how to meditate for healing your body

How to meditate for healing your body

I have been practicing zazen meditation (zen buddhist meditation) for 8 years. But when I came to study at the Five Immortals temple, in China, I learned some new forms of meditations that were very different from what I had practiced so far. They had a huge impact on me. You might have already practiced some form of meditation that healed your mind. The one I will explain will help heal your body by focusing on sending chi/energy to every organ.

How to prepare before your healing meditation

Find a calm place, preferably with no kids running around screaming. More seriously, find a moment of the day when there isn’t too much noise.

When the students and I practiced together, we were in the altar room at 8 pm with no lights, just a candle was lighting the room. Even though your eyes will be closed for this meditation, I find it easier to go into meditation and visualize my healing when I don’t have bright lights on.

If you don’t really know how the organs in your body look like, I find it interesting to go look at some pictures just to help with my visualization. Don’t worry, you can always look at drawings.

Try to keep warm if your home is cool. You can add some layers on. Even more important, you won’t want to be sitting on a cold floor. If you have a meditation pillow like a zafu that is perfect to sit on. If you don’t, you can find a flat pillow for your session.

Also, you might want to put an alarm with a nice soothing sound to finish your meditation. If you want to do a really good healing session, you can set it up for about 45 minutes. But if you’re wanting to start out gradually, do the longest time you want to try and slowly bring the time up. Maybe start with 20 minutes?

How to do healing meditation

Posture

You will be sitting up on your pillow. Keep your back straight and lower your shoulders.

With your legs, you can either do a half lotus or a full lotus. You can also simply place one leg against the other. During the meditation practice, if you feel too much pain or numbness in your legs, you can move them. But if you don’t have any distracting pain, don’t move!

healing meditation pose

OR

leg position for meditation

How you place your hands isn’t easy to explain in writing but check the pictures below to help you out. You are going to put your left hand against your right one. Now place your left thumb in the middle of your right palm. Put on the opposite side of your right hand your left middle finger. It should be at the level that is halfway through your knuckles. You are going to create a link between those two fingers. Now, you can also link your right thumb and middle finger very easily. You can place your hands in front of your dantian (=the center of your energy, it’s about 2cm or 1 inch below your belly button) or simply put them down on your knees if you would like. You have officially created a mini universe to protect your dantian!

Now if you’re ready, close your eyes, relax your body and mind…

hand position in meditation
hand position in meditation
hand position in meditation
hand position to meditate for healing

How to start your meditation

Take the first few minutes to quiet down the mind. Take the time to relax each part of your body. Then, feel the silence. Focus on your breath, make it long and even.

Even more important, don’t let your monkey mind wander around. If it does, notice that your mind is wandering and bring it back to your breath. The next step will make it easier to focus since you will be doing some visualization.

Visualization

You are going to practice the “washing with the light method”. Visualize above your head a light pillar. You can see this shining light that cleanses you, just like rain that is falling on you and clears everything on its path. Imagine it purifying every organ and cell in your body. See it going down through your body, taking with it everything you want to get rid of and finally put it in the earth.

See the light above your head coming through your 3rd eye and both of your eyes. Breathe it in, keep it in your head for a couple of minutes, continue breathing naturally. Now, see the light going through every part of your body. See clearly every organ, see the light going through each and every one of them and send it all the way down to the toes. Let it out into the ground. You might even see some darkness in certain parts, but it’s ok, keep visualizing that light just cleaning it all away.

Continue to be aware of your thoughts. Bring them back to your healing session if they have left to think about groceries, your favorite tv show, you know the usual excuse to avoid being present 😉

How to finish the meditation session

At the end of your session, you will take deep inhales. I know this might sound strange if you haven’t practiced it before, but you’re going to focus on swallowing your saliva. When you are training meditation or qi gong, you produce much more enzymes in your saliva, which can help, for example, with stomach or intestinal issues. To increase your saliva, just use your tongue to count your teeth, start on the outside, then do it on the inside. Now that you have a bunch of saliva in your mouth, separate it so that you will be able to swallow in three times. Breathe in, swallow a little bit while making a noise, breathe out. Visualize it going down to your lower dantian (ball of energy that is about 2cm or 1 inch below your belly button). Repeat this two more times.

Now, put your right hand against your stomach with your left hand over it. You’re going to be making some circles around your belly button. First, inhale by bringing your hands up to the left side and down to the right. Do this 9 times. Start with a small circle, then make it bigger and bigger. Then, you go in the opposite direction. Do this 6 times and make your circle smaller and smaller, until your hands rest on your belly button.

circling around the dantien

Now you can warm up your hands by rubbing them together. Massage your face with them. You can lightly slap your arms and legs to wake them up. You can put your legs out and press on them if they have fallen asleep. Do this regularly and see how your body will be grateful!

end of meditation ritual

What you need to be careful in your meditation

Where and when NOT to do your healing meditation session:

  • Sit on the cold (it’s bad for your meridian circulation)
  • During a thunderstorm
  • If you’re on your period

Another student and I both had back pain from previous accidents that came back up. So, until we could heal, we put these thick mats up against the wall. Your back shouldn’t be against anything cold as well. We placed our pillows against the mat and we sat with our backs straight against it. It really helped a lot. Another student had an issue with his leg, so he meditated while sitting on a chair. You can always find a solution ^^

How I healed my body with this meditation

One evening, I was meditating in the main temple. I had an experience that I had never felt before. I was visualizing the light pillar healing every organ in my body and felt the usual warmth in my body, but after a few minutes, there was this icy cold air inside of me swirling around the hot air. My right hand was shaking. Then, I started shaking throughout my whole arm. Finally, my whole body was doing it. I felt very nauseous and I had an intense pain in my chest. The more I visualized the light pillar, the more I felt pressure on my chest and nauseous.

Then, little by little, I felt my body calming down. I felt like this had lasted between 5 and 10 minutes. Much to my surprise, the gong went off at that moment, 45 minutes had gone by. I asked Shi Fu (=teacher) about this and he said that my body had been healing itself. I am not completely sure what exactly happened to my body, but since I have started my practice, I have been healing so much, I am simply happy with that.

One day, I also had a mouth ulcer in my mouth and that night, I meditated on the light healing it. The next day, the pain was gone, and its size was already reduced. The day after, it was completely gone. Normally when I have this, it lasts at least a week. Interesting…

In my situation, I did notice more results from this meditation for internal (organ) issues than pain that comes from an old injury.

Thank you for reading this article! Have you ever tried this method or another healing meditation? How did it go for you? If you have any questions about this method, write them in the commentaries!

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