Apple juice & Meditation
Meditation, according to many Buddhist teachers, is the only way to clear your mind and heal your body. The peace we all have inside of us, but most of the times we look outside ourselves to find it. The peace inside of us we all want to experience so badly, but only little of us seem to find.
There are many books written on meditation, but you can only use them as a guide, a starter. A meditation guru told me once: ‘Meditation you cannot learn from reading a book. You have to sit down, be quiet and experience it for yourself. And if you will not find the relaxation the first time, keep on trying. Only trough practice you will obtain these skills. No one can ‘teach’ you how a strawberry tastes; you have to eat it yourself. Then you know.’
The first time I heard this, I thought…this is so obvious, of course you have to do it yourself. Like all things in life, get up and ‘do it’. But you also need guidance, someone to help you on the road of meditation. But the truth is: you can mediate whenever, wherever you want. It is not difficult; you just have to find yourself a quiet spot, maybe some tranquilizing music, some incense for good smell and a nice pillow to sit on. Close your eyes and concentrate on your breathing, do not change your breathing, just let it be, but be fully aware of it.
In the book: ‘Sun in my heart’, of the famous writer and mindfulness teacher Thich Nhat Hahn, a wonderful story about apple juice makes the importance of meditation clear, literally.
He tells a story of a little girl, who did not wanted to drink the glass of fresh apple juice he poured her. Because the juice was made of real apples, there was some pulp and the juice was cloudy because of it. The little girl did not like the look of it, so refused to drink it and walked away to play. After 30 minutes or so, the girl returned, and took a look at the juice. The pulp sunk to the bottom of the glass, the juice was clear! So the girl said: ‘Look Uncle Monk, the apple juice has meditated! It is clear now’.
We are like that apple juice, after 30 minutes of meditation ‘our clouds are sunk too’.
This video gives you some meditative music. By Okanokumo
