Fudoshin Karate Club

Intro to Vipassana Meditation

We were visited by Mr.Kevin Short, a highly experienced meditation teacher who provided an introduction at the club.

This is an article written for the club by Kevin Short - A renowned Reiki Healing and Meditation teacher that teaches in the Ipswich area

Introduction by Steve Austin

"My first introduction to Buddhist meditation was a few years ago now when I discovered that Kevin Short, a good friend of mine, taught at the Buddhist centre in Ipswich and attending the Vipassana Meditation Course Kevin has adapted the principles for the modern day.  I studied on two courses with him, one alone and one with a group of people that I had not met before.

My experience of both Mr. Short's teachings and the actual meditation itself was truly excellent and life-changing for me. It brought together years of tiny bits of knowledge gained through martial arts training, which is a type of moving meditation when practiced until exhaustion. It also added an extra dimension to my Qigong training."

Meditation – the way to fully experience - by Kevin Short

The art of mediation is based on centuries of wisdom.  Over the years meditation has been practiced by many different principles and diverse cultures, which means that today meditation provides numerous methods that can be applied to resolve anything from simple anxiety to spiritual enlightenment.

In its simplest and arguably most powerful form, meditation is practiced by sitting down and concentrating on part of your body. The focus of concentration can be your breathing and/or parts of your body, the art and most difficult part is maintaining your concentration.

The human mind is a powerful tool and like many powerful tools is has an excellent potential. Our mind gives us inspiration and motivation, it allows us to learn, communicate and understand, solve problems and do the other activities in life that we take for granted. 

On the other hand our mind is also our greatest downfall.  In our minds we doubt ourselves, we blame and make excuses, we criticise and react meaninglessly to our emotions.  We create an ego which has to be continually nourished and comforted by outside influences and it is often this part of our personality which lets us down.

However, both sides of the minds duality are a power for good.  The funny thing is that on a day to day basis we are constantly changing.  What was important last year is probably not as significant this year.  What we needed last year to boost our ego has changed, most likely we need more to achieve the same effect, most certainly it will be a different.

The main problem with all this activity in the mind is that we experience life in a fog of superficial thoughts.  This fog of superficiality removes the purity of experience from our daily lives.  We lose the power to use all our senses simultaneously to really experience life in its full.  It is almost as if we are living our lives in one or two dimensions when in reality there are so many dimensions that we could experience.

One of the most amazing experiences I have been fortunate enough to experience was the time I went to listen to a Buddhist ceremony whilst taking part in a meditation course. 

Because I was relaxed and tranquil, probably in an almost constant meditative state the ceremony of chanting and music was just an extension of my internal experience.  At first I was aware of the voices and the music, it was just a single sense everything was just one entity.  As I deepened my meditation I became aware of the sound vibration distinct from the music and was able to differentiate vibration from different areas.  It then became apparent that although there were a dozen or so singers I could actually hear each singer independently of the others whilst still hearing the sound of the complete ceremony.  Each musical instrument, each singer, each musical note and each syllable had its own independent clarity and the ceremony became a multiplicity of dimensions all combining into a single experience.

So using meditation I was able to clear the fog of the mind and release a clarity that I had never known existed. My experience grew from something that was quite coarse in nature to one that had many dimensions within the same experience.

This clarity of mind built from a foundation of focused concentration is available to anybody. There are many methods of meditation to choose from, indeed you are most likely already practicing one yourself and maybe it is now time to take that practice to the next level.

Whichever you choose the main thing to remember is the choice is up to you.  Do you want to continue to experience your life in a small number of coarse dimensions or would you rather experience life in as many dimensions and possibilities.  It is really the same as asking do you want to experience an orchestra live or on a small black and white mono television.

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