Lately I’ve been pretty good about doing bowing meditation every day. I usually do 103 full prostrations. Today as I was doing them, I had a lot of thoughts and ideas. This is normal, because bowing circulates a lot of energy in your body. As a result, old, stagnant energy gets cleaned out and fresh energy comes in. Thoughts and emotions are energy. It’s also easy for your heart to open and for your energy to become strong and stable as a result of bowing.

I was excited at first about all of the good ideas that were coming to mind and about all of the emotional processing I was doing. But then I remembered, is this really the point of bowing? Is just having good ideas why I’m doing this? No, what I really wanted was something deeper: a special time to reconnect and listen to my soul.

After that realization, my focus changed, and I looked deeper inside. In my mind, I laid down all of my thoughts and emotions before my soul. I offered them up to my soul with each bow, remembering once again how I’ve promised myself that I would live for and according to my soul. And with each bow, I could feel my soul more strongly.

I was feeling really good about this—proud of myself.  I became afraid of this pride and self-congratulation and offered that to my soul as well. Underneath that was self-doubt and self-criticism, which I realized was as untrue as my pride. So I laid that before my soul too. Beyond that, there was nothing, which was truth.

“I’m so wonderful,” and “I’m so horrible,” neither of them are really true. I am more than that and I am nothing. That is truth.

This is the type of bowing meditation that I do. It’s a great health practice, regardless of the spiritual aspects. When I bow a lot, especially more than 103 bows, I simply feel more . . . myself.

As  the video says, if you’d like to try bowing meditation for yourself, you can start with just 9 or 21 bows until you build your stamina. Enjoy!