Clarence
Valley Environment Centre
Summer 2000 Newsletter
Meditation & Healing
Room
Vipassana Meditation
Our Land and our bodies are not
one
Our bodies are part of our intuitive mind
Stolen
from the Heart
"0ur land and our body are one "
Like most people I've repeatedly heard this Aboriginal motif since I was a child. Our land and our body are one fascinated me!
I identified with it and liked to think I too was at one with the land.Yet there was always a lingering doubt I was missing some ancient vital mystery. Only recently has it become more than a metaphor. It is becoming a connection I can feel. With hindsight I can laugh a little at myself. I felt no connection then, I lived in a world of ungrounded ideas.
The physical distance from my head to my body, and my feet to the earth is small. Yet it is a separation I've been healing for almost two decades. Now I'm nearer my destination I feel I'm coming home. My anxiety moderates as my connection strengthens. I’m one of the generations of white kids who were stolen from their hearts. Nobody meant to do harm, quite the opposite. Modem scientific methods promised a better future. We have benefited materially, but ancient connections have been severed. The heart, the land are now largely objects of detached study. Yet we are part of our environment, to be human is to feel connection from the heart I cannot be happy in isolation.
Our land and our bodies are not one. Top of page
If people felt their connection with the wilderness in the same way they value their own body then care for the environment would be assured. This is obvious. After all who would chop off their own leg to eat when hungry. Conversely, we can chop off our hair or cut our finger nails. Likewise we would know what was OK with the environment and what was not. When we get really connected, maybe systems would develop to even enhance the living vitality, around us like yoga does for bodies. Aborigines did this with corroborees. Bio-dynamic farming and Feng Shui are other examples of possible beginnings.
Meditation
helps me connect with my body and the subtle
forces that shape consciousness
It is a method that has withstood the test of time. Its correct practice helps develop a new connection, a sixth sense. Some call it intuition but this word can never convey the actuality. It has to be experienced to have meaning in the same way music can never be appreciated by a deaf person.
Our bodies are part of the intuitive mind. Top of page
Many people now accept this from personal experience. Everyone knows we feel things in the guts. In Chinese medicine, every internal organ and its associated meridian system, has not only the accepted physical function but also an emotional and spiritual function. In other words these organ systems help us feel and form ideas at an intuitive level. But the meridian system goes further. It goes into the earth. People have always gone into the wilderness to seek wisdom Where does this wisdom come from? It resonates within us when we connect with the rhythm of the natural order all around us.
Maybe the Aboriginal motif would be better translated as: "The land is part of our mind". It really is! The mountains, the rivers, the trees, rocks and myriad life forms of physical nature form systems like the organ systems in our bodies. Nature too functions on many levels. With enhanced intuition the subtle forces and invisible essences that shape life become apparent. They become part of our being and shape our consciousness. But like any skill developing it takes real work. Mystics and shamans have accumulated wisdom since the beginning of human consciousness, but it is only a beginning.
The masterwork of wilderness now takes on a new dimension, one where connection with the wilderness is vital for our mental health and emotional growth. It is of more value than universities. Destroying it is worse than burning books.
This is the meditators approach. Good meditation is exciting and challenging. It will stretch the limits of those who are right into it - like journeying to a new frontier. If you've tried and found it a dull dry thing ask around. Advice is easy to get, wisdom is a bit scarce. Critically teachers and techniques. Popular culture abounds with teachings of dubious benefit.
Ultimately there are no short cuts or clever techniques. It is path that requires each of us to follow our hearts. This can be painful and destructive initially, like a first love. It is not appropriate for everyone. But meditation isn't only formal sitting practice for apprentice mystics and shamans. It can be found within everyday activities such as bush walking, gardening, surfing & pottery. It has infinite forms. When you connect YOU will know it from the heart. Good meditation is a delight.
Vipassana
Meditation Top
of page
Vipassana means to see things as they really are. In a ten day course students learn to develop heightened awareness and concentration which is then used to examine their own physical and mental nature. By this practice they gain insight and detachment to free themselves from such mental tensions as anger, greed and fear.
Vipassana is an art of living which enables one to develop the positive qualities of pure love, compassion joy and equanimity, providing a mental training of profound practical value in everyday life.
Vipassana is entirely non-sectarian, fielded solely on a voluntary donation basis.
There will be a ten day
course in the Northern Rivers in April.
Phone Grace on (02) 6689 5511
Strongly recommended...
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