Meditation at The Hive
Meditation practice isn’t about trying to throw ourselves away and become something better. It’s about befriending who we are already.” -Pema Chodron
At The Hive, we practice mindfulness meditation or samatha meditation, stabilizing the mind by cultivating a steady awareness of the object of meditation. Many things can act as the object of your attention: the breath, the body, sounds outside, quietly chanting a mantra or phrase, music. It’s really about training your mind to focus on what you want, expanding your attention span and ability to remain in the present moment.
Through meditation, we practice becoming the neutral observer, watching the habits of our mind without getting distracted and remaining focused on the breath (or whatever you’ve chosen for the object of meditation).
Each time you notice you’ve become lost in thought, you say to yourself “thinking” then gently bring your attention back to the breath. In class, we often use the very beginning of each inhale and the beginning of each exhale as a tether for our attention.
It’s not complicated. Try it now. Close your eyes for a few breaths, and try to notice the start of each breath in and each breath out.
With regular meditation, you get better at neutrally observing when you’re lost in thought. Rather than beating yourself up, you start to see the habitual ways you get bound up in thinking . It gets easier to catch yourself, which means over time, you become more present, more open, able to show up for your life in the ways you most want.
Melissa always includes meditation in the following classes:
Mondays: Beginners/Intro to Yoga 7:15pm
Wednesday: All Levels 6pm
Friday: Slow Vibes 10-11:15am
WE ALREADY HAVE everything we need. There is no need for self-improvement. All these trips that we lay on ourselves—the heavy-duty fearing that we’re bad and hoping that we’re good, the identities that we so dearly cling to, the rage, the jealousy and the addictions of all kinds—never touch our basic wealth. They are like clouds that temporarily block the sun. But all the time our warmth and brilliance are right here. This is who we really are. We are one blink of an eye away from being fully awake.” ― Pema Chödrön, Start Where You Are: A Guide to Compassionate Living