Do you believe you always have to be seated and close your eyes to meditate? The masters and staff in Sedona Mago Retreat don’t agree. Tao Fellowship has meditation and prayer time (Chun-Go) in our regular daily routine twice a day. We will still keep the same schedule for these daily practices. The change is that the morning Chun-go is now running around the property of Sedona Mago Retreat instead of regular indoor meditation and prayer.

Through this morning activity, we feel the energy of Sedona Mago Retreat more closely. It is a more active way of offering our love to this beautiful garden of Mago. Becoming physically stronger is one of the benefits of course. Through these changes, we desire to create a more lively energy that will spur our members and visitors to create the changes that we need for our planet and for all life forms that are on it in the meaningful year, 2012.

Slant your body to one side. Now you know that you are slanted, don’t you? How do you know that you are slanted when you are slanted? Because of your sense of balance which is not affected by any body-position that you take.

You know that you are not truthful when you are not truthful. How do you know that you are not truthful when you are not truthful? Because… you are truthful. No matter what you do or what you say, there is absolute truthfulness inside you which is not affected by what you say or do.

This absolute truthfulness is not what you have achieved through your own effort. If you had to create absolute truthfulness through your own effort, there would be no hope for humanity. Just recall how many times you have not been truthful today so far. But also remember that you were clearly aware that you were not truthful when you were not truthful… because you are always truthful deep inside.

This truthfulness has been there all the time. This is the foundation of what we call conscience.
You cannot choose not to have truthfulness inside of you, because it is already there within you. Your choice is whether to acknowledge and accept this as an integral part of yourself or to deny it and stay in ignorance. Acknowledging it is an enlightenment, and denying it is ignorance. It is purely choice.

Acknowledging Tao within is not the end of the story. It is just the beginning. While acknowledging Tao within as your true nature, you also know there is a huge gap between your true nature and your character (the collection of your habits and beliefs). Practice, in its spiritual sense, means closing the gap between your true nature and your character, with the hope that someday this gap will be closed and your character manifests your true nature. Then, your whole life becomes Tao Living, becoming one with Tao. Even though you are not there yet, it is important to know your destination. Recognizing your destination is the true beginning of the journey. Before that, life is, at best, a wandering.

You cannot close this gap just by knowing about Tao. You can close this gap by living Tao. Tao is not only what you need to know. It is what you need to live by. Knowing Tao is wisdom, and living it is virtue.

Following the previous post, I want to write a little more about breathing.

How long do you think you can survive without eating? If you are in good condition, you can survive up to 6-7 weeks without food intake. How about drinking? Probably up to a week or so. Then, how long can you survive without breathing? Only for about 2-3 minutes. If the supply of oxygen stops for only one minute, it can damage your brain cells seriously. This is what breathing means to us. It is life. As long as you breathe, you are alive. When your breathing stops, you are dead. But we usually take breathing for granted so we don’t pay much attention to it.

Your vital functions such as breathing, heartbeat, body temperature, and blood pressure are regulated by the autonomic nervous system, and all of them reflect and affect your physiological condition. If one of these is different from the rest, which one is that and why? Yes. Your breathing. Why? Because it is intentionally controllable. If you practice hard for your lifetime, you might be able to learn to control your body temperature. But I think it is wiser and more practical to learn to dress appropriately for the weather conditions and to adjust the thermostat on your HVAC system. However, you don’t need to learn to control your breathing. You already know how to do it. You simply need to become aware of your breathing.

Even though you cannot directly control your other vital functions, you can regulate them indirectly by adjusting your breathing. So, your breathing is the master key for all the other vital functions.

There are three elements that determine the quality of your breathing: depth, length, and regularity. Breathing well means breathing deeply, slowly and evenly. This doesn’t mean you have to breathe like this all the time. Depending on the intensity of your physical activity, your breathing may vary. However, still breathing deeply and evenly will be helpful. Sit comfortably and put one hand on your chest and the other one on your abdomen. Breathe as you usually do and feel your breath. Which body part is moving while you’re breathing in and out? How deep is your breathing?

Just by being aware of your breathing, your breathing grows deeper and slows down. As your breathing gets deeper and slower, your mind also calms down; your head gets cooler and your lower abdomen gets warmer. When your head is cool, and your abdomen is warm, your body and mind are functioning optimally, meaning you do things better. You will experience pleasant feelings, have great ideas, wear a gentle smile on your face when you keep your brain cool and your lower abdomen warm.

In the previous post, I talked a little about meditation. It is basically about awareness. We need a distinction here between awareness and the idea of awareness. Awareness is not the idea of awareness or knowing the meaning of awareness or thinking about awareness. You are aware only when you are present in the present moment. What can be the simplest and surest way to determine if you are present in the present moment? Feel your body. Feel your breath. As long as you feel the rhythm of your inhaling and exhaling, you are in the here and now. As soon as you are unaware of your breathing, your attention is somewhere else.

