Ending your meditation practice
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Taking your meditation into the world
In a way, Stage Omega is not really the end of your meditation, it’s just a transition from meditating with our eyes closed, sitting on a cushion, to meditating with our eyes open in the midst of everyday activity. Our meditation practice should have a beneficial effect on the way we live, and it’s more likely to do that if we make the transition from sitting meditation to everyday activity as smooth and elegant as possible.
I suggest that you go recall how I end the guided meditations. Notice how I suggest that you gradually broaden your awareness. At the end of the fourth stage you’re focusing on the subtle sensations at the rims of your nostrils. You can broaden your awareness from that narrow focus to become aware of the whole breathing process. Then you can become aware of the whole of your body, and then you can include other dimensions of awareness such as feeling, emotion, and your mind. And lastly, you can broaden your awareness right out into the world around you, becoming aware of your external sensations of space, sound, touch, and light.
Actually, it’s very beneficial to go further than that so that you try to maintain your mindfulness as you get off your cushion, bow to your shrine (if that’s the sort of thing you do), blow out the candles, straighten up your meditation equipment, and leave the room. And even then you should try to maintain your awareness as you go onto the next activity.
When I’m leading group meditations, I can often tell how someone has been working in their meditation by the way they get up and move around. If they make a lot of noise and the drop their cushions with a loud “whump” at the back of the meditation room then it’s a fair bet that they either haven’t been making much effort or that their effort has been pretty crude. If their movements are elegant and they lay their cushions down carefully and quietly, then I have a good idea that they have been working internally with the same kind of grace, balance, and care.
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