| Yoga is one of the most popular ways of combining meditation and exercise. A new trend in meditation tools offers yoga practitioners a new way of attaining the experiential meditation state they're accustomed to.
Meditation Tools Enhance State of Mind for Yoga Practitioners
Yoga is one of the most popular ways of combining meditation and exercise. A new trend in meditation tools offers yoga practitioners a new way of attaining the experiential meditation state they're accustomed to. "If you just sit down and meditate, you basically wait for meditation to happen, for your mind to be stilled," said Laurie Desjardins, creator of the Zen Stick and relaxation expert. "In experiential meditation, you experience meditation almost immediately because your actions -- walking, doing yoga or tossing a Zen Stick -- propel you to a meditative state. You get there much more quickly than if you were just sitting around and waiting."
Combining meditation and yoga balances the mind, body and spirit connection in a circular practice. Typically, students will meditate briefly at the beginning of a yoga class to begin stilling the mind. Doing yoga enhances this mental state through experiential meditation.
But yoga requires room and the right atmosphere to achieve that meditative state. In the modern world of sensory overload, creating the right atmosphere is no simple task. Yoga practitioners can utilize experiential meditation tools like Zen Sticks to achieve the same meditative state.
"If you think of all that we touch, see, hear, taste and smell, virtually all of our senses are being stimulated almost constantly," said Desjardins. "Our everyday attention is divided between the demands of work, kids, schedules, relationships, diets and now the added pressure of having to have 'me-time.'"
There are other meditation tools, like bells, music, bowls, incense and sounds of nature. However, they impact only two or three of the senses at a time and thus are not experiential meditation tools. These limited options do not achieve the same rapid decompression available through experiential meditation tools.
"We need to engage most, if not all, of our senses to still our minds. With Zen Sticks, you're quickly entering a meditative state that directly calms most of your senses,"
Zen Sticks directly involve four of our senses. Sight is stimulated by the sheen of the polished exotic hardwood and by the repetitive flips of a tossed Zen Stick, and smell by the distinctive scents each variety of hardwood naturally exudes. Touch is involved by the act of tossing and catching the Zen Stick, and hearing is stimulated when one listens to the rhythmic whir the tossed Zen Stick makes as it moves through the air.
Zen Stick tossers can find favorite meditation techniques or suggest their own on the Sleeping Tiger web site.
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