Earth energy is the energy of strength, stability, solidness and connection. These are important energies to cultivate on the healing journey. We can strengthen earth energies by reflecting on the earth, mountains, rocks and ground. We can also reflect on these energies that exist in us already.
"The earth has music for those who listen" - William Shakespeare
For this blog I was going to describe a meditation on healing with the earth energy that I first learned from Dr. Nida Chenangtsang. Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche also teaches a similar meditation in his program the True Source of Healing found here . It is a fairly common meditation in the Tibetan Buddhist traditions.
As I was about to write, an email from Tulku Thondup Teachings arrived which described a connecting to the earth meditation. It comes from Tulku Thondup’s book and CD The Healing Power of Loving Kindness.
I thought this was more than an auspicious coincidence. He does a much better job of describing this meditation than I would, so for this blog I provide his words.
Tulku Thondup Rinpoche was born in Tibet and trained in Nyingma tradition at Dodrupchen Monastery. In the early 1980’s he was a visiting scholar at Harvard University. He settled in Cambridge, Massachusetts and wrote many books on Buddhism and occasionally taught. He is considered one of the great Tibetan masters of our time. He died in December 2023.
I suggest you read the meditation slowly and pause to reflect after each paragraph.
The Meditation from Tulku Thondup:
First, remember that you are sitting on your seat on a cushion or a chair. Then focus your mind on the feeling, just the feeling of your body touching your seat. In a relaxed way, keep focusing your mind on the feeling of your body touching the seat.
Then remember that you are sitting on the ground, the earth directly or indirectly. Focus on the feeling of your body touching the earth. Then remember the qualities of Mother Earth. The earth is firm, solid, strong, immovable, unshakable. Focus your mind on the feeling of your body touching and experiencing the earth’s qualities and energies.
Then imagine and feel that your body is being filled up with earth energies the energies of heaviness, firmness, and solidity. Earth energies are filling up your feet, legs, lower body, upper body, arms and hands, and head up to the crown of the head. Your body has become a body of union, the union of peace that you have already been experiencing, with strength, the qualities of the earth you are experiencing now. Enjoy the union of peace and strength, returning again and again to the feeling if your mind wanders.
I would like to finish with an contemplation on earth energy. This contemplation in the form of a poem by Mary Oliver and quote by Lao Tzu.
LONELINESS
Mary Oliver
I too have known loneliness
I too have known what it is to feel
misunderstood
rejected, and suddenly not at all beautiful.
Oh, Mother earth,
your comfort is great, your arms never withhold.
It has saved my life to know this.
Your rivers flowing, your roses opening in the morning.
Oh motions of tenderness!
From Lao Tzu:
“Ordinary men hate solitude. But the Master makes use of it, embracing his aloneness, realizing he is one with the whole universe.”
You can check out more about healing meditations here.
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