The Movement Center | Practice

PRACTICE | MEDITATION

Meditation is the vehicle for contacting our source, our strength, the power of Life Itself. It is not something we do with our minds and emotions; it is an experience that we have and cultivate. In cultivating this experience, our knowledge about ourselves and life (and our capacity to deal with ourselves and life) is profoundly changed and expanded.

Through meditation, we can begin to perceive our essential creative energy in all of its forms: our body, feelings, thoughts, intellect, intuition, and our spirit or soul. Most importantly, it leads us to understand the relationship between our ordinary self and the Self within. It's a simple but extraordinary method for expanding our experience of our creative potential - for allowing us the broadest possible participation in Life Itself.

Tensions Are The Barrier

Ordinarily, we are so caught up in our everyday tensions and concerns that we neglect to step back and consider what our ultimate potential and true nature might be. We tend to think of ourselves as limited, finite, physical entities whose spiritual yearnings are simply a dream. But the experience of meditation allows us to recognize that our true nature is an infinite, conscious, and joyful potency - the potency of Life Itself.

Imagine a natural fountain that has been covered, over time, with a pile of rocks. The water continues to flow from the fountain's source, but on the surface, only a trickle shows here and there between the rocks. The fountain represents our creative potential and the rocks are our tensions. When we are tense and closed, the energy of our creative potential lies buried within us, as inaccessible as the water in that obstructed fountain. As the years go by, our own instincts for avoiding pain combine with the inevitable difficulties of living to form patterns of rigidity - we put up walls and barriers, thinking they will protect us. But when we meditate, we turn our attention to the flow within. This is our inner work. By turning our attention away from the obstructions and difficulties of life and focusing instead on our essence - for even a short time, once or twice a day - the rocks begin to shift, even dissolve.

The Objective Is Liberation

The objective of our meditation practice is to make available to us the widest possible experience - to begin to pull down the barriers Between us and our own true nature. Through meditation, we awaken and cultivate the blossoming of the infinite and universal Self. Realization is not attaining something that is missing or outside us. It is a simple, intuitive insight into the nature of our own heart. It is a release, a liberation - a celebration of Life.

The Technique Is Simple

The method of meditation we practice at The Movement Center involves first releasing or letting go of the tensions that prevent us from experiencing and expressing our creative potential. We learn that tension is simply creative energy that has become blocked and crystallized. As our tensions are released, the creative potential within us begins to express itself in our lives. It is a wonderful thing. We learn to react in a way that promotes our highest interest while at the same time promoting the highest interest of everyone around us.

Here's a description of the basic meditation technique and an article by Swami Chetanananda on the three stages of meditation practice.

n e w s

THIS SITE WILL NO LONGER BE UPDATED AS OF SEPTEMBER 15, 2008. VISIT THE NEW MOVEMENT CENTER SITE

Four Elements of Meditation Course Begins Wednesday, September 17

E-mail Archive

c a l e n d a r

Monthly Program Schedule

Weekly Program Schedule

Programs with Lama Wangdu Rinpoche

Next Queen Of Great Bliss Puja: 9/21/08

Next Service Day: 9/06/08

Winter Retreat: December 27 through January 31, 2008

a r t i c l e s

NEW! The Heart of the Matter by Swami Chetanananda (from a talk given January 22, 2008, Portland)

NEW! Living in Our Real Life by Swami Chetanananda (from a talk given November 19, 2007, Portland)

Updated September 5, 2008