Meditation to clean the mind

Meditation is the broom that sweeps out the negative emotions and pours in the honey of tranquility into the mind. There are many forms of meditation. Here are some examples:

Opening-Up Meditation with an Apple              

Often our senses are scrambled and numbed by the hurry of life. Each of the senses provides us with new adventures and helps us to live more fully.

Opening up consists of emphasizing the five senses of the body: seeing, hearing, touching, tasting and smelling.  Anything may be used to emphasis the senses.  For the purpose of this example, an apple will be used to demonstrate all five senses of opening-up meditation.  The purpose of this is to relax the physical body and the mind.  Practise this meditation for ten minutes.    Explore each one of your senses and experience their immense potential for joy. Obviously, emphasizing the senses could be done on a walk in the park or around the house or at work in the morning.

1.  Seeing:  Enjoy the skill of the great architect of the universe.  Take an apple and closely examine the outer skin.  Look closely at the colour and texture.  Peel it and look closely at the edge of the peel. Look at the inside of the peel.  Look closely at the wedges.  Break open a wedge and look at the heart of the apple.  Examine the small pieces carefully.  It is even permissible to use a magnifying glass.

2.  Hearing: Squeeze an apple.  Is there a sound?  Peel the apple.  Listen.  Bend the peel and listen to the sounds.  What sound is it?  Close your eyes and break a wedge in half.  What sound is there?  Rub your fingers along the outside of the peel.  Is there a sound?  Rub your fingers along the inside of the peel.  What difference is there?

3.  Touching: Close your eyes and rub your fingers along the outside of an unpeeled apple.  Feel the texture.  Rub your hands all over the apple.  Spend five minutes examining the apple with the fingers before peeling it.  Peel it slowly, feeling each piece. Break the apple into wedges and explore each wedge.  Feel the inside of the peel.  Examine the edges.

4. Tasting: Close your eyes and place a wedge of the apple in your mouth.  Bite slowly into the wedge.  Bite a piece of the peel.  Taste the pulp.  How many different tastes are there in an apple?

5. Smelling: Sniff an unpeeled apple.  Peel the apple and smell the inside of the peel.  Smell a wedge of apple.  Bend an apple peel and smell the acid as it explodes from the peel.  Smell the pulp.  Smell a squeezed wedge.  How many different smells are there in an apple?

By extending the senses one can forget about present problems and relax.  By allowing in more than the ordinary amount of information from a single sense, other thoughts are blocked.  That is why it is called meditation.  It must be patently apparent that if one can extend the senses to examine an apple, those senses can be used in an even more extensive way during a walk in the park.  Or on a city road on the way on the way to work, or during lunch.  It is a handy, quick and efficient way to meditate.  It will even work with an apple!