Here at Natural Medicine we're expanding and growing, always embracing new members. With the addition of 'Mindful Life', we've also welcomed lots of newbies too to our channels - meditators who have found their way to us via this new iniative, fronted by @tryskele's #mindfulmonday editorial post on Mondays and @bewithbreath's passion for all things meditation. There's all sorts of folks that make it what our group what it is - from those that don't know a lot about natural healing but are keen to learn, to absolute experts in the field.

It's with this gratitude and appreciation that each week we bring to you a special '5 Questions' feature, where we interview a very special Steemian!

This week, we're featuring @bewithbreath. We're thrilled to bring you his answers to Natural Medicine's five questions.

We hope you enjoy his thoughtful replies!

1. @bewithbreath, you are relatively new to Steemit, but not to meditation! Tell us about your meditation journey – when and how did you start? Any particular technique / tradition? Your current practice?

Thank you for this opportunity @NaturalMedicine, greatly appreciated.
Yes, indeed. I joined the Steem platform in Jan 2019 but really became active in March only. I am so grateful for meeting so many like-minded kind mindful people here. I am very grateful for wonderful compassionate steemians particularly @riverflows @tryskele and @porters.

The journey to understand the mind started quite early on in my childhood. A very compassionate local monk used to come to our house regularly and used to tell us short Buddhist stories – as children we love stories, right? Felt really good to be around him. He is no more but I could still feel his aura, kindness and positive vibes.

Then during the University days I read quite a lot of spiritual and self-help books and self-practiced few meditation techniques... stumbled upon reiki healing….. etc…was exploring myself and trying many experiments so to speak.

But I got into serious meditation nearly 10 years ago when I first took, at a recommendation of a friend, a 10 days silent Vipasanna Meditation course as taught by Venerable S N Goenka. Anyone who has attended this course knows too well that it is highly intense course with around 10 hours of meditation every day. Noble silence during the course mean we are not allowed any form of communication with outside world or inside the meditation centre. Yeah….tough, right? But, guess what, if I’m given an option of exotic holiday or meditation retreat, I will choose meditation. Not that I hate holidays, I love going on holidays. But, to me, now, any other worldly experiences are insubstantial compared to inner exploration. Because everything we experience is within. As ancient saying goes “beauty is in the eyes of beholder”. If we are happy and joyful we experience the world differently than when we are grumpy.

I have since attended more 10 days, 3 days and other special courses provided to old students. Which I hope to share another time. To me, Vipasanna meditation is simple (well kind of….), profound and transformational. Of course, it can be hard work but we witness the transformation ourself and people around us will notice the change. It works at the very deep level of mind peeling away impurities as if wiper removing the frost so we can see better.

Vipasanna means to see things as they truly are. Understanding our own true nature cannot be of less importance than anything we are doing, right? So, if you haven’t heard about Vipasanna Meditation yet I highly recommend checking it out at www.dhamma.org. There are about 176 permanent Vipasanna meditation centres in around 94 countries across the world providing free meditation course in this. After the course meditators can donate as per their will.

In addition to Vipasanna, I also follow or followed Eckhart Tolle (the author of bestselling book “The Power of Now”), Anthony Robins, Thich Nhat Hanh, Mooji and also do chanting and bit of yoga as taught by Sadhguru. But my main practice is Vipasanna meditation. I have been practicing on average 2 hours most days for last 9-10 years. And I also tend to do mini-meditation (as recommended by Eckhart Tolle) (5-10 mins), alternate nostrils breathing and “OM” chanting as and when I get any opportunity. Meditation kind of takes precedence over other things once you witness its immense benefit. One simple example of benefit I observed: I used to be a heavy smoker and have tried, without success, many times to give up. I used the Nicotine patches, inhalators, lozenges and so on to quit smoking. At times I gave up for a month to 6 months but went back to smoking again. But after my first 10 day meditation course my craving for smoking was vanished as if I had never touched a cigarette. Absolute cut off. Since then haven’t smoked. We will leave many other benefits of meditation I have experienced for another day.

2. Shortly after joining Steemit you pondered the possibility of creating a mindful steem project bringing all mindful content creators (focusing on meditation and mindfulness) together. Fortunately, our own @riverflows jumped in to offer a place through the Natural Medicine Community and “Mindful Life” was born. Tell us how the idea came to you?

