(Active research over passive learning as the martial arts model)
There, students expect the teacher to give them everything. I feel that long-term exposure to passive learning makes students less mentally sharp. For martial arts training, students’ minds must be sharp, so I feel the school teaching model is insufficient for our purposes. In our martial arts training, students are expected to do research on their own, beyond what I show them, to discover the inner secrets. Although it may seem as if our approach to learning is very difficult, I feel people develop more from doing their own research and exploration than they do when they are just told how to do everything, which engenders a lazy mindset. I feel that doing your own research brings out your innate intelligence, and that makes you a much more powerful martial artist and human being. With the idea of research in mind, I think your meditation question provides a great opportunity for exploration. I am eager to hear what you discover.
(Why samurai needed instant calm awareness, not seated meditation)
The Samurai required instant access to profound inner silence under the tremendous chaos and pressure of battlefield combat against other highly trained warriors. Sitting with eyes closed for hours on end would not allow a warrior to fulfill his duties, nor would it lead to the instant calm awareness that he required when attacked unexpectedly or chaotically — a possibility about which a warrior must always be mindful. A warrior’s practice had to be simple and effective, period.
believe you have found the right answer. Now you must discover a way of meditation that puts you into an instant, calm clarity, from which you can move properly, without thought, under extreme martial pressure. Please keep in mind that two seconds may be only a hint of what is required. Against a skilled opponent, even two seconds is too long. I am eager to hear what you discover.
You can be incredibly aware and whole while in active, daily life. In fact, don’t be surprised if you find yourself experiencing some of the following phenomena associated with deeper brainwave patterns even while in motion: Moments of perfect blissful clarity Spontaneous insights and solutions to problems that had previously plagued you Relaxation as long-held, unresolved mental/emotional issues and traumas begin to melt away Incredible engagement with the present, such that time seems to speed up, making hours feel like minutes — yet, amazingly, time can also seem to slow down when you are in tricky life situations, giving you more time to navigate those difficult moments consciously Enhanced physical sensations such as feeling your pulse throughout your entire body, knowing when someone is staring at you from behind, or feeling at one with your environment Levels of intimacy and sexual pleasure beyond what you have ever experienced before Inexplicable experiences of synchronicity Profound visionary states Transcendent sense of oneness with the universe
(Brainwave states and the alpha-beta shift in meditation)
For most people, unless we are at rest, the brain is constantly generating measurable beta waves. When at rest, the brain is generally emitting alpha waves, which are slower and higher in amplitude. Alpha represents a nonaroused state, so a basic calming meditation would be reflective of alpha.
Free yourself of biases by being curious, by exploring. You’ll discover that it is quite empowering and fun to meditate as an exploration, not just as a discipline.
They go from a goal-oriented, aroused state, which coincides with beta wave, to alpha, which indicates a resting, relaxed state. In general, it takes less than a minute for the brain to shift from beta wave to alpha wave during meditation.
Proper breathing can stimulate the vagus nerve to tell your body to relax through the release of acetylcholine, prolactin, vasopressin, and oxytocin.
With fifteen minutes of practice, vagal breathing should noticeably drain tension from your body and create a warm, clear, calm feeling.
For modern people in developed nations, 90-plus percent of our waking time is spent in beta wave state, because we are thinking and focusing so much. Beta wave is a stress-generating brainwave to which we have been habituated by our safe, goal-oriented modern world of squares, angles, and edges. In our modern world, exclusive attention is encouraged through reading and constant thinking. Because there are no tigers around that might eat us, awareness is not required. The result is that, although we lead safer lives than do hunter-gatherers, we are highly anxious by comparison. Hunter-gatherers spend most of their time in alpha wave state because awareness is vital to their survival. They understand that the focused mind is very poor at detecting subtlety and movement in the environment.
(Spherical awareness: spreading attention evenly beyond the body)
Spherical awareness training is extremely useful for martial, healing, and meditation arts. The method is unique. I had never heard of any method like it before our discovery of it. That stated, based on what I have since been told by masters of certain other traditions, I am almost certain that I am not the first to have discovered it, though I may be one of the first ever to codify the method. Here is how we came upon this training technique.
the automatic movement was a result of a highly stimulated vagus nerve that triggered an autonomic nervous system response, specifically in the parasympathetic nervous system, which can cause unconscious movement that stimulates recovery and healing in the body.
Imagine a light, pleasant feeling in your chest. Once you get a sense for the feeling, spread it throughout your body. If you find there are areas of the body that seem resistant to this light feeling, you are getting an experience of what I describe earlier in this chapter as heavy areas in my body. Do not try to force those areas to lighten at this time. Just take note of them without focusing on them. Next, imagine that light, pleasant feeling spreading beyond your body spherically to create a positive atmosphere in the space around you. Be sure that your feeling does not stop at surfaces, but moves right through them. Walls, floors, and ceilings need not limit your intention or awareness, so softly extend your feeling/intention beyond those things. Doing this simple exercise will subtly — or not so subtly — change your posture and breathing in healthy ways, for your vagus nerve will be highly responsive. These beneficial changes will affect your blood pressure, heart rate, digestive processes, mental states, and… everything, really. People and animals around you will unconsciously respond to you differently when you are spherically aware in this way.
