Meditation vs. Mindfulness with Horses
You may have noticed we talk a lot about meditation and mindfulness on this blog. One of our readers tagged me on Facebook and asked if I could explain more about my own meditation technique. So here we go… AND make sure you scroll down to the end where I will lead you through a guided meditation out with the horses. But first, what is the difference between mindfulness and meditation? Mindfulness is the practice of being fully present – with all of your senses tuned into the present moment. So your mind is NOT wandering somewhere else; you are not thinking of your fight with your friend, or your latest problem, or how excited you are about your next trip, or what kind of bracelet you’re going to make at your jewelry workshop, or imagining yourself in Bali… and so on. Nope. You are not thinking or feeling or emoting about anything other than right HERE, right NOW. So if you’re at your barn, you’re smelling the hay and manure, you’re feeling the rough wood hay feeder, you’re watching the movement of your horse’s muzzle as she chomps hay, you’re hearing the sound of your horse chewing, you’re feeling the warmth of the sun on your shoulder. ALL your senses (sight, smell, touch, hearing, perhaps taste) are fully present and engaged in THIS moment. And only this moment. If you feel drawn to Mindfulness, then any book by Jon Kabat-Zinn is great – my favorites are Full Catastrophe Living and Wherever You Go, There You Are. But isn’t meditation also about being fully present in the moment? And turning off the monkey-mind or chatter-brain? As Kathryn Remati says: “Both practices are life skills that give you the tools to access inner peace, which is already inside of you. Both rely on the ability to be focused entirely on the present moment. (We can’t experience peace when we regret the past or worry about the future.) Both practices offer a way to increase happiness and decrease suffering.” So yes, mindfulness IS actually one way of meditating – because it is reining in the monkey-mind and keeping it focused on ONE moment. But it is also a separate kind of practice because mindfulness keeps you fully present, whereas meditation allows you to leave (or transcend) earth-time and drop into a different kind of space altogether. Meditation Meditation can lead you out of your chattering brain and into the space in-between thoughts, using a variety of techniques. For example, Transcendental Meditation (Hindu origin) involves focusing on ONE mantra, or chant. Om namah shivaya is a popular mantra. So you would just say that one phrase, Om namah shivaya, over and over again, while sitting quietly, eyes closed, and breathing into your belly. Eventually – and for some people this can take weeks or months – you will drop into the space between those words, where nothing exists but the pregnant silence of the universe. This is when you leave the time-space continuum of earth, and when you come back from the silence, you realize that 1 hour has passed, but it felt like only 5 minutes. With Zen Meditation you focus on your breath while your body is sitting in a certain posture. Your thoughts are allowed to come and go, but if you find yourself actually thinking about one of your thoughts, then you need to pull your attention back to your breath. So instead of your focus being on a mantra, it is on your breath – breathe through your noise and keep your mouth closed. When you’re breathing correctly, you will establish a long, deep, natural rhythm and hear a sound upon your exhale that is similar to pranayama breathing in yoga. Again, when your focus on your breath becomes complete, you will drop into the stillness and time will cease to exist. Although this stillness-bliss experience can also take a fairly long time to happen, the benefits to your brain functioning and stress levels are immediate. Here’s a super-short video b
