"May all beings be happy"

A journey in #meditation, #mindfulness and #vipassana.

This time I would like to share with you my journey through meditation and how the experience changed my perspective of life and made me more thoughtful and resilient person.

I started practicing meditation during difficult times in my life. I lost my life the way I knew it and I was in a roller coaster of emotions and thoughts that made my being anxious and stressed all the time. I looked for help in the psychological therapy but at that time it wasn't enough for me (I will share that experience some other time).

Still swamp in anxiety and stress, I decided to sing up into a meditation course and since then, the practice became one of my most precious tools to face difficulties, painful moments or challenging situations that inevitably are part of life.

"Mindfulness" was my first meditation practice. Kavindu, was my teacher in Mexico City, he guided me from the basics, like how you can adjust your body to have a good body posture while meditating, to the more meaningful and powerful concepts and actions that mindfulness involve, for example: awareness, acceptance, clearness, receptivity, self esteem, compassion and true love, among others.

Mindfulness - Awareness, acceptance, clearness, receptivity, self esteem, compassion, true love.

Practicing Mindfulness opened my mind to a different way of living and experiencing life. Thanks to this practice I started to live a healthier life, not only for my body, but more importantly, for my mind and my heart.

With the practice of mindfulness my decisions and actions started to be focused on the search for wellbeing, love, peace and health. Since I started with the practice of meditation, I’ve learnt how every emotion shows different reactions in our body. How stress is present in our daily life and how we can barely notice its effects and symptoms because we are very used to them and those become "normal". I’ve learnt how a compassionate and sympathetic communication with ourselves and with others can make a big difference in our lives.

In this course I met a very good friend, Juan, who told me about Vipassana Meditation and encouraged me to take a 10 day silent retreat. How much I thank him for that!

Vipassana means to see things as they really are, it’s one of India's most ancient techniques of meditation. Vipassana is a way of self-transformation through self-observation and the only tool is our own breathing process.

With the observation of our pure breath without adding or changing anything, we can learn a lot from our body and from our mind. While we are staying still being observants we can be aware of what is happening inside of our body and inside of our mind. We can notice pleasant or disturbing thoughts, memories in our past or worries about the future. The practice is about remaining still, no matter what kind of thoughts and emotions appear during the meditation because the objective is to notice them, observing them with curiosity, and letting them go as fast and as easily as they appear. It’s very important to do this without judgement, aversion or attachment.

By observing our breath, our body and our mind, we will develop wisdom about ourselves and about everything else in life. We have to be aware that every person will have a particular experience, that’s why there is no point in comparing or trying to have a similar experience to others because we are unique, we have had different contexts, different paths, different experience of life. We must only believe on what we are perceiving with our senses and in what we are experiencing in our own practice.

Two weeks ago, my sister-cousin Joce, told me about a 21 day meditation practice with mantras. This practice has different techniques from Mindfulness and Vipassana, and I decided to give this kind of practice a chance as well.

In the 13th day of the practice, the topic was about happiness and the mantra we sang means “May all beings be happy”. When I was listening to the explanation of this mantra, the meaning sounded familiar to me. My memory started to recall those days in the Vipassana retreat when at the end of every practice we used to listen a chant in Pali that says:

“Bhavatu Sabba Mangalam”, and guess what? The meaning is exactly the same: “May all beings be happy”.

At the end of the practice with mantras, I exchanged messages with Joce and we both agreed that the fact of finding the same meaning in these two different chants and techniques of meditation couldn’t possibly be just a coincidence or an accident.

I am more aware now that Mindfulness, Mantras or Vipassana meditation -the techniques I’ve been practicing in my journey- have the same principle:

LOVE! Love for ourselves, love for other human beings, love for every kind of beings.

This love is not about romantic relationships, the love that all these practices have in common is about true love that grows inside of us, love for our body, love for our mind, love for our family and friends, love for a partner, for animals, for plants, and for every single being out there.

I’m sure there must be a lot of different technics of meditation with the same principle. Have you ever tried any? It would be great to know about your experience.

Love, Ana Hope

Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu is a Sanskrit mantra which means:

«May all beings everywhere be happy and free,

and may the thoughts, words, and actions of my own life contribute

in some way to that happiness and to that freedom for all.»

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*This post was written from personal experience and shouldn't be taken as theory, lessons or training. If you are interested in the practice of meditation, it is better to find a certified teacher or centre to receive proper training.