How to make the most of the period of confinement we are facing. In an article published in The Conversation France, Cloé Brami and Angela Biancofiore invite us to discover mindfulness meditation.
While we may feel confined and lacking in space, isn't it time to connect with our breath and explore our inner space?
Air, an element vital to our ecosystem, is both what unites us and what, today, causes us anguish. At the time of the Covid-19 pandemic, it is air that is at stake, the air we breathe in and out. In spiritual traditions and practices based on meditation, breath holds a central place as an object of attention. By taking a closer look at these traditions, we aim to demonstrate that meditation makes even more sense today.
In the late 1970s, Jon Kabat-Zinn, a biology professor and yoga practitioner, created a secular teaching of meditation, based on mindfulness from Buddhist traditions and adapted to the Western world via a program called MBSR (Mindfulness Based-Stress Reduction). This secular practice is inspired by Buddhist meditation traditions. It was originally designed to help patients to manage stress and symptoms related to chronic illnesses.
Silently connecting with this breath in a seated or moving posture is a proposal found in many meditation movements. To observe our breath is to observe the living within us. Meditation is not a simple «tool», but a way of daily life, a practice that enables us to welcome our inner turmoil and transform it. In Sanskrit, one of the terms for meditation is «bhavana», meaning «to cultivate». Meditation is the art of cultivating our land.
Meditation brings into our homes the possibility of integrating the fact that our individual actions are intimately linked to the collective.
In this particular period when we can lose our bearings, Cloé and Angela invite us to (re)define our relationship with the air, with our breath, in particular by returning to our breathing, the first step towards mindfulness meditation.
Photo: @Dingzeyu Li on Unsplash
