Idea Transcript
Overview Here is the basic thesis of this course: There are certain physical things we can control such as our breathing rate, the focus of our eyes and thought, the posture of our body and the stimulation of our senses. In addition, we can control the intention with which we act, think or speak, and this intention has a great effect on the outcome. Finally, we can call upon someone else, either mentally or outwardly, which is called "invocation."
These things lie entirely within our control at all times, unless we are asleep, and even then we have some residual control. We call these the Six Basic Powers, and they are shown in the top left box of the diagram below. (For more information, please click this link or the link under the red "Page" banner called "6 Basic Powers".)
The Six Basic Powers directly control a few Primary Physiological Factors, and indirectly control others. For example, you can directly control your breathing rate and pattern, and the position of your body. By your focused attention on a part of your body, you can indirectly increase the blood flow in that area. The Secondary Physiological Factors are those you can influence indirectly by controlling the Primary Physiological Factors. For example, the volume and length of your breath determines the pH of your blood. Some of the Secondary Physiological Factors have a strong effect upon one's emotional state. For example, it is very difficult to be peaceful if you have a fast heart beat. When your brain is generating alpha waves, your emotional state is not of anger. Furthermore, by monitoring some of the Secondary Physiological Factors in real-time (as they occur), one can quickly learn how to move those factors, through indirect control, to increase positive emotions. It is a basic tenet of mysticism that the mind cannot be controlled until the body is controlled. If you cannot sit still, you will have no success at stilling your mind. So in our view, emotional self-regulation, our goal, must be proceeded by physical self-regulation. Surely there is a bi-directional connection between emotions and physiology; each affects the other. A master of Self is able to express in his or her body the power, poise, harmony and beauty of their heart. For the rest of us, it is most efficient to first create balance in the body, which will then be reflected upon the emotional heart.
Intention We use intention in teaching our courses to create motivation and persistence. People need a reason to study and practice Heart Rhythm Meditation; they must see how it helps them to do or be what they couldn't do or be before. Heart Rhythm Meditation has benefit to every area of one's life, but because the effect is so broad, people don't notice it unless they narrow their focus to a specific objective. Suddenly or slowly, one's life is improving in every way; things are going better with the most difficult challenges one had, and also the simple joys of life are more abundant. But without a conscious intention, these changes are not attributed to their real cause. Also, sometimes the result of getting in touch with one's heart is a wrenching pain as one realizes the fundamental change that must take place in one's approach and manner to be true to one's heart. In such times, one does not feel more peaceful, content and grateful, yet it is a great step forward. Stating an intention at the beginning of the course helps one see the change and value the process. When you teach course 101, you should help your students form a goal for the period of the course. At the end of the course, you should help the students reflect on whether that goal was met, or what progress was made toward their goal. People are generally not very good at setting an intention, so we can teach the power of intention through the exercise of forming an intention for a short time frame - the length of the course. Some intentions are too vague to fail, others are too large to succeed. All of this is useful as a training in setting intention.
Heart Rhythm Meditation The diagram for this room shows the steps of the practice, building up to the Square Breath. Each practice includes the steps before it. 1. We always start by teaching the posture, which results in the Monolithic Sensation, the first room in the 101 webcourse. 2. Then we add the conscious breath. These two steps together are so powerful that some people tell us that's all they can do, or need to do. 3. Then we teach a three-step meditation: royal posture, conscious breath, and rhythmic breath where we balance the inhale and exhale times. This is an intervention in breath, something the Vipassana meditators do not do. We're not using the pulse yet, so we're only timing the breath by some mental count. Still, this is a serious intervention that reshapes one's breath pattern to overcome the inhalation specialty or the exhalation specialty that one has developed physically and which is reflected in one's personality. 4. Adding the Full Breath to all of the above gives power to the breath, and overcomes Chronic Hyperventilation, which we will study in great detail in a few weeks. 5. The Swinging Breath is the full practice of Heart Rhythm Meditation, using the pulse (or better, the heartbeat) as the timer. It includes all the previous steps. 6. When you add the step of holding the inhalation, the heartbeat becomes a very strong sensation. From then on, you can use your heartbeat as your timer. Also, holding your breath accumulates spirit within your heart and enlarges the size of the energetic heart. 7. The Square Breath is the culmination of all the above. It is the best breath for energizing the heart in all dimensions. But one doesn't have to use the Square Breath all the time. Often, we just use the Swinging Breath to support a particular invocation in meditation.
This sequence is a logical one, building up the practice step-by-step, but it is perhaps not the best sequence for teaching Heart Rhythm Meditation. You are free to teach HRM in a different sequence if you find it works better for the student. For example, Susanna often teaches the held inhalation earlier, so that the heartbeat appears. Then she skips the Rhythmic Breath and goes right into the Swinging Breath, using the heartbeat. Then she stretches that breath into the Full Breath.
Assignment for the Intention Room Please write the following and post it as a message in this room: 1. Create an intention for yourself for this course. What do you intend to learn or develop in these 8 weeks? In what specific way do you intend to improve your physical and emotional self-regulation? 2. Give an example from your life of how intention changed the result of an activity or speech that would logically, normally, have gone a different way if were not for your intention. 3. Can you think of another basic power everyone has at all times? Could it fit under one of the Six Basic Powers described here, or is it another power all together? By such an exercise, we sharpen our meaning of the basic powers. 4. Reflect upon the diagram above and give an example from your life of how your emotional state affected your physiology or vice-versa. 5. How do you teach the steps of Heart Rhythm Meditation? In what order do you teach the steps, and why? What do the students report when you teach it this way? When you do HRM yourself, alone, what sequence do you follow?