Concentration

Q: "I have been practicing Aikido for about 12 years. We concentrate on our Hara center, and try to be aware of and extend Chi. Is focusing on the heart complementary or contradictory to what we do in Aikido? Can I combine the two methods?"

A: To some degree, any concentration exercise builds up the ability to concentrate, which is useful in any other concentration. This is like saying that anything you read develops your ability to read, which then gives greater enjoyment when you read anything else. So if you want to develop the power of concentration, it doesn't matter whether you concentrate on your Hara or your heart or your fingernail. But meditation is two steps beyond concentration, and the object of your concentration is going to have a profound effect on your meditation.

Aikido and Heart Rhythm Meditation are both concentrations, but the effect of those concentrations is different, and the effect of one is not gained by the practice of the other. Furthermore, concentration is single-pointed, so you can't really concentrate on two things at once, although you could concentrate on first one thing and then another.

The next step after concentration is "contemplation," defined as taking the point-of-view of the object you were concentrating upon. In this step, you would BECOME the Hara. You place your seat of identity in the Hara, feel how the Hara feels from the inside, and see how the world looks from there. This is going to be a fundamentally different experience than contemplation with your heart. Meditation is the step beyond contemplation, where you identify with the energy, vibration, and qualities that you find within the Hara or heart.

To follow the reading metaphor, the effect on yourself of reading a mystery novel is different from what you feel when you read a newspaper. Beyond the different feeling, there is the question of what is your purpose in meditating. People read the newspaper to be informed about the world, a mystery novel to exercise their mind. What is the purpose of Aikido? Why do you, personally, practice it? What do you expect to gain from it? To determine whether or not you can mix the practice of Aikido with another method you would need to see if the purpose of the one is compatible with the purpose of the other.

The purpose of Heart Rhythm Meditation is to access the power of your heart to increase your leadership, creativity, integrity, circle of influence, optimism, and capacity for love. If that is your purpose, then concentrating on the heart is necessary. Would concentrating on the Hara help your heart produce these results? No, because your heart does not need help from the Hara to do this. Furthermore, dividing your focus will reduce the time you attend to your heart. If you would like to do both practices, you can, because I don't think they will interfere with each other. They do not contradict, but they do not directly complement either.

Some people do both Heart Rhythm Meditation and physical exercise in the morning. That is a good mixture. Perhaps you'll find that Aikido and Heart Rhythm Meditation are both helpful to you, for different reasons, but it will take more time per day. Don't cut either practice short -- if you do half Hara, half heart, you'll get half the effect of the Hara and half the effect of the heart, not the full effect of both.

I would recommend that if you do combine them, then do the heart concentration last.

By Puran Bair, author of "Living from the Heart" (Random House, 1998)
(c) 1999 by The Institute for Applied Meditation, Inc.
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