New to Meditation
Meditation on a dewdrop by Tias Little
"One of the most potent, real, and subtle teachings of yoga is on impermanence. The teachings on impermanence point to the ephemeral nature of all things; that no thing, no circumstance, and no one escapes the eventuality of dissolution. Impermanence can be witnessed in every breath we take, in the sound of a passing train, in the flight of a morning crow, in the passing of each day.
Meditation is part of the path of yoga. Meditation encourages us to carefully observe and investigate transience -- a moment-by-moment, sober witnessing of change, right down to the fleeting encounter with each passing breath. By simply listening to the ongoing rhythm of our breathing, we develop an intimacy with the ever-changing nuances of the breath. What's so important about this? This sort of intimacy can be extended outward into the world as an acknowledgment of perpetual change with everything, everywhere, all the time. Ultimately, meditation can help us be more fluid in the midst of change, and this fluency leads, in time, to greater ease and what is referred to in Buddhism as "calm abiding," or shamatha.
In seated meditation, our body is the staging for this observation practice. One observes the continual shift of inner sensation -- blood pulsing through the wrist, the release and emptying of tension in the tongue, feeling space open within the inner ear, or the brush of the breath against the spine. By honing our observational skills, we generate mindfulness."
