Meditation For Good Health

The road to real health begins with the mind and meditation for good health is a great way to start. Many people start out with good intentions but do not proceed or start perhaps with the incentive of a heart attack, or something more basic like seeing themselves as they really are. Usually they go on a crash diet and embark on a heavy exercise program. If they don’t kill themselves by the time they have lost weight, they are too sick to enjoy it. Usually the ‘fad’ only lasts for a short while and the ‘cravings’ come back with a vengeance — so the patient is sicker than before because of the shock the system has sustained.

The only tool we have to make us stick to our intentions is the mind. Unfortunately, the mind is usually in the same condition as the rest of the system through bad eating habits, bad thinking habits (aggravated by bad eating habits) and bad exercise habits. We need something to heal the mind first so that the mind can heal the body.

The area test influence on the mind is the way we live. Tension created by just living in the twentieth century is the greatest cause of ill health, and not many doctors realize this. We may be given a pill to ease the tension, but this does nothing to attack the cause of the tension and so the disease grows.

Around our bodies we have channels called meridians through which energy flows, something like the vessels through which the blood flows. All eastern philosophies of health talk of such a flow The Indians talk of Prana, the Japanese call it Ki, the Chinese call it Qi, we call it electricity or life-force. The fact that it exists is not the question for most western scientists now know of such a force. What is not known is how to keep a plentiful supply and how to keep the channels open.

What is needed is some way to train the mind not to allow tension to affect us. Whether the tension is psychological or physical it has the same effect on the body’s energy. If the body’s energy flow is interrupted or slowed down our natural healing systems are unable to cope with normal external attacks.

Tension

Tension, more than anything else, affects the flow of Qi by closing the channels. Through the miracle of television cameras, we can actually see the stomach contracting and unable to digest when the person is placed under stress or even thinks about being angry. The same things happen to the acupuncture meridians; they contract, allowing only a small amount of Qi to flow to all parts of body. This can be used to great advantage by a trained martial artist; it is possible to strike certain parts of the body when the most Qi is flowing through that area, to cause immediate great tension, thus closing the meridian. After some time, perhaps days, the meridian slowly closes completely and the recipient of the blow dies. This is sometimes called the delayed death touch or ‘Dim-Mak’. However, it is said that this practice takes around three lifetimes to learn so not many ever come to such a level.

Thymus

There is a small gland at the base of the neck running to the sternum. It is called the Thymus gland, and in Chinese medicine is said to control the flow of Qi as well as its physical function of producing anti-bodies. The first gland to be affected by stress is the thymus. The energy system of the body is affected immediately and if left unchecked will lead to the destruction of the body’s energy system, there has been recent research in 2019 where researches have slowed down the aging process by preventing the Thymus from shrinking as it does as we age and by doing so kept the immune system strong by providing a new cell populations of immune cells. So the Thymus plays a key role in our health and meditation is one way to keep it strong.

We do gain some relief from stress through sleep, but most of us counteract the benefit by sleeping on soft mattresses and watching television and eating before retiring. We need sleep to recharge our batteries; if we are using energy for digestion or for processing thoughts, we aren’t using it to recharge.

If we can find a way to stop stress from affecting us we are on the way to defeating the main cause of disease. We need to develop a calm mind, not always an easy thing to do. Meditation is completely foreign to most westerners, but Chinese exercises do not seem so strange because we are using the body to gain a mind effect.

Levels of Meditation

There are three levels of Chinese meditation we can practice using movement. There is another, which requires no movement and is common to most forms of Indian Yoga. This is where we sit cross-legged and meditate on a mantra or an object. Most westerners find this quite difficult, and can sometimes fool themselves into thinking that they are meditating. Moving meditation, although involving learning certain patterns of movement, can be easier because it does not use mind games. All we have to do is to learn and practice the movements in the correct way and the meditation will happen by itself; the mind will relax, the body will relax and as the body relaxes so too does the mind, and so on.

The first level of moving or ‘working’ meditation is where we stand in a certain position with slightly bent knees. This is the ‘work’ part of the meditation. The bent knees provide the heat necessary for certain chemical or energy changes to take place. It is not too difficult to maintain this sort of meditation but it is a little more physically difficult than the sitting kind. We are trying to teach the mind to relax while working. In this way we do not need a nice quiet room with candles in order to relax, we are teaching the mind to relax at all times so that tension does not build up.

The basic stance for this kind of meditation (Chi Kung or Qigong). The legs are slightly bent with the knees not projecting any further than the toes. The toes are turned under a little, but not enough to make them turn white. The arms are held at chest height with the fingers pointing to each other. The fingers are held slightly apart with the palms concave.

The tongue is pressed lightly onto the hard palate with the chin pulled in slightly to straighten the back. The eyes are looking straight ahead but not staring. The shoulders are relaxed with the elbows hanging. The breath is deep but natural and not forced, breathing in through the nose and out through the nose.

The second type of meditation is where we start to move while still holding the same relaxed meditative state induced by the Qigong.

The slow, natural movements of ‘Tai Chi Chuan lend themselves to meditation, as there are no fast or jerking movements. The whole set is made up of different postures linked together by circling movements. One is able to keep a relaxed calm mind while performing the Tai Chi form which lasts up to one hour.

The movements relax the mind, this causes our movements to become more relaxed and smooth which in turn helps the mind to relax even more, so the mind and body help each other up the ladder

The third area of meditation is where we learn to perform more normal tasks while still holding the meditation. Tai chi has another form of exercise called Pauchui form, or cannon fist form, and as the name suggests this has some fast and hard movements. This form teaches us to keep our meditation even when confronted with the worst tension out in the street. In practicing this form while relaxed we are able to walk out into the big world knowing that nothing will upset us or make us tense.