Clear Mind Meditation

Category: Health and Happiness When: Sunday, February 21, 2010 Time: 6:00 – 7:00 AM Click here to view the classroom

Dr. Sankey’s sense is that the aim of all meditation is to quiet the mind so that we can find a tranquil place – that peaceful place inside of ourselves. To achieve this, she does not know of any method that is as direct as zen. She has been training with Zen Master Shodo Harada of Sogenji Monastery in Okayama, Japan, for the last 15 years and can say that the practice of zen meditation is a no-nonsense, direct method of quieting and clearing the mind.

Rather than use visualizations or mantras, which are also totally legitimate ways of calming and harnessing the power of the mind, zen uses the breath to enter directly into the state of mind where we do not engage thoughts.

Zen training is complex and requires diligent practice and unrelenting perseverance. An inexperienced practitioner could find the training too rigorous, too difficult, too demanding, and treacherous. To do the training properly, one would enter a zen monastery and every day, die to one’s ego.

Since this is not practical for those who want to extract the nectar of the practice without entering a monastery, Dr. Sankey has begun to introduce individuals on how to begin taking baby steps on the road to achieving a clear mind.

We are goal-oriented in our society and we might have the notion that, once we achieve “clear mind”, we have then “arrived” and won’t need to work at it anymore. This is far from the truth. We have to work moment by moment to cultivate this clear mind until we draw our last breath.

There is a popular notion now that we can manifest our desires, that we are creators. But how can we manifest anything with a cluttered mind? When we have competing thoughts while we are trying to visualize or manifest, how successful are we in achieving what we want when we are using a mind that is encrusted with so much information?

Speaker Bio: Dr. Kathleen A. Sankey is a Doctor of Oriental Medicine and Licensed Acupuncturist in the State of California. She was licensed in 1985 and received her doctorate in 1986. She served as an Examiner for the Acupuncture Examining Committee under the California State Board of Medical Quality Assurance from 1985 to 1990. Read full bio »