Squatting Meditation

At this time and stage of life, it is increasingly being recognized that the major themes involved in optimizing health and well-being, are lifestyle, diet and exercise -- all resulting in a greater integration with one another.  Improving lifestyle, boils down to increasing mindfulness (meditation) -- but not apart from the doing of anything else.  It is most valuable and productive, when that mindfulness is integral to the doing of anything -- and everything for that matter.

Then life is not this constant struggle against oneself -- but all the parts, are moving in unity and unison.  Then the parts magnify each other with greater synergies and effectiveness -- resulting in the more productive life.

That is the knock against yoga and other traditional forms of exercise (practice) -- because doing it, is exclusive of doing anything else -- and the real power of any exercise, is the doing of it -- and not something else.  One becomes very good at doing what one actually does -- and not something else.  That's why it is less useful to run a marathon -- when really, one wants to solve another problem -- and would benefit more, with that focus and presence of mind.

To do otherwise, is actually to become more scattered (fragmented) -- and obviously, less focused and effective.  Yet that is usually what we condition ourselves to do.  That's why it will be noted among the most astute and observant, that there is no substitute, for actually playing the game.  No amount of mental projection or visualization of the desirable outcome, suffices for the actual doing.

This fragmentation -- of practice from reality -- causes us to do something else entirely -- than that we really want to become good at.  In fact, we might do everything else -- but what we directly want to do.  And that is a huge problem in our education and conditioning programs -- they never address the challenges and problems of our actual lives and living -- and we have no idea what to do about that.  Because instea of actually solving the real problem, we do something else entirely -- and observe, mindlessly, that we're too busy doing something else, than what would be most productive and necessary at that moment.

Life endlessly gets put on "hold" in that way, so at the end of the day, or at the end of life, one feels they have not lived or done anything -- they actually wanted to do -- even as much as they have done, instead of it.  So constantly, they live in that feeling, of never having lived their own authentic lives -- but only something illusory.  Then towards the end of life, they become hopelessly delusional -- but most think it is normal for them.  That -- they explain, is the normal process of aging -- after living a life that way.  What else would one expect?

So one asks, what is the best way to achieve and practice that mindfulness -- by which we learn to do everything that way?  It is rather simple -- but difficult, if not impossible for many -- and that is simply sitting in a flat-footed squat position -- as many elderly, indigenous people do -- while conducting and performing many of their daily activities with that proficiency.  Yet in modern, contemporary culture, that is frequently the dividing line between the most able, and those we regard as disabled -- by this inability to get up and down frequently, easily and painlessly in that position.

This is visibly seen in those who occupy one position throughout most of the day -- whether that is lying, sitting, or standing.  Their difficulty, is moving into any other position.  Thus, change becomes a very difficult, if not nearly impossible, concept to entertain.  And in this manner, they become increasingly divorced from the movement and vitality of life in all its activities, and the world seems to pass them by.

The sitting squat should be one's mantra -- practiced to one's end -- as the greatest indicator of one's continued vitality.  It seem like such a simple thing -- because it is -- but for many, seemingly impossible to execute -- even if they can run marathons and lift more than their bodyweight.

How to regain those capabilities -- one thought was lost forever?  The best exercise for doing so, is to master the squat -- which for many older and disabled -- seems impossible to entertain, but it is far more valuable and productive to practice -- than any other exercise, or movement.  Getting up and down, is worth far more than going any distance, at any speed.

The practice of yoga, is largely the mastering of individual poses and positions, and even the flow from one to another, but one position not suggested, is just the full squat -- as the king of all postures.  Bodybuilders and weightlifters get into and out of this position as quickly as possible -- while the real power of it, is sitting and relaxing in the full squat for as long as possible -- and improving the range of that posture -- by relaxing even more.  Thus the better objective is not to discover how much weight one can "squat" with, but finding out how relaxed one can get into that position -- that restores the best alignment of the muscle and skeletal structures that misaligned, cause so much joint pain increasingly without such practice and maintenance.

How to begin:  No matter what one's present capabilities in this manner of performance is, the best way to begin is to squat (bend one's knees) as low as comfortably possible while holding the back of a sturdy chair (supportive structure).  Then practice moving lower until one has reached the absolute bottom position -- and rest in that position increasingly longer.  Shortly, probably within a month for most, one will achieve the low position -- previously thought impossible starting out.  And from there, one can simply relax into a meditation -- or mindfulness, of anything else one wants to contemplate.

Getting in and out of that position should be made as easy as possible -- and not as difficult as possible -- as people are conditioned to do everything -- until ultimately, they fail completely.

