We’re going to use lightly guided meditations this week because the creative imagination is important to utilize in the undoing of dualistic thinking.
Human creative imagination is always operating. We create with it. Sometimes that’s to our benefit, sometimes not. Creative imagination is at the root of all prejudice and bias, low self-esteem, creating a meal, as well as in children’s play and methods of learning.
Use of certain kinds of creative imagination in a meditation practice assists the practitioner to notice creative imagination at work off the cushion. Through out one’s day, one imagines all kinds of things: the road ahead or how to avert a traffic pattern, the taste of and pleasure of a good cup of tea or coffee, the mood of a colleague, or how to navigate personal relationships. We imagine that the dog is thinking something in a human way, or how certain clothes will look, or imagine something frightening when it is not present.
A beneficial use of creative imagination creates new neural pathways in the brain and relieves well-trodden neurotic ones of ongoing emotional-mental traffic. Creative imagination is used throughout shamatha practice; consider your inner images when you are following your breath. It is also at the root of vipashyana, in that, to see things as they are is do perception without imagination involved: pure perception, truer perception.
We use the energy centers (chakras) for this meditation, and will through the week.
