“Meditation brings wisdom; lack of mediation leaves ignorance. Know well what leads you forward and what holds you back, and choose the path that leads to wisdom.”
Buddha

Let’s face it, most of us have trouble staying present. I always think of it as just putting my mind to it – no pun intended. There are all kinds of strategies we can practice to help us stay present in our meditation practice.
Just a few of many ways to try to stay present in your meditation practice are:

• Focusing on the breath – counting it, practicing Pranayama to stay present while meditating (there are tons of Pranayama techniques to do too)
• Listening to a guided meditation

(There are some great ones of all types, on Itunes – like Meditation Oasis)

• Even candle gazing is an awesome way to stay present, clean out the tear ducts and open the Ajna Chakra. (I love this one.)

But, another great way that seems to have dwindled down the meditation practice list (at least in a yoga class is) is Yantra Meditation.

Yantra Meditation is done by using a mandala (a universal symbol) or a yantra (a geometric design). A person would preferably place the yantra or mandala in front of them equal to their eye level and sit upright, (not stiff or wood like of course) and gaze at the symbol seeing whatever they could see inside the shape. I really enjoy doing this type of meditation because I learn more about myself than I do from some of the other meditations I do. I watch and see whatever it is that I see in that shape on that day, at that present moment.

Meditation practitioners can get cd’s with mandalas and yantras on them to use to gaze at, they can use a design of their own that they have created or my absolute favorite are mandalas made by Susan Bloom in Asheville, NC.

I originally found out about the mandalas in a Mindfulness Training with Shala Worsley at the Asheville Yoga Center. She used them as we practiced yantra meditation and then we got to journal after viewing several different ones. We searched for patterns in our lives from our journals. It was so fun to see what we saw, to learn and to reflect on it.

Then of course, I had to find out where Shala got the beautiful mandalas and she revealed the secret and yes – now I am sharing it with you.

I purchased a notebook full of mandalas from Susan to use when I teach yoga, for my own meditation practice and also for fun gifts for friends – they look awesome in frames too. Take a look!

I have no idea how she makes them, but boy oh boy aren’t they beautiful?

And these pictures don’t even do her work justice!

Each and every time you can see something different inside them.

Try it out, see what you see, see what you learn about yourself and you life.
Susan even has some posted on You Tube too, so that you can watch and do a Yantra meditation.

Do you have a regular meditation practice, a pranayama practice that you incorporate into your meditations?

How do you take/find the time to meditate?

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So since I finally got this site up and running, I am able to release this wonderful post about my recent trip to Asheville for another yoga teacher training. This one was on mindfulness practices, with Shayla Worsley. It was amazing of course! We did some great activities to enable us to be mindful of the present moment. Just a few of the great things we did were viewing an apple and its process (how it came to our hands) before eating it (I couldn’t even mine, wasn’t hungry anyway, but felt bad after all that hard work was put into just get the apple to my hands), we talked about discussing problems and feelings with others and she mentioned a guy named Jerry Donahue that lives right across from the studio and does workshops on healthy/compassionate communication.  And, we did the coolest activity where we took a look at some of the most beautiful Mandalas ever as we participated in Yantra meditation. Look at the one (below) of  the one that I got in class. Isn’t it beautiful?

Of course, I took the picture of it after I meditated.

On Sunday afternoon, I participated in an optional yoga class called Fall Flow. It was awesome too. I didn’t really realize (until I took the class) that the fall season is all about letting go. That totally makes sense because, if you think about it, the leaves fall off the trees and they just Let Go! During the flow class we were able to listen to live music played by a local Kirtan band. It was beautiful and spritual.

To top it off, take a look at some cool pictures I took when I wasn’t practicing. You gotta love NC in the fall.

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