The Power of Letting Go

Halfway through the year, as well as halfway through life, it is reasonable to ask if one's life is getting better -- or simply worse without end?  Life is very different before and after that turning (tipping) point -- at which one feels the best is ahead of them, or is already a distant and fading memory.  The easiest measure of that is one's present health and well-being -- and how one perceives and expresses that in everything they do.

If life seems to be only increasing aches and pains, and no increasing functionality and capabilities, then certainly, the future does not look bright, or promising.  But if in some measure, one is improving -- no matter how they choose to measure it -- then it seems that improvement is always possible, and with it, even a transcendence onto a higher level of functioning and capabilities.  There will no doubt be times of uncertainty and struggle over the direction one is headed -- until a breakthrough -- or not.

Such a breakthrough for many was learning of the discussions over what constituted the optimal diet -- beyond the old wisdom that more is always better.  That way of thinking, had created the present health crisis, when people who evolved very slowly over millennia, now had an abundance most bodies were unprepared for, and could not recondition themselves to handle.

Whereas food was long defined as something scarce and to be hoarded as much as possible, that strategy is disastrous in conditions of plenty.  An obviously bad way of adaptation, is simply to waste as much as possible -- as the many do when given a windfall -- for which nothing in their previous experience and training, had prepared them adequately for.  In that way, many simply turn their good fortune into greater problems -- even spending more than they have, while not realizing it.  They think all they have to do is come down with the initial down payment, and then it is life happily forever after.  Naturally, they go out and spend even more.

So that legacy can be a huge problem, if society has not prepared its individuals to handle success -- as well as they do failures.  If such skills of solving problems is all they know, many come to perpetuate the problems, so they can solve them again -- rather than moving on to higher levels of challenge and learning.  That is the characteristic of the leading edge of societies -- to discover the unknown, and better know what they don't know -- which is the root of their problems and difficulties.

One can't be "right," if everything meaningful in their lives, is wrong -- as the truly dysfunctional, insist life must be -- and there is no other.  They simply have not continued to search and learn -- but have settled for the first wrong answer they can find.  They need that certainty -- even if it is wrong, and makes everything in life a struggle -- against every other reality.

So the simplicity of the matter comes down to this -- not doing anything -- including eating, and from that mindfulness, one see what works, and not the chatter that fills most lives.  One must first be quiet and still, and from that stillness, all movement becomes apparent -- but never if the mind is always restless, contending with itself, overriding all the other senses.  That is also the feature that ultimately defines contemporary digital life -- either zero or one, computed as many times as necessary.  From that, we can derive the most complex answers -- and deconstruct its simplicity and elegance.

The complex and complicated, is the confusion necessary -- to market the unpalatable, and indigestible.    When those conditions are invoked, all manner of mischief rule the day -- but thinking people, are also mobilized to solve that overwhelming problem of the day -- as the categorical imperative of any species -- or its very survival is in jeopardy.  So things do not get infinitely worse, but get worse to the point, that all other endeavors and activities, are subsumed to this great urgency -- when facing virtual extinction, unless there is a way out.

That way out, is the realization that everything is connected and related to everything else -- and not that there are a different set of rules, for every category and specialization one can think of -- as their exclusive, inviolable turf.  This ultimate fragmentation causes all of reality to fall apart -- but also to be reconstructed in a better way.  That is merely the story of evolution -- as well as individual lives.  We have to let go of the old, for the new to come into being.

That is the wisdom of fasting -- to cure most contemporary human ills -- and unless periodically done, there is nothing but the accumulation of the old, weak and diseased cells -- while the body is ingeniously designed to improve itself -- unless it is thought otherwise.  And it is largely this thought, that makes full restoration unavailable and impossible -- and not that is is difficult or impossible in itself.  People have been conditioned to maintain the status quo at all costs -- even if it is to their detriment and ultimate destruction.  Thus the solution, is largely a matter of reconditioning to the latest, greatest understanding -- and not holding on to everything that has brought us to this present crisis.

And that crisis is that everyone suffers from this inability to let go of the old -- and being reborn in this way, which is the natural recycling process of the human body -- and all life forms, for that matter.  That's why life persists -- and not that we have to crank up our heart rates or the heart won't function at all.  Also, one doesn't have to keep on feeding the body, if one is way overweight and obese.  The body is designed to live off of its stored reserves -- for as long as necessary -- because it has evolved that way.

We know those problems as the twin problems of obesity and diabetes -- of which current assessments, regard that more than half either have diabetes or prediabetes, and are the precursors to every other disease and dysfunction of the human body.  So whether diagnosed or not, one should simply treat oneself as though that were the problem -- since it probably is, and follow the well-proven cure for it -- of Intermittent Fasting, a Ketogenic Diet, and let Autophagy do the rest. 

That's the only thing we need to learn -- and that will enable everything else.  That is the critical path.  That is the fundamental understanding of life.  That is the dividing line between the healthy and the sick.