Omega II: Visiting with the Sages
Day 2 - Morning Session - Part 1

by Alisa Joaquin

The day dawned clear but cold. It's around 6:00-6:30 AM. It's still somewhat dark but the morning light slowly emerged. I did some meditating that I had not done in a long time. Along with that, I did some focused stretching, concentrating on my ankles and Achilles tendons. I also did some deep breathing with about 10 series of stomach crunches. I know my sifu would be pleased that I am taking the opportunity to try to practice some of the exercises as well as learning others. I will try to practice some Kung Fu and some Tai Chi this morning if there is an opportunity before the workshop this morning.

On our way to breakfast, both Helen and I remarked how there was a thin layer of ice on some of the dew-coated surfaces. We went to breakfast and hoped that the food was better this time, though breakfast was usually the better of the three meals. They had plenty of items to choose from. After breakfast we headed to the registration building to check on the taxi service for the next day. Helen was concerned about getting to the airport on time. Her flight left around 5:00 PM and she was going to have to leave Omega early and not stay for David's Sunday afternoon session. We then headed to the main hall for the morning workshop.

Arnold started out the morning by asking whether we all slept well. The first thing we did was go right into the Still Meditation that Heidi Singh was supposed to do the night before.

Heidi Singh introduced herself. She is a buddhist minister from Los Angeles. She studied Buddhism for approximately 30 years and she's been practicing for 25 years. She started in Zen meditation practice. She's practiced in many different traditions including Tibetan. She was ordained in the Theravada Tradition (see the following website: http://www.religioustolerance.org/buddhism.htm. Her temple in Los Angeles is Dharma Vijara Buddhist Vihara (at 1847 Crenshaw Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90019). Her Buddhist teacher Venerable Balangoda Anandamaitreya was from Sri Lanka. He was on the BBC documentary "The Long Search" by Ronald Aire. She stated that her teacher made the transition (died) a couple of years ago at the age of 102, a month before his 103rd birthday, and was a great inspiration for her in learning loving kindness meditation and really knew how to put principles of Buddha meditation into action, such as, how to develop a compassionate heart and how to deal with conflicted emotions like fear and anger. Heidi stated that he was the inspiration for learning new things because well into his 90's he was learning computer languages. He worked translating sacred buddhist text into English.

Heidi went on in introducing what still meditation was all about. She first indicated that it was very important to first tranquil one's mind and emotions. You must get to a place of calm and clarity. This was really key for both buddhist practice and martial arts. She stated that in buddhist practice, that still place is not the end, it's not the objective.

She often said to her students (she was a buddhist chaplain at UCLA for many years), "If the only goal for us is quiet, we can anestize ourselves in a variety of ways. We are all aware of that and that's not the end-point of meditation. What we really want to do is to go to a place in our meditation and our work of meditation to be able to see reality as it is, to see ourselves as we are. To get in touch with ourselves because so much of our daily life and activity has to do with 'getting away from.' We have so many stimuli, especially today. We have work. We have TV, amusements, even our good actvities can be a way of getting away from ourselves and not seeing what's really there. For those who are dealing with addictions, we have all those ways of getting away from what we really feel and who we really are. So the work of meditation is to come back and really look face-to-face and when we do we discover that we do not idealize ourselves but neither do we see only the negative. It's quite wonderful because then we are able to see ourselves who we really are and all of our god points as well. So it works both ways. We want to be able to see our afflicted emotions and so on, to work through them to channel that energy into compassion and wisdom and skillful means activity. But we also want to be able to look at all the good things, the Buddha Nature if you will, that is already there. Peel all the layers of the onion to get to the real essence. So that's the work of meditation."

Heidi added the fact that both Arnold and Rob would be working with us on some things to help us get to that point she spoke of earlier. She also spoke more on meditation as a means to know what was going on in the body that we are not aware of. She stated that later in the day, we would be looking into the emotions. For now, we were going to look at the physical. She began by instructing us to be sitting very straight, wherever we were at. She stated to begin being aware initially of our breath. As you begin being aware of your breathing, be conscious of your body being very straight and your spine like an axis pole with your head very comfortably at the top of that pole. She instructed us to help us relax that we might want to move our head from side to side then back to the center. She instructed us to relax our shoulders and our neck muscles because that is where we carry all of our tension. I can really agree on that point. When my neck and shoulders are tense, if I do not find some way to relax them, I will always end up getting a headache.

She also went on to say that whatever fears or worries we have brought with us, she said to give ourselves permission to take a vacation from those for just a few moments to get to that clear place that quiet place. She said to be aware of our breathing and as we sit still, erect but relax, be aware of our inhalations and be aware of or exhalation. She said not to force it, but to be aware of the rhythm of our own body and relax. She stated to remember to use our abdomen, not to keep it in the chest, but to breath from the diagram. For several minutes, I am not certain as to the actual time, everything went still. I have done this kind of meditation before through a place called the Mindfullness Practice Center. When she felt it was time, she instructed us to continue to sit in that relaxed state, but also stated that Arnold was going to take over then lead us through some exercises afterward.

End of Day 2 - Morning Session - Part 1

Alisa Joaquin Copyright@2001.
This personal account cannot be reprinted or sold in any other form without strict permission from the author. It is being distributed here solely for your enjoyment.

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