Meditation

I started meditating about a year and a half ago while I was almost immobilized with pain (you can read about that here if you feel like it). Breathing hurt, so my attention was de facto focused on it most of the day (hard to stop breathing just because it hurts!). In between sessions of sitting and being aware of my breathing (the basics of meditation), I read a book called Wherever You Go There You Are by Jon Kabat-Zinn, which deals with meditation and mindfulness in everyday life. This got me more interested in the formal practice of meditation, which led in turn to a little internet search that turned up a great site for meditation beginners, called www.learningmeditation.com. Over the course of a few weeks and months I found other sites and books, took a course, and had the opportunity to meet with teachers and other practitioners. I now try to incorporate some amount of meditation practice, or at least mindfulness, into my daily routine.

The great thing about meditation is that it gives you a break… from yourself. When you sit quietly and focus on your breathing, the constant noise that buzzes around your mind becomes very apparent. By training yourself to focus on your breathing, the noise slowly recedes into the background. Of course thoughts continue to intrude into the peace; personally I’m not at the point where I can eliminate thoughts from my mind altogether. However I can usually let them go. As one teacher told me, just because you see a train of thought coming doesn’t mean you have to get on that train. Acknowledge the thought, then let it go, let it drift away like a cloud going by the window of your awareness. Don’t dwell! Even if it seems very important, don’t break your meditation to write it down—it will come back later, and it will be clearer for having come to you in a quiet mental environment.

Often when meditating, emotions come to the surface, sometimes accompanied by images, if not by actual thoughts. Don’t ignore these emotions or try to repress them; rather, feel them. Observe and acknowledge these emotions, and let them manifest physically (cry, for example, or laugh). These emotions need an outlet, and meditating is giving them the space they need to be processed.

Another great thing about meditation is that it can induce deep relaxation, which is extremely beneficial for stress reduction and stress management in general. One of the first steps in meditating is to relax; as you get more experienced you can feel where the tension is located in your body, and, by breathing into that spot, start to let it go. Often tension is tied up with emotion; in releasing one you can release the other. Tension is a result of our hectic lifestyles; just sitting for 10 minutes and letting the mind slow down can do wonders. Sometimes I’m surprised at how long 10 minutes actually is. This slowing down, letting go, and entering a state of deep relaxation can help you sleep better at night, reduce the frequency and intensity of headaches, be a calmer person, and reduce anxiety; it also has myriad other physical and mental health benefits.

Meditation practice shows us just how fast we live today. If you really try to focus on each breath, one at a time, you enter a slow-motion world where 10 minutes can undo 6 hours of craziness; when meditating, 10 minutes goes by as slowly as an Eisenstein film, whereas 6 hours of modern life zip by like a Hollywood action movie. Give yourself a break; you deserve it.

There are many “styles” and techniques of meditation: you can meditate on lovingkindness, you can meditate on a mantra, you can meditate on gratitude or love or compassion or prayer. You can do guided meditations or visualizations. You can follow Buddhist traditions or Hindu traditions or transcendental meditation or many others. Meditation is usually defined as focusing on one point, but I have also heard it defined as “becoming familiar,” namely with your own mind. No matter what kind of meditation practice you follow, the end result is that you know your self much better than when you didn’t meditate.

In later posts I will elaborate on different types of meditation, and different aspects of meditation, but for now I would say the best way to get started, and the most beneficial, is simply to sit comfortably and pay attention to your breathing, one breath at a time. If you can take 10 breaths without letting your mind stray too far, you’re off to a very good start. It’s better to sit for 5 minutes a day most days of the week than to aim for a half hour or more and never get around to doing it. One teacher advised simply taking three deep breaths every time you look at your watch. When you bring your focus back to your breathing, you bring your attention to the present moment, which is the essence of mindfulness. Even if you have no interest in the spiritual side of meditation, this attempt to live mindfully has its own advantages.

Finally, a word of encouragement: meditation is a practice, a process in and of itself. It is not a cure-all, and it does not provide immediate results. Don’t be discouraged if you can’t slow the pace of your thoughts every time you sit down to meditate. Rather, imagine a swiftly moving stream; now, bring your attention to the river rocks lying on the bottom beneath the current. The stream, like your thoughts, doesn’t stop, but the rocks over which they flow can be your anchor in this hectic world.