Once in a workshop, I challenged the participants to test their ability to be present in the present moment by counting their breath. It was in an evening session around 8:00 pm. The challenge that I offered was counting 100 breaths. I asked them not to leave the training room until they counted 100 breaths. If they lost their count, they would have to start over. All agreed with excitement and confidence. Guess what happened. Many remained until midnight. You may try. Maybe within 10-20 breaths, you will catch yourself thinking about the news that you saw last night, or the presentation that you need to prepare for the next meeting, or just dozing.

Here’s my suggestion for your personal practice. Count your breath up to ten and repeat. Breathe deeply and comfortably, with your lower abdomen if you can but without forcing yourself. Try to do this for about an hour, and see how it works for you. If you like the experience, you may extend it. In order to count your breath, you need to feel your body, which means your attention has to be in the present moment. The purpose of this practice is to develop a new habit of awareness, being aware of your breathing all the time, no matter what you do and when. Sooner or later, you will realize your breath is more than just an exchange of gases and repetitive movements of your chest and abdomen. When you are deeply aware of your breathing, ask yourself who is really breathing. Is it really you that are breathing or is a breath simply being breathed in and out? Your answer to this question may lead you to one of the most important and striking discoveries in your life. We will revisit this topic later on.

Enjoy your breath,

Steve

Hi, my name is Steve Kim. I have been working for Tao Fellowship throughout its history. I am glad that I have this chance to talk to our members and the public less formally and more directly through this blog.

This is the first article in this blog. For the time being, I will be the main author of this blog. My intention is to post a new article every other week.

When I thought about what to write, I thought about our members, and other people who I met in the trainings, ceremonies and workshops. I recalled what their interests were, what they expected from Tao Fellowship, and how they wanted to make their lives better. Of course reaching many people is my hope in writing this post, but at the same time I want to do something helpful for those who I met in our programs. I want to make sure that they are still benefitting from what they learned, and I hope this post will refresh their desire to keep moving forward.

One of the most common interests that all participants in the programs of Tao Fellowship have is meditation. There are many different levels of experience of meditation, and many different ways of explaining or teaching meditation. But I will try to make it really simple and practical.

First of all, meditation is about knowing what is really happening. We may need a little distinction here between what is really happening and what you are experiencing. Supposedly these two should be the same, but in reality, they are not. Your experience is not what happened. It is normally your perception of and response to what happened. The gap between what is happening and what you are experiencing will determine the relevance of your decision and the effectiveness of your action. The less the gap is, the more relevant choice you will make.

No matter how advanced your meditation is, meditation in itself doesn’t bring you good luck and make good things happen to you magically. But it can help you make a good choice in any given situation. Making a good choice starts from knowing what is really happening, without distorting your perception by your own desires and emotions. Ideally, you may also want to purge your perception of all your preconceptions. However, I don’t think this is likely to happen at this point. We will discuss this later. For now, if you can free your perception from your desires and emotions, I believe it is a great achievement and will practically help you to make a better choice.

One of the most effective tools that you can use to free your perception from your desires and emotions is your breathing. In Korea there’s proverb that says “three deep breaths can prevent a murder.” Suppose I am really really upset with somebody and say “I am going to kill you. But I will take three deep breaths first.” I turn my face away and I breathe in and out deeply. I turn back to the person and say “Wait a few more seconds, I still have two more breaths to take before I kill you”. And I turn my face away and take another deep breath. I say to the person “Allow me just one more breath.” and turn my face away to take the last deep breath. When I turn to the person, what do you think has happened? Yes, right. The person ran away. Who would wait until you finish your three deep breaths knowing that you will kill him/her after three breaths. However, even if the person were dumb enough to wait until you finish, I believe you have changed your mind. So one way or the other, three deep breaths have prevented a murder.

So, here’s my suggestion. When you are upset, before you say anything or take any action, take a very short moment to take three deep breaths, and ask this question, “what is the best result that I can create from this?” This question is important because we so readily do something or say something just to win an argument, or to make others feel wrong and terrible, which very often makes us feel awfully bad and sorry later. Three deep breaths will quickly recover your awareness and good energy, and the question that I suggested will set your attention to a good direction, which will lead you to find an answer that can benefit both you and the others. There is no guarantee, but I believe you will make a better choice which will leave you feeling good or at least less sorry later.

There are more things that I want to share about the power of deep breath as a way of meditation. But I don’t want this first post to be too lengthy. I will save them for the next post.

Thank you for reading this.

Steve

This is the blog page in our website. The blogging will start in a couple of weeks. The posts on this page will discuss ideas, tips, suggestions that help you understand the principles of Tao and apply them to make a difference in your life.

Thank you for your interest.