EcoMeditation: A Recipe for Enlightenment

Soul Collage “Beyond the Walls of Belief” by Cindye Sablatura

What if I told you that enlightenment has a recipe? Many of us experience meditation as something we try now and then and wish we did more often. We struggle to sit still, quiet our mind, and focus on our breath. The peace and bliss that meditation is supposed to bring us can feel elusive, and we wonder if we’re doing it all wrong. We figure meditation is for that 1% of the population who are mystics, Buddhist monks, or Taoist masters. It turns out that by studying these masters, researchers have been able to reverse engineer meditation and figure out that there is actually a formula that is teachable and repeatable for reaching a deep, meditative state. And anyone can do it.

What is EcoMeditation?

EcoMeditation is a combination of practices developed by researcher and author, Dawson Church. It requires no belief, no previous training, and it is possible for the meditator to reach an elevated state on the first attempt. I am going to tell you a little bit about it, and then at the end of this article, I will include a link to a 20-minute EcoMeditation led by me. I have been training to become a meditation teacher for the past few months, and my last assignment is to teach a 20-minute virtual meditation. I was trying to decide what type of meditation I wanted to teach, when I read Dawson Church’s book, Bliss Brain, and I immediately knew that EcoMeditation was the answer. So, this is my gift to you. I would be grateful if you would tune into the meditation and contribute a comment either here or on my YouTube channel to let me know how you experienced it and if there is anything I can do to improve it. Your feedback makes me a better teacher. Thanks in advance for helping me to complete my teaching certification! And now, a little bit about how this recipe was discovered and the ingredients that make it so effective.

Brain Waves and the DeMoN

For centuries, mystics attempted to communicate their experiences in poetry and prose. Then along came the EEG, which made it possible to study the brain-wave patterns of advanced meditators. In the 1960’s, Maxwell Cade, Robert Becker, and Anna Wise pioneered research in this area. They found that the brain-wave patterns of enlightenment were completely different than patterns seen in ordinary states of consciousness. It didn’t matter what religious faith or belief system the subjects held. They all exhibited wave patterns of small beta, big alpha, and high delta and theta brain waves. What’s fascinating is that when the researchers hooked up artists, musicians, athletes, and scientists who were in highly creative “flow” states, they exhibited the same pattern! The researchers dubbed this state “Awakened Mind” and realized that enlightenment is a formula that anyone can attain. It no longer just belonged to the One Percenters. They set about studying what the subjects did to reach these states.

Church writes,” People know they should meditate. They want to meditate. They try to meditate. Yet they fail to meditate. Why?” It has something to do with a network in the brain called the Default Mode Network, or the DMN. (To help you remember this, add an o and an e, and you’ve got DeMoN, which is just what this network can feel like when you’re trying to meditate.) The DMN is the ancient caveman part of your brain that is busy trying to identify the next threat and hijack your attention. Its specialty is repetitive, negative thinking, or as Church puts it, “weapons of mass distraction, “The Me Show,” and “selfing.” We are all well acquainted with this part of our brain, and it takes particular joy in surfacing when we are in a quiet state with nothing else to “do.” In EcoMeditation, Church takes the most effective methods of modern stress reduction and meditation and combines them into a routine designed to quiet the DMN and cultivate the brain waves of deep meditation. He has been getting some amazing results with novice meditators.

The Ingredients

EFT Tapping

EFT stands for Emotional Freedom Technique. You will tap firmly with your fingertips on several acupressure points to relieve stress. These points run along the body’s meridians. EFT is a very effective technique for decreasing stress and anxiety. 

Relaxing the Vagus Nerve

You will relax your tongue on the floor of your mouth. This causes the vagus nerve, a master nerve that connects to all the major organ systems, to signal the parasympathetic nervous system to relax the body.

Open Focus

You will imagine the volume of space inside your body, especially between and behind your eyes. This helps to generate alpha waves in your brain. Alpha waves are the waves that signify you are in a meditative state. Open focus shrinks the brain’s beta waves, which are the waves of stress and are associated with the fight or flight response.

Heart Coherence

This is based on the work of the Heartmath Institute. You will slow your breath to 6 seconds per inhale and 6 seconds per exhale and imagine it flowing in and out of your heart center. This helps to put you in a state of heart and brain coherence. When your brain is in a state of organization and integration (coherence), your heart follows, and then the rest of your body. It’s like getting a biological upgrade that allows the innate intelligence of the body to take over and balance the nervous system. It amplifies your intuition and sense of connection. The goal is to breathe slow, even breaths. I will bring you back to this breath often during the meditation. 

Compassion

You will imagine sending energy from your heart to a person or place that makes you feel wonderful. This helps trigger deep coherence. If you are so inclined, you can imagine sending compassion to everyone and everything in the universe. Feeling universal compassion is what produces the elevated states seen in MRI scans of accomplished meditators. Then you will bring your energy back into your own heart and focus it on any place in your own body that is in need of healing, practicing self-compassion. This heart breath is actually something you can stop and do at any point during your day to cultivate feelings of gratitude, peace, and joy. It’s like hitting a reset button for your nervous system.

During the meditation, I will return often to the breath, to relaxing the tongue on the floor of your mouth, and to the big empty space behind your eyes. Don’t be concerned about getting everything exactly right, just return to these things as I mention them. The ingredients in EcoMeditation help achieve alpha brain-wave patterns, heart coherence, and parasympathetic dominance in the nervous system. These reinforce each other. You don’t have to keep a completely still mind. You don’t need prior training. Just follow the recipe. Some people have achieved in two days what it has taken master meditators years to accomplish. 

Benefits and New Discoveries

Meditation changes your brain. Four days of 20-minute EcoMeditation is associated with more cognitive flexibility, creativity, memory, and attention. Consistent EcoMeditation has been shown to regulate the amygdala, the brain’s fight or flight center. There is actually an Enlightenment Circuit in our brain that gets activated the more we use it. Just like with physical exercise, the more regular your are with your practice, the more results you will get. A 20-minute per day investment can yield big results. That’s a great cost to benefit ratio. The more experienced you get at inducing the meditative state, the more you will be able to bring it into your waking consciousness, which really is the ultimate goal: to be able to do this with your eyes open. To “chop wood and carry water” as the old adage goes.

This is an exciting time for meditation. One of the most interesting discoveries has been observed in recent studies on groups of experienced meditators who have been hooked up to EKG’s. When the group used the recipe to go into a meditative state, each member went into heart coherence (as observed on the EKG’s) at the same moment. This has some pretty big implications about how we affect one another through our consciousness. Another breakthrough has come in the past month from the work of Dr. Joe Dispenza. Medical researchers from the University of California San Diego taking blood and cell samples from meditators at Dispenza’s workshops found that when the cells of master meditators were exposed to a fake virus similar to COVID, the cells rejected the virus. The cells of novice meditators showed some resistance, while the cells of a control group of non-meditators showed very little resistance. UCSD is now applying for grants to continue the research. Our mind has power. I highly recommend Dawson Church’s book Bliss Brain if you want to find out more about EcoMeditation and how the brain works.

Now, let’s dive in and try an EcoMeditation session together! Click this 20-Minute EcoMeditation link to my YouTube channel, “Pando Unlimited.” I believe the meditation is also downloadable if you would like to do so. I’d love to hear your thoughts about it.

Namaste’ and happy meditating!