Yes, I am very grateful for @riverflows for bringing Mindful Life to this community. When I first joined #steemit my main aim was to promote content on meditation and mindfulness on steemit as well as provide any support I can to people suffering with mental health disorder. But more importantly, I wanted to create a network of meditators and meditation enthusiasts across the world who are on steemit to share, learn, support and encourage regular meditation practice. As @riverflows puts it beautifully in her post (https://steemit.com/introduceyourself/@riverflows/introducing-mindful-life-uniting-meditators-across-steem-all-welcome-plus-steem-bounty) – the goal of “Mindful Life” are:

• To unite meditators across the Steem blockchain so that we can share and strengthen our own practices
• To provide a space to discuss the philosophy, science and practical application of such practices in our lives
• To inspire and motivate each other
• To provide support if we might be struggling, connecting with like minded people who might offer solutions

So where this idea came from? Hmmm…..I had been running free meditation sessions in my workplace for a while. I also ran some meditation sessions at some professional seminars / meetings.

In addition, we (Nepalese friends and family) currently sit together for one hour meditation every Saturday evening here in Norfolk, UK. I am grateful to my sister for hosting this regular sittings. This has been going on for 4 months. People can attend as and when they can fit with their day to day life and we generally have around 10-12 people turn up during group meditation.

And while many people have shown interest and want to try meditation, life gets in the way so to speak. I had already prepared an audio instruction for meditation and have shared with few friends and relatives. We use this during our group sittings with friends and families as well as with work colleagues. Then it occurred to me that why can’t we support other meditators to keep regular practice and help meditation enthusiasts to begin their practice online. And here we are talking about “Mindful Life” already running. Hopefully, we can bring more meditators and meditation enthusiasts on steemit together to support regular meditation practice. Technology can be a powerful force for good if used wisely.

3. You are the father to two children. How do you manage to keep regular practice? What do they think of their parental meditation practice? Any tips for introducing meditation to children? Are your kids into meditation too? Tell us more about them.

Maintaining the regular meditation practice can be difficult particularly with kids and full time job. But I have been lucky in the sense that my wife is also a Vipasanna meditator and my 10 years old daughter has attended one day meditation course twice. Recently, my daughter has shown bit more interest and sometimes join us in the morning when we are meditating in our meditation room. I tend to spend some time with my kids during bed time particularly watching short wisdom stories on YouTube. After the stories, we (including kids) do “OM” chanting, 5 minutes breathing meditation and sometimes alternate nostrils breathing. It has now kind of become routine. I found bedtime is particularly a very good time to introduce meditation to kids. The other day, both kids did 20 minutes meditation with me during the play time in the afternoon. They will sometimes do half an hour meditation for the chance of playing on Xbox or watching on their Tablets. Hmmmm……am I bribing? Well I’m doing it with wholesome mind and with good intention, right? I think for kids I found it useful to have bit more dynamic techniques such as “OM” chanting, alternate nostrils breathing, yoga to start off.

My daughter, she has a very kind heart. She finds it very hard to see other people sad. You may find this very interesting: when we were in Nepal last year for “bahra” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bahra_ceremony) ceremony she spent some time in “Muni Bihar” (Monastery). When she came to know that the monastery was supporting around 60 poor children for their education, food and accommodation, she decided to donate all her money (around £480) from the bahra ceremony to the monastery for the children. My Son, 8 years old, as yet, is a different kettle of fish. He wants to be very rich so he can buy me flying cars…….

4. Your handle, ‘bewithbreath’ is lovely, and encapsulates part of the practice. Can you explain to us a little about what being with breath involves, and why we should ‘be with’ our breath?

Thank you. Yes, indeed “bewithbreath” is also my handle on Twitter (although I’m not that active on Twitter). Breath is a simple and profound object of meditation which opens the door to the inner world. While there are many other objects of meditation such as sensation in the body (vedana), mind (chitta), mental contents (dhamma) they can be too difficult to observe particularly for beginners or during day to day life unless one’s mind has reached certain level of Samadhi (concentration). In contrast, breath is easy to observe, easily accessible and can be used as a meditation objects while engaged in other daily activities.

