There’s new Solstice growth happening at The Higher Haven. It would take a little too long to explain why the picture above — of some simple sapling repairs I’ve done to the Lodge over the last few weeks — appeared wildly exciting. But we enjoyed a wonderful Purification Ceremony last weekend with an intimate group of friends and family, and we’ll be doing it again in July, and again in August, as we do here every month. People sometimes call the Sweat Lodge the Inipi, and I understand Inipi to be the Lakota word for the Ceremony itself. The word makes for a very interesting study: ‘In’ in Lakota is a supplemental prefix meaning ‘By’ or ‘With’ just like in English. ‘Ni’ means the energy of life, like ‘Chi’ energy or ‘Ki’ from the Japanese martial art of Aikido. And ‘Pi’ comes from the one Lakota word that you already know: Tipi, the traditional tent made of animal skins on wooden poles, and meaning the place of abiding, ‘Pi’ alone meaning to abide.
Put it all together and it translates roughly to The Ceremony By Which They Dwell in the Energy of Life. In light of all that’s transpired, with everyone everywhere hoping for healing, looking for a way out from under devastation, death and loss, crippling anxiety or depression, or at the very least to foster more emotional balance at this challenging time, simply desiring less drudgery and more happiness, the Inipi Ceremony can be of enormous assistance. Raising and purifying the vibration of your own energy by spiritual purification helps you to move more with the rhythm of nature, melding with life into a living activity, leading to permanent psychological changes as well as healthier, better times.
Inipi4 Your Health and healing was a series of articles I wrote on my old blog, this fourth story detailing some of the health benefits of Ceremony, meditation, and spiritual purification. It’s a bit lengthy, but then so are the benefits, so enjoy reading about those below, then consider coming out and joining us or attending our Silent Meditation Weekend in July and actually experiencing them. We’ll be offering another Mushroom Hunt and Nature Walk mid-week on Wednesday July 22nd, along with a Forest Therapy Walk Saturday, August 22nd and other summer events, with info. to soon come, as we hope you will & look forward to seeing you.
So Why Sweat?
“Give me a fever and I can cure any disease,” said Hippocrates the ancient Greek physician and father of Western medicine. That said, its long been known in many parts of the world that sweating is often therapeutic and can bring healing. To start, sweating is a very necessary body function, removing toxins so effectively that the skin has been called “the third kidney.” If the skin and the sweat passages are completely clogged, a human being will actually die within a matter of hours.
Second, a great many viral agents and bacteria cannot survive at temperatures much higher than 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit. When we sweat, we literally burn away some illnesses. Third, many of the important endocrine glands are stimulated by an inner rise in temperature. Impurities in many body organs are flushed out as the capillaries dilate and the heart increases its pace to keep up with the demands for blood. Finnish studies even indicate that this does not cause a rise in blood pressure. In fact, many people with high blood pressure experience a marked, though temporary reduction in their blood pressure when sweating in a sauna. Fourth, in a sweat bath where rocks are heated and water is poured onto them, an abundance of negative ions are released into the air. Negative ions counter fatigue and tenseness. An excess of positive ions (a condition often found in smoggy areas and in houses with central air conditioning) has been linked to asthma, heart attacks, insomnia and allergies, among other ailments.
Those are just some of the physical health benefits of taking part in an Inipi purification Ceremony. Beyond the physical, there are also the mental/psychological benefits of spiritual purification, akin to the benefits of a regular mindful meditation practice. With regular Sweating as well as meditative Sitting, following are a few of the life enhancements with which you may soon be reimbursed.
An Increased Appreciation of Life
A person with high base-line attentiveness or a strong ‘ability to be present’ muscle finds in general ALL life activities to be more fulfilling. “Being in the moment” makes intrinsically pleasant experiences like eating and listening to music vastly more intense and satisfying, while ordinary banal experiences like being stuck in traffic or cleaning the house take on a quality of extraordinary vibrancy and fascination. Boredom becomes a thing of the past, literally.
