Thursday, December 12, 2024

How To Do Water Meditation

How To Do Water Meditation

Water meditation is a meditation used to calm one’s mind and body, reduce body temperature, and slow heartbeat. It is useful after a stressful situation, after workouts, and whenever you feel like you need to come down off of a high-tension emotional or physical trip. Here’s how to do it.

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Traditionally done by warrior priests in mountain monasteries in Asia, Water meditation is a useful method of calming and clearing without losing any of the momentum you had before doing it. It focuses your mind and eases your body, but leaves you completely alert and non-altered-state.

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While the method is generally done in seiza (that is, seated kneeling), you can perform it in half-lotus, full lotus, or any other upright seated meditative posture. Begin by making a circle of your ring finger and thumb on your left hand. Make a second circle with the same fingers on your right hand, but link the circles together.

water meditationFinally, let the tips of your remaining three fingers rest against each other. This is the water kuji-in, or hand position for the meditation. Let it rest, extended fingers pointing upward, in a comfortable position in your lap.

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Preferably in a quiet environment, or with a meditation bowl or music playing softly,  let your eyes nearly close, and focus only on a spot on the floor in front of you about a meter away. Let your eyes fall out of focus. If it is easier for you to close your eyes, that is also valid.

Lagoon

Imagine that in the bottom of your stomach is a lagoon, into which a waterfall pours. See the water being churned up, all the silt and sand and debris clouding the water and making it dirty. That debris, that floating cloudiness is what is making your heart beat, your blood boil.

water meditation

See all around you that there is a mist, a fog. That fog is your perception, your judgment. Take in a deep breath through your nose, and hold it for one count. See the mist entering through your nose, and collecting in your head. See the cool water wash over your brain and trickle down your spine. Feel it cool your head and calm your chest as it joins the waterfall, and slows the flow of the crashing water. Watch it drop into your stomach’s lagoon. Breathe out through your mouth, slowly. Focus on breathing deeply and slowly, even if your body wants you to breathe quick shallow breaths.

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Repeat this breathing ten times. Each breath you take joins the mist into the waterfall and slows its flow until it’s just a trickle. See the dust and sand in your lagoon begin to settle back down at the bottom, leaving the water clearer and clearer. If in ten breaths you do not think your body is cooled enough, do ten more breaths.

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Before you know it, your lagoon will be a palatial, crystal-clear paradise again. You will be completely aware of what needs to be done, but you will not be under the control of your hot, fiery, churning emotions and will make better choices.

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When you are ready to come out of meditation, unhook your fingers and open your eyes fully. You have just performed water meditation!

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