So what does it mean to be with breath? Simply, being aware of the breath as it happens in the moment. If we are breathing in we are aware we are breathing in. If we are breathing out we are aware we are breathing out. We just become witness to the breathing as it happens. “Paying our full and absolute attention to the breath as it happens” is what I meant by being with breath. It collects the scattered mind to focus on one thing, the breath.

So why be with breath? To live HERE and NOW, to be in the present moment. While there are many techniques I found through my own experience that breath is a simple and readily available yet profoundly effective tool to be in the moment. Breath doesn’t happen in the past or the future, it always happens in the present moment. So it’s always worth to do a quick check – even in rush – “are you breathing in or breathing out?” As simple as that. Just become aware whether you are breathing in or out. As you bring your attention to breath you are automatically living in the moment. As you get in the car to drive check your breath. As you are about to say something check your breath. As you type in your steemit post check your breath. As much as possible try to be with breath. Once the mind become more aware of the breath you can start asking if the breath “is deep or shallow”, “long or short?”. Being aware of breath propel the mind to become intensely present in this very moment. The breath becomes a tool to let go of heavy burden of past and future. So I found, breath is an amazing, delightful companion. Used it wisely, breath can be a greatest friend in every situation.

I like breath as meditation objects for many other reasons: it is apolitical, areligious and universal; it’s free; available 24 hours a day unless we are dead. Of course, there is much more to vast realm of meditation than just breath but it is good starter and key to many other tool. Right now, I’m checking whether I’m breathing in or breathing out. Simple but highly effective!

5. You have kindly volunteered to run Steemit’s first group meditation here on Steemit. Can you tell us why we got involved, why we think we all should come along on May 1, and what we can expect?

The world we are in today is fast paced. We are often running after one thing after another. We crave for pleasant things to experience in our 5 sense doors. We seek sensually gratifying things to see, hear, taste, smell and touch or feel. We live as if worldly pleasures (as experienced by 5 senses) is all there is to life. As wise saying goes “most humans live as if they are never going to die and die as if they have never lived”. We have choices but our choices have consequences. Human being are born a seed and we can die as a seed or blossom into flowers. And if we only experience this life through our 5 senses then we are just a seed. And meditation plant that seed, water it, preserve it and helps it eventually to blossom into flower.

I feel very grateful for the opportunity to run 1st group meditation here on #Steem. And honoured to guide basic meditation technique to meditation enthusiasts and sit with experienced meditators on steemit. And even committed meditators struggle to maintain regular practice of meditation. So “Mindful Life” is trying to bring meditators and meditation enthusiasts on steemit together to share, learn, support and encourage each other’s practice.

So at 8pm GMT / UTC on the 1st of May 2019 “Mindful Life” is launching the 1st Global Group Meditation on Steemit suitable for everyone including meditation naïve and beginners. We believe this is the first of its kind here on Steem.

The launch is really a starter for what we envisage to be a regular event. At 8pm GMT / UTC on 1st May, we will do a group meditation focusing on simple breath meditation (Anapanna). We anticipate some steemians without prior experience of meditation. Besides, as it is the first one we want to focus on creating calm and peace within … and breath meditation is very effective for that. So here is what you can expect during the hour:

1. 10 minutes - Welcome and brief guidance to the meditation session

2. 5 minutes – Quick Q & A (question related to the guidance)

3. 35 minutes – Breath meditation

4.10 minutes – Q & A related to the technique/guidance**

I would be happy to discuss further on the technique or meditation in general after 9pm on our #mindful-chat subchannel (link below).

We are not asking people to spend an hour with us – we are providing an opportunity for people to be with themselves, truly to be with themselves. Our waking time is spent mostly looking outside. Doing things outside: be that watching movies or listening to music, chatting to friends or busy on the phones, eating or drinking, planning for future or thinking about past. What we are doing is providing a platform, network and support for you to spend time with your inner self. Check in how s/he is, get to know your best friend “the breath” who never leaves you, to know that loneliness is a myth when you have your breath as your friend. To know how breath and simple breath alone can provide calm and tranquillity. Why we are not using this simple yet profoundly potent tool to generate peace and love within so we can be kind and compassionate without? Don’t we deserve to know that we have everything we need to be happy in this very moment? Let’s meet “You” – let’s meditate together and let’s grow together in wisdom.

Are you able to join us on May 1? We will have spot steem prizes for anyone in the channel - although of course your incentive should be a self motivated one, we do like to support you in other ways too.

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