Jemini

Just wanted to give an info-dump warning. This chapter and the next are essentially just Asa teaching meditation. At the time I wrote this, I thought this information would be more relevant. The way my writing has gone since though, that has proven not to be the case. This means that, at some point, I am going to have to consider heavily condensing this information.

There are a fairly small number of plot-relevant points that come up, but I will put them in an author's note at the beginning of chapter 18 in case you wish to skip this.

Void. The concept expresses the absence of something. An emptiness or absence that conjures up images of going beyond simple nothingness.

Visualizing the concept of a void was a routine part of the five phase meditation my style practiced.  It was the final of the five phases, and the one which represented a completion of the process.

I stood there, one hand raised in a half-prayer position, my fingers barely touching my lips. As I was focusing in this meditative state, Tia suddenly let out a gasp.

“Wow! I can’t taste you at all anymore!” she said. I felt a slight twitch of creepiness from the way she insisted on describing her reading of my aura in gustatory terms, but I suppose that’s just something I will have to get used to.

“So, they shouldn’t be able to sense you anymore with this, right?” Rolwen asked.

“Yeah,” I said, “this is a standard part of my meditation, but until now I hadn’t really grasped the real purpose of it. I used to think it was just something to make it easier to hide by visualizing the concept, a little bit of a self-hypnotic suggestion of sorts, but it seems like it had some kind of connection to spirit energy. I guess Tia was right about my meditation having links to magic.”

“You’re talking different,” Levin said.

“Hmm… you noticed,” I commented. “That’s just the effects of being in a deep meditative state. It makes me a little more mellow in my tone. Don’t worry, I’m still the same person, I haven’t been possessed by evil spirits or anything.”

“I’d be able to tell if you were,” Tia said.

“Yeah, me too.” Nymph pitched in, her voice coming from nowhere. I felt a strange sensation from behind me and spun around just in time to see her image materializing in that spot.

So, the fire phase of the meditation is working as well. Seems like I was missing out on a lot by not focusing enough on this meditation. Who knew it held such secrets? Tia, obviously. That’s the answer. Tia did. And she told me several times too. I just hadn’t taken it seriously until now.

“So,” Levin said, “that means that the only thing they might think is a problem now is your hair.”

Yeah, that’s right. Ether guy and Catla seemed pretty upset about the silvery grey colored hair that Tia and I shared. I didn’t quite understand the reason, but it should have something to do with why they were freaked out about the other elves discovering my powerful spirit energy.

“That’s what these hats are for,” I said, picking up the leather hat that looked like an aviator’s cap without goggles. “With any luck, we can wear them and not be suspected of too much.”

“So, are you going to start teaching us this kick-ass combat meditation now?” Rolwen asked. I eye him up and down as I consider it. “Well, first thing to go over will be some ukemi. You are probably going to know a few of those, but Levin will need some help. Perhaps we can start with you teaching him. Depending on how the two of you perform, I will decide where to go from there. I am still not sure if these physically undeveloped bodies are even capable of the precise and complex movements we will be doing. Before that, though, how about I teach you some of the other meditative techniques? It will help to give you the visualization you will be working with up front.”

“Sounds like a plan, loli-baba sensei.” I tried to parse out the Japanese he just used and, aside from the Sensei part, I was just getting really confused. I believe “baba” was an informal and somewhat rude way to refer to an old person, but overall the words just did not parse together right at all.

Well, maybe I should just be glad he’s not driving on with that ‘old man’ stuff. I’ll just assume it’s the name of a specific character in some Japanese cartoon show and dismiss it.

As soon as I had both Levin and Rolwen sitting in front of me, I began my lesson on meditation.

“So, as you heard me say before, there are several aspects to meditation, as it was back on Earth. But, before I even get into that, I ought to define meditation for you. Do either of you want to tell me what you think it is before I give you my best impression?”

“Best impression?” Rolwen asks. “As in, not the answer?”

“No, not the answer,” I told him. “There is no empirical certainty in these metaphysical areas. So, if anyone ever tells you they have the absolute definitive answer on something metaphysical, they are lying to you. For that same reason, your relatively uninformed impressions may still be able to offer something to the subject.”

“Umm…” Levin says. “I always heard meditation was about emptying your mind of any thoughts.”

“That is one theory on how it can work.” I said. “That technique is fairly complicated, though. And from what I have seen, it is also not the most effective. It was mainly popularized in the United States during the 80s, back when meditation was seen as a far-east thing full of mysticism and not well understood in the western world. However, it might just be that I don’t understand that technique very well. As I said, it’s complicated. There is a very real chance that most of its loss of effectiveness is just due to us doing it wrong.

“That is just one form of meditation, though. It is not the only one.” I said, finishing my comment. After that, I glanced over to Rolwen.