Reduced Suffering ~ Physical Pain
Dealing with pain from illness or injury becomes a major issue for most people sometime in their lives. Indeed for millions of chronic pain victims, it is the issue of every moment of their lives. When analgesics and medical treatment cannot mitigate the pain, what option is left? Must one be subject to meaningless, abject suffering? Absolutely not. It has been clinically demonstrated that in states of sufficiently high concentration, pain, even very acute pain, can be dissolved into a kind of moving energy. This greatly diminishes ones suffering in the moment.More importantly, when one learns to experience pain in this way, one actually gets a sense of being empowered and even nurtured by it. Thus, meditation skills provide not merely a mode of pain management, but allow one to experience pain as deeply meaningful in the sense of contributing to personal growth and empowerment.
Emotional Pain, Compulsions and Addictions
What is true for physical pain is also true for emotional pain such as fear, grief, anger, jealousy, shame, etc. Using mindfulness skills, one can clearly detect and discriminate the mental images, internal words and body sensations that constitute the negative emotion as they arise moment by moment. By “deconstructing” the emotion in this way, one becomes less caught up while at the same time allowing the emotion to flow without suppression. The same skills can be applied to overcoming negative habits and compulsive behaviors such as alcohol, tobacco and drug abuse, eating disorders and so forth, “staying with” the unwholesome urge until it weakens and passes.Furthermore, the mindfulness itself produces a kind of “intrinsic high” which can replace the unhealthy high of substance and alcohol addiction.
Elevated Performance Levels
Any task is performed more effectively (and joyously!) if one is mindful and focused. These include:
1. More efficient studying for students
2. Increased ability in intellectual pursuits and problem solving
3. Acquisition of skills (languages, performing arts, fine arts, martial arts, etc.)
4. Sports – In sports, heightened attentiveness affects performance in two ways. First, the better you focus, the better your game. Some athletes occasionally spontaneously enter into unusually focused states. The locker room term for this is “being in the zone.” With systematic training in focusing skills, athletes can learn to consistently perform “in the zone.” Second, focus and equanimity affects sports in the area of endurance. As explained above in the Physical Pain section, high focus imparts the ability to experience pain with reduced suffering. The ability to “break up” the subjective discomfort of fatigue leads to an increase in objective energy, which could potentially give a winning edge. Acquiring such an edge through mental concentration represents an attractive alternative for the temptation to gain that edge through drugs.
5. Work – Japanese corporations have long recognized that focused workers are not only more effective, but are happier and more fulfilled because there is an intrinsic pleasure associated with any task done in a highly focused state, even seemingly boring and repetitive tasks. To this end, it is not unusual for big companies to send an entire section of workers to a Zen temple for a week of monastic training.
Effects on Health
1. States of high attentiveness and deep relaxation involve not only the mind but also affect the body and therefore impact one’s health. Brain alpha waves increase, skin conductivity decreases and the metabolism becomes more efficient.
2. Mindfulness helps people be more in contact with and hence more responsive to their bodies.
3. Heightened attentiveness also greatly increases the “high” associated with running and other forms of health-promoting exercises, thus making exercise easier and more appealing.
Improved Interpersonal Relationships At Work And Home
Mindfulness skills impact this arena in two ways. First, they allow one to be more “present” with people, more engaged and less drawn into fantasy and projection moment by moment. Second, they provide a tool to reduce the effects of negative emotions that often get in the way of successful interpersonal communication.
Catalyzing Inner Growth
Most people participate in some form of inner growth process. These include introspection, psychotherapy, body work, self-improvement and motivational seminars, yoga, tai chi, 12-step programs, prayer life, etc. In general all such personal growth processes are vastly more effective when done in a state of heightened mindfulness and equanimity. Attention skill is to personal growth as a catalyst is to a chemical reaction; it dramatically speeds up the rate of the process.
With Love and Thanks to the article The Benefits of Mindful Meditation by Shinzen Young