Do Jedi meditate on Holiday?

Dear TotJO,

I was wondering if Jedi meditate on holiday, and if so, why? I make an exception for anyone taking a holiday with toddlers...
My experiments with meditation so far has been exactly like my holidays - both are relaxed, fun, and calm - so I don't see why anyone would feel like meditating separately on holiday, since holiday is like a massive week-long meditation with more interesting food. Perhaps my comparison is invalid, and I have missed some points about meditation... Please see this Link to my IP understanding of meditation, fourth "post" on this page.

Many thanks for your thoughts!
Twigga

Define meditation practice lol. I do but then again most of my little vacations are out towards the woods or rural areas. I find that walking through them and emptying my mind and really just looking and listening to my surroundings is really quite awe inspiring as you see nature for what it is. Honestly, I don't spend much time downtown in Chicago but even when I go there, or other urban area,s I try to do the same thing adsorb whats going on around me with a silent mind and it is quite beautiful what you notice. Just my 2 cents

Love and Respect,
Kobos

I know, for myself at least, that I do meditate daily. Throwing it into a holiday (which is just another day with some special significance) really doesn't change up the beat for me.

So yes, Jedi can mediate on holiday. But if you're meditating often, as many here do, its not exactly a special event. ;p

I lean more towards the methods of meditation as you offer them in that post in your IP journal. To me, it is something that can be down regardless of what else we are doing.

Obviously, as you point out, activities like running, or music, trend towards more meditative practice than not. Even some martial arts forms like Aikido are considered to be of the "moving meditation" sort of activity where you enter a Zen-like state while flowing through the motions.

In the other option for that lesson of the IP, Krishnamurti offers rather interesting content on what "meditation" IS. If I gather his words properly, it is not as much the separation of the self from the world, sitting on a pillow in a dark room with incense and soft melodies, alone, quiet. Instead, it is a realization of focus, mindfulness, being engaged in everything you are doing, fully, all the time. Krishnamurti explains our reliance upon but selective use of our senses. While we have five (or six), we usually only engage with our world through one or two at a time, and ignore the impulses we are receiving through the others. Think about it. How often do you fully experience something with ALL of your senses in tune? When we talk to someone we may hear them, maybe see them too, but we don't generally smell them, taste them, and feel them to the same extent we are hearing or seeing. We have dominant sense that help us become aware of our surroundings, and we use whichever is best suited to interpret and understand. Meditation though, could be the full focus of all our senses in what it is we are doing at each moment of each day.

I have begun attempting this understanding of Krishnamurti in even the most mundane activities. My daughter just turned 8, and can mostly shower by herself, but needs help drying and combing her hair. Its a daily struggle just to get her to that point, and she is quite the busy butt so hardly stays still while I am helping. When I focus on it, keep my mind at peace, and try to engage all my senses in that moment and that activity, it becomes meditative to me. The same can go for taking out the trash, watching a football game with a friend, walking to the bus stop in the morning, sitting on the computer typing out a response to a thread here on TOTJO.

I grew tired of letting life just click by. I grew tired of resenting work on Monday morning, and waiting all week for Friday. If I let myself disconnect from life too much, it just becomes a collection of weekends with gaps of inactivity in the middle, and when I glance back, several years have floated by with no relative changes to my condition.

I too do not have the "time" in my daily routine to carve out 30-40 minutes to sit alone in a dim room and enjoy the silence. So instead, I find that silence surrounding each moment while I am actively living it, and find simple things like acknowledging the stop of an out breath and the start of an in breath to be incredibly useful in centering myself when things are otherwise swirling around me.

Not sure if that was direct to your original question...but that's my general take. Why wait for a holiday, or set up a personal meditation time, when it is something that can be accomplished all day every day, no matter what else is happening around us?

Cheers

I meditate daily as well. It's kinda like brushing my teeth, it's just part of my daily routine. It doesn't really matter if I'm traveling or not.

I practice a quiet mind whenever I don't need to use my thoughts. I use standard meditation when the going gets rough, but mostly I remain active.

Twigga wrote: Dear TotJO,

I was wondering if Jedi meditate on holiday, and if so, why? I make an exception for anyone taking a holiday with toddlers...
My experiments with meditation so far has been exactly like my holidays - both are relaxed, fun, and calm - so I don't see why anyone would feel like meditating separately on holiday, since holiday is like a massive week-long meditation with more interesting food. Perhaps my comparison is invalid, and I have missed some points about meditation... Please see this Link to my IP understanding of meditation, fourth "post" on this page.

Many thanks for your thoughts!
Twigga

Personally yes . Holiday meditations are for me the best. Case in point .

We (family) live in Illinois . We vacationed to North Carolina. At Kitty hawk ( mans first flight ...field) me and the wife did what we call zero out, just empty and be... very easy in a place where it's marked in stone" the place where impossible died" long story short we are now ... moving to NC and will be working and beginning a great new chapter to our ever lovely tale of life and love and joy. Meditate on holiday ? I dare and challenge and one to do this with that as the intention or even a secondary or third reason for and see is there is an easy ... ease to things. ... it's called practice and find! Holidays are my fav time to meditate, so many difrent places and possibilities! Be well and continue to seek , you'll find ! That's for shure!

