from the pyramid, imagine and see the letters RAM inside the pyramid and sound RAM twenty one times or more. You may recite it silently or aloud to influence your surroundings. The greatest effect arises when you chant this mantra out loud because you affect the fire element within you and the effect extends to your environment.
• Visualize how this three dimensional red pyramid turns back into a three dimensional circle and how that circle travels up the central channel to your heart center.
• Visualize how the red circle gradually shrinks into a red dot and then dissolves.
• Relax and allow the mind to rest in the stillness you feel.

As with any discipline, there is no fixed minimum number of meditations you should practise daily. We can all agree that every practice benefits from steady commitment at least once a day. If daily practice is not possible, make time three or four times a week. In this way you will feel and see the effects on you and on those around you.