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Meditation Basics

Meditation doesn't have to be mysterious. Nor does it have to be new-agey and gooshy. Meditation is merely a way to develop moment-to-moment awareness and mindfulness and is a great way to understand the habits and patterns of your mind as it wanders and thinks. It can relieve stress and help put life into perspective once you start to realize your mind's ability to warp reality and blow things out of proportion. The great thing is that you don't have to go to a monastery or be a Buddhist or study with anyone to meditate "correctly", nor do you have to listen to any crappy new age music or burn incense. Anyone can meditate. You don't even have to sit - you could stand or walk. There are a lot of different ways to meditate, and one of the main goals of it all is to try and expand the mindfulness you develop outward into the other areas of your life. Here i'll outline a the way to meditate that I learned at a beginner's session at the Atlanta Soto Zen Center a few years back. (You may also be interested in checking out Nada Yoga which is a sound meditation, often with the voice, but it also focuses on the inner sounds of the body called the ten Anahata Sounds.)

 

Just Sitting

1. Sit in a comfortable position with your back straight, the top of your head pulled toward the ceiling, and your chin slightly tucked in.

 

Some people prefer sitting on those round little cushions called zafu's, and there's a handful of ways to use them so that you're not sitting in pain all of the time. Some folks prefer doing the traditional lotus position, but that's definitely not necessary. Another way is to sit with your legs in a triangle position with your butt on the cushion, your knees spread out to the sides, each touching the floor, and the lower half of your legs bent and placed on the floor in front of you to form the base of the triangle, with your heels and ankles meeting in the center.

 

I tried both of these for awhile and found them both to be very uncomfortable - I'm not that flexible. Then one day someone showed me an alternative and my meditiation practice was transformed - before this moment I never would have thought that sitting up straight could be comfortable. In this case I sat on my knees, but with the cushion between my legs and turned on its side so that it was taller than it was wide; with the cushion there, you don't go down that far. Basically, just put the cushion between your knees and sit down. Feels great...

 

But, you don't even need a cushion like that either. It just helps with keeping your back straight comfortably, which is important for good respiration and circulation. You can also just sit on the edge of your bed or a chair, just trying to remain mindful of your posture...

 

With your hands you can either lay them on your legs, or as was recommended at the Zen center you can hold one hand on the other in your lap with both palms facing upwards and the tips of your thumbs touching.

 

And what should you do with your eyes? I think most people would assume that to meditate you close your eyes, but actually at the Zen center we were encouraged to meditate with our eyes open. We sat facing the wall and were told to stare through the wall. The purpose of having us meditate with our eyes open was to help retain that connection with our present environment, fearing that closing our eyes would possibly allow us to get pulled off into thought much more quickly.

 

2. Focus your attention on your breath as it passes in and out.

 

There - you're meditating. That's all there is to it. (mostly). You're focusing on your breath as it slowly repeats. Some people like to count breaths, one for each pair of inhales and exhales, up to 10. I've often been advised to focus on the breath as it passes in and out at the tip of my nose, but sometimes I like to focus on the abdomen as it expands and contracts. It's also important to not try and affect or control your breath. For a long time I spent my sitting periods distracted by thoughts on whether I was breathing correctly or not. Then I got the really helpful advice that "your body has known how to breath ever since you were born, so why are you trying to control or correct it? Instead, just observe your body and your breath as it continues to do so naturally." Idea: our bodies know how to breathe better than we do...

 

By the way, if you are interested in learning more about "correct" breathing and different yogic breathing exercises, there's a great, free text online called The Science of Breath, a reprint of a book written around 1900 by a yogi in India...

 

Anyways, in a moment you'll find that all of this is actually a lot harder to do than it seems.

 

3. When you realize your mind has pulled your attention from your breath, let these thoughts subside, and go back to focusing on your every breath.

 

All of a sudden you realize you've been thinking about this, that and the other for the last five minutes and have totally lost track of your breath. That's fine, that's how the mind works, and what you have to do now is to acknowledge that your thoughts have distracted you, let those thoughts subside, and go back to paying attention to your breath. That's the practice. This should not be an act of thought-suppression, nor should you get angry at your thoughts or yourself for losing your attention. Instead, you're just training yourself to be more aware of when your mind is thinking and not allowing these thoughts to pull you away from reality and the moment.

 

Your over-active mind is often called the "monkey-mind" as it darts around, and in fact it almost seems to panic and run around even more when you're sitting, actively trying to ignore it. But, you'll find that with practice and with longer sitting periods, the "monkey-mind" oftentimes will tire out and finally relax, leaving you totally aware, in a state of mental peace. I often relate my mind during meditation to the image of my grandmother's telephone - the cord of my grandmother's telephone is so tangled and wound up from years of use and neglect that whenever you want to use it, you must first pick it up by the cord and dangle it, letting it spin and spin and unwind for several minutes, until it finally slows down and the cord is long and straight again.

 

Anyways, as soon as your mind gets untangled, sure enough it gets re-tangled and revvs up again, but that's alright - that's what minds do - they think. We just don't have to let our thoughts dominate our consciousness and potentially throw our emotions and stress-levels out of whack. So the way to start ignoring these monkey-mind flashes is to focus on something real, like your breath as it goes in and out. That is the present, that is life happening before your eyes.

 

 

Some final tips:

I've heard it's good to not put time-restraints on your sitting practice, especially when you're first starting. It's a good idea to try and do a little bit everyday, perhaps right when you wake up or right before you go to sleep, BUT, you're much less likely to follow through with doing it everyday if you expect yourself to sit for extended periods each time. You're more likely to make excuses that today you just don't have enough time to sit, and then, next thing you know you're looking up and realizing that it's been months since the last time you meditated. The best suggestion I've gotten is to try and sit for one minute at a time, in the morning and at night, and to slowly expand the duration as you feel more comfortable. Oftentimes you'll find you've been sitting for much longer than a minute. The point is to not allow yourself to opt out just because you think it'll be worthless if you don't sit for "X" minutes or more. That's you're monkey-mind trying to talk you out of it, and every little bit of mindfulness practice really does count and help get you ready for whatever's ahead of you in your day.

 

One other thing: try NOT to be goal-oriented with your meditation. Remember that you're using meditation to practice being present, so don't try and concern yourself with the future; don't sit so that you'll be Enlightened someday or to relieve stress or for whatever other reasons. Just sit - because chances are if you're being goal-oriented about it, at some point you may start to think that it's not working, you'll get discouraged, and you'll stop. The best advice I've ever gotten is to Just Sit. Nothing else - no motives, no goals, no Enlightenment - Just Sit ...

 

Links

Here are some additional links that you might be interested in... There are plenty of other methods of meditation, whether sitting or moving, so explore and find the right process for you.
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