To get a mental picture of the Warrior’s Meditation, imagine a battlefield scenario with a single Samurai surrounded by multiple opponents intent on killing him. A novice’s attention jumps from opponent to opponent in an anxious attempt to defend himself. He will soon tire and be defeated. An expert warrior spreads his attention evenly in all directions but still experiences anxiety as he mentally plans his tactics. His thoughts and anxiety may be his downfall if his opponents are truly skilled. A master’s attention, like the expert’s, is spread evenly, but he is as calm as a still pond. With no thought of what his actions might be, his body takes the right action according to the requirements of the moment.
In one way, we modern people are not so different from the Samurai. With our busy lives, we don’t have time to spend hours a day in meditation. Instead, we need a meditation that blends with our high-pressure, fast-paced lives, right here, right now, so that the doing flows from a depth of awareness; the ability to express from a depth of awareness is exactly what the Warrior’s Meditation is intended to help you do.
(The warrior’s meditation: a seven-step summary)
Summary of the Warrior’s Meditation Take several vagal breaths to relax the body and mind Pay attention to the total visual field Notice all sound near and far Notice the sense of smell and the feeling in the breathing passages Notice the sense of taste and the feeling in the mouth Notice the feeling of the entire body Expand your feeling spherically beyond the body to the space around you Rise by keeping spatial awareness primary in your attention, move your fingers and toes, and lean left and right to be sure your blood pressure is at a safe level before you stand. Stand in awareness.
If you skip days in your practice, you are losing the opportunity for positive brain restructuring through neuroplasticity when you sleep, for the meditation-stimulated changes can occur only if you have challenged your brain with meditation that day. Ten to fifteen minutes per day is a great start. If ten to fifteen minutes per day is not possible, then do five minutes per day, but don’t skip days, for you will soon find that you fall out of the meditation pattern and back into the old unconscious patterns.
Once we have that realization, the question of where to direct observation will become meaningless, for observation is no longer exclusive.
The feeling that you are doing it wrong is probably coming from an insecurity that may manifest as perfectionism. Perfectionism comes from the serial processing hemisphere and represents a beta wave state, which means it is counter to the meditative process. Perfectionism is born of an egoic idea that we should be flawless at what we are doing, which is impossible. Fundamentally, the feeling comes from seeking approval or avoiding responsibility. If we feel we can be the best at something, perfectionism might goad us forward and produce great results with skills and knowledge, but because perfectionism is an unconscious energy, it is opposed to
(Meditation anxiety as healing: unconscious patterns surfacing)
The second reason that we might feel anxiety when we meditate is because, when we meditate, our bodies go into a kind of healing mode, which naturally brings up unconscious, stuck emotions and mental patterns to be seen and consciously experienced. Whenever we experience something in life that we emotionally flinch from, it creates a disharmonious psychological imprint that is telling our nervous system we are not good enough to face reality. This unconscious narrative will re-present in our daily lives and in our dreams as feelings of insecurity or anxiety and thoughts of our insufficiency. Surprisingly, these inner imprints can also create narcissistic feelings of our superiority, which is just a way of hiding from the insecurity. Think of people who always have to win to feel good about themselves. What they are not seeing is that they do not feel good about themselves. The competitiveness may be just a cover for unconscious stuckness.
From this place of innocent curiosity, explore the senses consciously, going through the steps of the Warrior’s Meditation. Eyes Ears Nose Mouth Body Spherical awareness Don’t overthink it, just role-play, as if you knew absolutely nothing about the body or physicality. Play with it and have fun!
Here are the three primary maps of the mind: Self-image — how we see ourselves Social status — what others expect of us Beliefs — what we believe to be true
(Sleep, diet, and the biological foundations of awareness)
With the aim of being more aware, it is vital that we maintain a proper sleep biorhythm, a common area of imbalance in modern society. The biorhythm is the schedule of bodily processes. If the time that we lie down to sleep each night varies by more than 30 minutes, it causes sleep quality disturbance. By not keeping a solid sleep schedule, we might have trouble drifting off to sleep and/or achieving sufficient deep sleep cycles to allow the body proper rejuvenation. In such a case, we are likely to be less aware throughout the day, as parts of our brain are not functioning optimally. A messed-up sleep rhythm can, over time, cause the nervous system to become either over-reactive or under-reactive, potentially resulting in a lot of physical tension and inflammation, as well as loss of memory, inability to focus, and emotional reactivity. When we don’t sleep well, the quality and enjoyment of anything we do is compromised.
