TEN TOP TIPS FOR GREAT MEDITATION
MEDITATION is not just a sitting-down experience where you need set aside a chunk of time in your busy day. Appreciate that meditation can be stitched in at almost any point and almost any activity of your day at home, at work and at play. Just so long as you apply the ten top tip essentials to that activity, anywhere, anytime.
Whether cooking your evening meal, or taking a shower, making the bed, climbing a hill, changing a light bulb, watching the ocean surf, gardening, waiting in line, listening to city sirens advance and retreat as sounds around you or bird calls or the wind in the trees just apply our ten top tips and you’ve turned a task or distraction into an opportunity to tune in, tune up, meditate and relax. Don’t rush it. Be patient with the process. Enjoy the experience. This is good times for yourself alone…
- Close your eyes or keep them open and just let them soften as you begin deliberately to relax your body
- Take a deep breath and sigh as you breathe out
- Focus now just on one thing - a visual object in front of you or your breath for example
- When your mind wanders off following thoughts, as it will, detach from the thoughts as soon as you realize your mind has wondered off, and bring your full attention back to the point of focus, whatever that might be
- Let the body relax into sensation as much as you can
- Move from thinking to sensing as much as you can
- Breathe out completely with each breath out
- Stay in the present leaving past or future to take care of themselves as you leave those thoughts till later
- Just watch whatever comes up for you with detachment realizing you don’t have to react to anything and just patiently detaching from thoughts when they arise
- Absolute silence is not necessary. In fact why not notice sounds around you? And then just leave them as well without reacting to them in the background of your consciousness. It’s what’s in the FOREGROUND of your consciousness – what you’re focusing on – that is the secret essence of all meditations
Meditation is like any human experience. Each time it’s different. Don’t expect too much or judge too critically if a session high is followed by a session low where your attention is scattered throughout and you might feel you’ve wasted your time. You haven’t. Each time helps reduce stress, helps the immune system tune up, and retrains neural pathways. And each time is a positive step you have taken in the journey to peace of mind, creating over time that meditator’s mind where you float with equanimity through all of life’s ups and downs like the proverbial leaf-on-life’s-stream.