“Uhh… sitting under a waterfall in the lotus position while chanting ‘ohmmm,’” he said with a shrug. I glanced up to Nymph who was levitating her projection in the air. As soon as Rolwen made that comment, she actually folded her legs and lifted her hands into the lotus position, except that she was upside down and at a 45 degree angle to the floor as she lazily drifted over the boy’s heads.

“Those are examples of four different techniques combined together into a single example. Maybe even six or seven, actually,” I said. “The lotus position is an example of a mudra. A mudra is a physical body position that you can use to focus your mind for meditation. Popular psychological theory suggests that the power of mudras lies in association, if you choose a single mudra that you always use while meditating, then getting into that mudra will allow you to achieve a meditative state faster every time you do it.

“Saying ‘ohm’ is an example of toning, which is a subset of a technique called using a mantra. A mantra is a repeated word or breathing pattern or something that comes from your body and helps you to focus. Toning is making a deep resonating sound that actually causes your own body to vibrate, the vibrations induce a feeling of relaxation and release endorphins. This repetitive action, along with the effects from toning, help the mind to focus very quickly on only what you are doing.”

“Sitting under a waterfall is anywhere between two and four things rolled into one. For one, it is a regular and repeated physical stimulation. It is likely to even become painful due to the gravity and weight with which the water hits your skin, not to mention the additional discomfort of dealing with the cold. Forcing your mind to deal with pain or discomfort is actually a part of some meditation techniques. Once again, it releases endorphins. And, when you are trying to deal with pain, that happens to be a very good way of having your mind focus on only that. Or, in some cases, the objective is to eliminate the pain from your mind with a strong visualization. That would be an eighth technique in the mix, but it’s not essential to the example so we will skip it for now."

“Just having the physical sensation alone without the pain is also going to focus the mind,” I continued. “This is especially effective if it is regular and repetitive like a waterfall. Personally, I would prefer something a little gentler like the shower if it weren’t for the fact that it would drive up the water bill.”

“If there are even showers in this world,” Rolwen commented.

“True that,” I replied. “Anyway, moving on. The other half of the waterfall technique is the sound itself. Use of an external sound stimulus is an incredibly popular thing within meditation. It is usually the sound of flowing water, but in modern Earth, there are also people who used clocks. Or, I don’t know if either of you were old enough to know about snowy static on the radio or TV screen, but that’s another thing someone might have been able to use.”

“Well, shit,” Rolwen said. “It’s no wonder people meditate under waterfalls. I had no idea there were so many complicated parts involved in it. And here I thought it just had something to do with keeping your balance under the heavy flow of the water hitting you.”

“Well, there’s that too,” I said. “I guess we can count that one as eight. That’s a little hard-core though. I have my doubts as to how deep your meditation can really get if you are dealing with all those things at once, but maybe that’s kind of the point. Pushing a person both physically and mentally while forcing them to still achieve a meditative state on top of that.” I continued on to explain, ignoring the fact that Rolwen had just said "shit." Of course, I was a little bothered about it because he looked like a 2 year old, but I had to tell myself he was a 20 or 30 something marine. With that in mind, I can probably count it as amazing that he doesn’t swear more.

“Anyway, moving on from here,” I said, “there is one thing in common between all of these. That would be that all the meditation techniques are related to the mind. The best current definition of meditation I have heard is achieving a state of mindfulness over your own thoughts. That is, you are aware of your own thoughts, and even able to manipulate them in some way. It is about giving you control over your own mind rather than allowing it to just react and cause all the strange little practical jokes that the human mind likes to play on you. Gaining this state of mindfulness also has the beneficial side-effects of allowing you to relax and feel more at peace with the world around you, and generally making you a calmer person."

“The techniques we have talked about so far are just tricks to achieve this mental state in the first place. After you have achieved it, there are some specific things you can do to achieve some deeper effects. This is the area where meditation goes from a basic level to a more advanced level.” I finished up, concluding my explanation on that point.

“Hmm…” Tia hummed thoughtfully, “so this is what mother meant when she said a person’s meditation was more effective if it had a firm foundation. Understanding all of these techniques could probably improve any meditation.”

“So, are you saying that’s literally the reason Asa’s meditation is so powerful? Just because she’s using the right techniques?” Rolwen asked.

“I don’t know,” Tia said. “Maybe, but it would be crazy if it really was just that simple.”

“Well, it’s true with anything,” I said. “Whether it be martial arts, meditation, or even math and science, having a firm grounding in the basics is extremely important. If you don’t have that, then it will ruin your ability to function well at the more advanced levels. Honestly though, I have a hard time believing these techniques were non-existent in the ancient world or in this current world. They may not be as well understood, but on Earth the techniques existed long before science even started to posit conjecture about them and their purpose.”