Tag: meditation

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Meditation, Sleep and Dying

Steve Rowe

When you can’t sleep, or you’re sick and terrified of dying it’s because you can’t let go. Going to sleep is like dying, you stop thinking and drift in a state of just being and if you can do this through meditation practice, you sleep deeply and restoratively. Similarly when you are sick and death is inevitable, you drift in to that state of just being and returning to the source of all things dying peacefully. See how the two are connected? When you meditate you loose the shackles and burdens of life, resting in that beautiful place of refuge … Continue reading Meditation, Sleep and Dying

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Intensity In Meditation

Steve Rowe

  I teach that for mindfulness, meditation and Martial Arts, the mind needs to be aware, focused, sensitive and intense. The right kind of intensity is a key factor and often misunderstood. You cannot be half hearted. The enemies of the mind are apathy and distraction, to avoid them the mind must be intensely focused and that requires the right kind of effort. To me, after posture and breathing are correct, it’s like getting into an elevator and dropping instantly 100 floors down. This is both my meditation and fighting mind, it cannot be disrupted. Sometimes it feels like I’m … Continue reading Intensity In Meditation

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2 Triples For Happiness

Steve Rowe

2 Triples For Happiness Anicca – Dukka – Anatta Today wisdom and happiness comes in 2 triples, the first is Anicca, Dukka, and Anatta, the triple gem of existence. Impermanence We all know this, but much of our suffering comes from not accepting it. Everything rises and falls without cease, therefore we need to be able to fully engage, to love, enjoy and then at the right time let go. To be able to do this we need to remind ourselves in daily meditation that all things will pass and just knowing this will broaden our perspective enough to give … Continue reading 2 Triples For Happiness

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Making Sense Of The Universe With Kata/Form

Steve Rowe

“As Above – So Below” In ritual magic you affect the macrocosm by understanding and changing the microcosm. If you want to really understand kata/form and what was in the mind of the originators and you have enough knowledge – try inventing your own. Why would you invent one? It would have to improve the understanding and standard of the practitioner. Do you want to categorise an entire training system into one form? Maybe there are specific ideas and principles that you want to put together and train in one sequence? Very quickly you will begin to understand the problems … Continue reading Making Sense Of The Universe With Kata/Form

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Find Your Own Martial Art

Steve Rowe

Been training for a while and feel dissatisfied? Feel like you’re not learning the right things? The martial arts not meeting your expectations? Meditate – ask yourself what you really want from your training, I don’t mean all the usual blanket answers but what do YOU want? What are YOUR individual expectations? This can lead to quite a few surprises because you’ve probably been taking on other people’s expectations without realising it and that’s why you have to go deep to discover what it is you REALLY need from your efforts. Look at what you’re doing – having realised fully … Continue reading Find Your Own Martial Art

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Why ‘Positive Thinking’ Doesn’t Work…

Steve Rowe

Why ‘positive thinking’ doesn’t work. That happy mask, the fixed inane grin, the stupid idea that ‘anything’s possible’ if you think positive hard enough, usually comes from someone desperately unhappy or someone with their hand in your pocket. Let me be honest. At least 50% of life is shit. It ranges from dissatisfaction to ‘please kill me now’ suffering. If you learn to deal with with it by becoming durable, it ‘enobles’ you. It means you’ve been hurt so bad for so long, nothing or no one can hurt you as much as you’ve been hurt already. It gives you … Continue reading Why ‘Positive Thinking’ Doesn’t Work…

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The Dark Side Of Pain

Steve Rowe

  Pain eats your soul. You want to move but you can’t. Life is out there waiting, Calling you to come out and play, People to see, places to be, Exciting, active and fun… The spirit is willing, but the body is tired, Every move jars the soul, Pain screams around the joints, They give way and are unstable, Medication has a price that is just as bad. Everybody assumes you will fully repair, That is the confidence of youth. You end up joining the pretence, Because it’s easier than trying to explain. In the end life can only get … Continue reading The Dark Side Of Pain

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Cognitive Dissonance In The Martial Arts

Steve Rowe

I posted recently on Facebook about Firemen who rescued some piglets from a fire and how the grateful farmer then slaughtered them and rewarded the firemen with sausages made from their carcasses. As a meditation I suggested that if that made the readers uncomfortable it might be because they were experiencing ‘cognitive dissonance’ because they might hold two opposing views about the piglets, one because they are cute and cuddly and the other because they like them as food. This then made me think that it might be a good idea to draw some of my teachings together under this … Continue reading Cognitive Dissonance In The Martial Arts

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Direct Knowledge Is Different

Steve Rowe

  I used to get my knowledge and wisdom from others at lectures, in books and lecture tapes.  I would meditate for ages on the wisdom of the Buddha, Lao Tsu, Ajhan’s Chah and Sumedho, Alan Watts, Kahil Gibran and many others, I studied Buddhism, Zen, Chan, Taoism, Wicca, Paganism, Ritual Magik, Spiritualism and all their associated arts, but when the breakthrough occurred, I stopped. No longer did I need to refer to others, because I was able to look inside and find my own ‘wisdom mind’. When I sat or stood still, I could access the part of me … Continue reading Direct Knowledge Is Different

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If I die tonight

Steve Rowe

Dedicated to my good friend the late Graham Wednes. If I die tonight will the universe stop? If I return to the Tao it will be like a wave returning to the sea; No more ‘being human’ and only ‘sensing’ the infinite; From whence I came, I will return and be it once more. My ‘place of refuge’ becomes my home again. In the infinite, all time exists all of the time, the theatre of life exists because the pot is stirred; When stirred, one plays off against the other in a binary fashion, simple appears complicated as the picture … Continue reading If I die tonight