Physical Meditation

In the past year, I kept befriending people who regularly practice meditation.

I've tried it - sitting on the floor -silent- trying to clear my mind. I've even experienced moments where there was nothing but my counting (I do that instead of Om-ing). But meditation never really worked for me. I was never really sure what I was supposed to get out it.

I know that I like other forms of meditation. How I feel at the end of yoga class, in the guided meditation, or in the silent times during the UU service on Sundays.

I like it, I like it alot, and I know with all the changes I'm experiencing that quiet meditation is something I need to do more of.

Off subject, but related - I've returned to regular workouts at the gym this month.
It's been about a year.

I was inspired by the realization that I no longer felt like I was inhabiting my body.

I used to have a very physical career - climbing scaffolding, carrying artifacts around, basically on my feet all day and constantly aware of my three-dimensionality. Something about that made me walk taller and feel more at home as me, and after I went into administrative work, I felt that my body and my mind seemed to be at odds. When my body was happy at work, my mind was often bored, but my mind was challenged, I found my body losing its necessity - a brain in a jar.

That said, I knew it was time to go back to the gym. I don't mind working out, but for whatever reason, I usually come up with reasons to skip it.

This time, it's been different. This time, working out has been like meditation.

Swimming is especially mind-clearing. Tonight, I found a rhythm with my breathing, stokes and kicks that seemed lock my body into a perpetual motion machine.

It was...

transcendent.

I always said somewhere inside me was an athlete - but I never thought that physicality could be a path to clarity - its own form of meditation.