Zen Meditation Fan

by Mark
(UK)

I was always a big fan of Zen meditation. I was introduced to it via the writers Alan Watts and Todd Walton. They made meditation modern. Made it accessible for the Western too-busy mind and culture.

So I started buying meditation tapes and subliminal affirmation CDs. Anything that would accustom me to the habit of calming the mind.

One of the images in the myriad tapes really stuck with me. I still use it to this day. And I've been meditating for over 10 years in one form or another.

It explains how to use the image of leaves on a stream. First you just form a mental picture. Then as you go deeper and deeper into this meditation the narrator asks you to see the leaves dwindling down more and more. Until finally there are none.

I began to use this in meditation more and more.

One of the many things I'd been working on during this time was a very troubling stomach ailment. So I told myself that as the leaves dissipated so too would my pain, my nausea and my upset stomach. Little by little this began to work.

Not only has it calmed me down, it's helped me cure a stomach problem I've had ever since childhood.