Meditation

I have recently acquired some books on meditation and have been trying to discipline myself into doing a little meditation now and then.  Here is an exercise you might like to try which outlines the starting technique.

Extract from the book Learn To Meditate by David Fontana

  1. Sit and relax.  Close your eyes and turn your attention inward.  As objectively as you can, watch the thoughts that pass through your awareness.  Don't judge them or attempt to hang on to pleasant ones, or push unpleasant ones away.  Just watch.
  2. Notice the nature and content of your thoughts - how one thought leads to another, and how quickly a chain of associations is set up.   Notice how these associations sometimes follow a single theme, or go off at a tangent into a quite different set of considerations.  Notice how intent your mind seems on distracting your attention, and observe the strategies it uses to do so.
  3. Notice how in easily your objective awareness does in fact disappear, and you become "lost" in your thoughts.  Each time this happens gently re-establish awareness.
  4. Continue the exercise for as long as seems comfortable.  Afterward, write down what you have discovered about your mind.
If nothing else it allows you to sit and do nothing for a short time.

Etiquette (Ye Jol)

A high degree of etiquette should be observed by students, both inside and outside the dojang.  This should be applied by lower ranking students to senior students while training, by higher ranking students to elder students outside of the training hall, and by all students when visiting another dojang.  In all cases, emphasis should be placed on correct and proper salutation.  it is a form of respect and courtesy in western as well as oriental societies.

It is indeed poor taste for a black belt to slight a beginning white belt who might well be the instructor's senior in both age and station.  Students visiting other dojangs, whether they be Taekwon-Do or other martial arts, must pay proper respect and observe the traits of modesty and courtesy at all times.

From the pen of the General.

Quotes

Only a life lived for others is worth living.

Author: Albert Einstein

When you are kind to someone in trouble, you hope they'll remember to be kind to someone else, and it'll become wildfire.

Author: Whoopi Goldberg

© P.U.M.A.