I like to meditate on holiday. Most of the time it is difficult to find time or I am so tired I fall asleep trying to meditate. I have found that during the holiday or vacation, I am more relaxed and at ease. This is an even better time to meditate.

Meditating to relax or center or even relieve or alleviate stress is good. But for me, that is not the intended result of meditation. The deeper connection and awareness I have found while meditating on holiday can be very enlightening.

Why would you cease to practice something that does you good just because you are on vacation? Often vacation can clutter the mind so much with trying to see and experience it all that you totally miss the moment and really don't get into the experience. Further other than active mindfulness that I just mentioned one can practice zazen to calm the mind at the end of the day so that you can get to sleep or let go of stress that might otherwise taint your next day. In short, there are many reasons you ought to keep up meditative practices on vacation. Just like vacation is no real reason to totally ruin a diet and ignore it for a week or two making it harder to get back into it once you're back home.

Thank you for all of your responses everyone! It seems the short answer is "Yes, Jedi do meditate on holiday".

I can see a couple of patterns - that there is an "all the time" form of meditation within the things a person does every day - Kobos in the woods, SamThrift caring for his daughter, ... I think JLSpinner's "active" meditation and MadHatter's "active mindfullness". - and there is a jzen style "brushing your teeth" meditation - possibly Ariasaig (though that may be the former kind, I'm not sure) JLSpinner's "standard meditation when the going gets tough", Carlos.Martinez3's "zeroing out"; MaddHatter's "zazen".

I think Wescli Wardest and Carlos.Martinez3's answers were very interesting - that the "holiday-ness" which I have found that meditation brings can actually be enhanced on "real" holiday (That was why I ruled out holidays with toddlers; or a "vacation can clutter the mind" holiday - I was trying to capture the "holiday-ness" I have found in meditation so far) - so I can now see why Jedi do meditate on holiday.

JLSpinner's answer was also interesting to me. I've not and much success with "teeth brushing" meditation - the type I think SamThrift sums up well as time to "sit alone in a dim room; but I can see why you might need to whip out the old cushion and incense to tidy up a messy bit of life. I have lived part of my life with regular "tooth brushing" time - I didn't call it meditation - it was prayer time; yelled out for all in the city to hear by the local muezzin. And it was communal - our office stopped - and though you COULD carry on shopping, you'd not get served at the counter; so if you can't beat them, join them!

I thought Jedi might not meditate on holiday for a number of reasons: Simply because the usual triggers are not there when you're on holiday (the muezzin, your office hours... whatever); so the practice returns with the return of the trigger when you get home. Also because the need is not there - you're in a meditation state all the time on holiday. And finally I'd not understood meditation as a thing that does a person good; like brushing my teeth. Prayer isn't done as a health maintenance ritual - I had assumed the same about meditation. Thanks for all your inputs; t'was very interesting.

i think you should meditate when you think you need it the most and when you feel the urge to be still and relax

People rush rush rush all the time. Especially during the holidays. Be still, be present, take care of yourself.

All his life has he looked away... to the future, to the horizon. Never his mind on where he was. Hmm? What he was doing. -- Yoda

Just like everything else in Jediism. It's personal/individual.

Holidays are far far FAR from relaxing (this christmas has been nothing but sucky for the last two weeks - as was every other holiday this year) <--- It is just a matter of perspective and individual circumstance as well as method of practice.

Meditation for me isn't some sit down marathon where I fold my legs, close my eyes and hum 'Ommmmmm' for 45 minuets.

It is just something i do.

All the time.

24/7.

Because meditation to me is the awareness of the now and being at peace with it. And I define peace differently from most people too (Peace doesn't = satisfaction. Peace = acceptance) In other words. I accept that I was forced to stay awake for 20 hours to work a job, make money and satisfy people's social expectations and give my daughters a chance at having more fun than I. I accept that I was miserable. I accept that I struggled. I accept that I - this that and the third because at every second of my life I am at the very very least........Breathing.

^ Please understand I am not giving my woe story as a method for sympathy....but an example of how Meditation can vary no matter your situation or circumstance or time of year.^

However

That in mind. There has been a traditional meditation for many years in Jediism called the "Meditation Relay" Alethea Johnson is usually the one running it. The idea is to find people to cover every hour for 24 hours of the New year to meditate and welcome the new year. I havn't seen her doing that this year though....

I normally use the Holidays to go deeper in my practice of course still need to spend a lot of time with family and friends

The secret to gain all the benefits of meditation is regularity.

This Jedi does ! I often try to do it and I receive many difrent jewels and difrent results as I change the parameters and conditions.

For many years I set up a "Meditation Relay" for the Force Realists Community to participate in on New Years Day. This year it's just a day of meditation.

This Jedi does ! I often try to do it and I receive many difrent jewels and difrent results as I change the parameters and conditions.