Meditations on Massage

Massage and Meditation

One Pointedness
Meditation will make you a better massage therapist. Through the powers of concentration developed by 'navel gazing' for hours and hours, there is an ability to pierce deeply into the very nature of a problem. At the very least, with concentration comes the ability to focus on the client and their tissue without wandering off to far away imaginary lands.

Pain over Pleasure
Massage relieves pain. Meditation overcomes pain. I prefer the latter. There is no avoiding pain but there can be an avoidance of states of disease and dysfunction. I prefer to use massage for helping improve a person's state of well being, not just removing their pain. To create a relationship with that is not based on avoidance and escape. Lets think of it as a continuum of sorts - To start, a person would receive a massage to relieve pain - but to become dependent on such an elixir is only a route to certain suffering and inevitable dissatisfaction. Perhaps, an introduction of learning to study one's pain via meditation and creating the awareness of the psychological nature of pain would be a useful byproduct of a massage treatment that I would design.

Solitary indulgences
Massage and Meditation can be very solitary practices. Massage performed on a person in whom you hope to create a sense of peace and relaxation does not lend itself well to idle chatter and gossip. And then too there is a task to be accomplished. One that is steeped in focus and concentration and the ability to see what's really going on under the surface. In meditation too, you try to see through the surface of the mind and find what lies within. All the vagaries of day to day life are just not worth obsessing over because they become meaningless right quick.


The combine effect
Massage and Meditation as treatment go together quite well. In a study published in the Journal of Palliative Medicine in 2005 by Mary Ann Liebert concluded that the combined effect of massage and meditation on quality of life of a group of late-stage disease patients was more beneficial than massage or meditation alone.

Through the eyes of a looking glass
Massage can be seen as a form of meditation. Can meditation be seen as a form of massage – Not really. A forum for reflection develops in the melding of the physical contact and the minds over inquisitive nature. What is actually happening here. Are there energy transfers and neural connections telekinteically being exchanged? Is there a fusing of matter, of two separate entities stripping though their separateness faster than a deep Cyriax friction. In dimensions unknown......???

Lineage
Stepping into shoes of healers of a tradition as primal as a mother's touch is a big deal. Reflect on responsibility and love and power and purpose. Meditate on effect and intention and purity. Breathe and Heal. Could there not be a desire to be meaningful and relevant yet at ease and desire-free. What paths have healer of past taken, what sacrifices made so that we today pave a road already so well beat. Are there assumptions that need decrying? A smouldering soup need stirring. Rest