An elimination diet should last at least several months. For the first month you eat nothing but known safe foods such as lamb and rice. The reason we eat only lamb and rice for a month is that the digestive system might need that much time to heal from the constant exposure that was causing our issues to begin with. If we add elements to our elimination diet too early, it becomes impossible to figure out what is causing the problem because our body never reached a baseline, a state where it isn’t inflamed and over-reactive. In summary, it is recommended to eat only lamb and rice for a month, to allow the inflammation to subside. After a month has passed, add in new foods, one at a time, with a few days between each new addition and note how the body reacts to each new food.
To possess such a transformative ability, we must first prioritize information that the brain has been blocking from your daily window of perception. We must be interested and paying attention to our body’s posture when feeling different emotions. Furthermore, we should notice how those emotions affect our breathing pattern, for each emotion is matched by specific breathing. By changing our posture and breathing consciously, we can have tremendous control over what we feel emotionally and the thoughts that we experience. We can use our heightened state of awareness to begin mapping our emotions to our body posture and breathing patterns each day. Doing so, we will soon discover that we have power over our emotions through our awareness, posture, and breathing.
Try this exercise: recall a time when you felt tremendous joy. Allow the feeling of joy to take over your body, and once you feel that joy physically, notice your posture, head position, and your breathing pattern. Do the same exercise with a negative emotion, such as sadness. Recall a time when you were utterly crushed with sorrow. Feel that sorrow throughout your body, then notice your posture. You will find that the posture of joy is very different from the posture of sorrow.
you feel spherically expansive, notice the conditions of your body. How are you sitting or standing? What is your breathing pattern? How much physical tension is there? Practicing to take note of our emotions, thinking, feeling, and how those things relate to body posture and breathing makes us highly aware individuals who are able to constructively guide our subconscious mind. Through such awareness and ability, we are easily able to rewrite our neurology in constructive ways.
(Compressing the steps: training for instant meditative access)
After you have been practicing the Warrior’s Meditation daily for a month or so, the next step is to start reducing the time spent in each step of the meditation process, so that you can develop the capacity to get into a meditative state more rapidly. With the ability to meditate quickly, expansive awareness will be more easily applied during your day.
So, how do we train our brains to shift from beta to alpha wave states in an instant? The trick is to gradually reduce the time we allocate to each step in the meditation as we practice over time. There are seven steps to the Warrior’s Meditation, if we include vagal breathing in the process. If we practice for 15 minutes each day, as beginners, we are spending about two minutes on each, which is a great time to start with. To work toward faster meditative abilities, use a timer that you will set to one minute. For each step in the Warrior’s Meditation, we will allocate only a minute, which will get us to the last step of expanded awareness about halfway through the practice. Once you get to that final step, remain in that expanded state for the remainder of the time.
Once you have an assessment, give yourself no more than a second or two to flash to the final step of the Warrior’s Meditation, which is relaxed spherical awareness. Done properly, the feeling within us and the space around us will seems to calm quite a bit, and our breathing, blood pressure, and even heart rate may slow. As far as our scale goes, we are aiming for a level two or lower during our flash meditations, for at that level we have a much higher chance of remaining more calm throughout our day.
(Flash meditation triggers: anchoring awareness throughout the day)
Setting up a Trigger Timepieces such as clocks, watches, et cetera can be quite useful triggers. The only problem with timepieces is that, for most of us, they are smartphones. After much experimentation, I have discovered that smartphones are the anathema of conscious awareness for most people. Thanks to the extensive dopamine addictions that many of us have fostered with our smartphones, we tend to collapse out of meditation merely by glancing at one. Even for advanced meditators, smartphones can prove to be a nemesis. Keep in mind, though, that our failures are really lessons and challenges to overcome. That said, a smartphone may be too challenging early on. For individuals who are not addicted to their smartphones, they might work as a great trigger. For anyone with smartphone issues, however, it is wise initially to choose a different trigger.
We want to be practicing flash meditation at least five to ten times per day, so whatever it is that you choose should be something you encounter with purpose at least that many times every day. Once you decide upon a trigger, you’ll need to empower that trigger. The way to empower it is to run through the flash meditation process with it repeatedly, at least five times, back to back. Look at the trigger, flash into relaxed spherical awareness, and then look away. Then look at it again and flash again into relaxed spherical awareness. Repeat three more times, and you are likely to have established a functional trigger. The way to test that trigger is to go about your day without further conscious thought of flash meditation. If the next time you interact with your designated stimulus, it reminds you to flash meditate, then you know the trigger is well set. If it fails to remind you to meditate, either the trigger was not set well or, because of your lack of purposeful interaction with the object, it is not a good triggering device. Warning: each time that your chosen object reminds you to meditate and you choose not to meditate, you are weakening the trigger. To keep the trigger strong, we need to keep reinforcing the association between it and the action of flash meditating.