What Is Med­i­ta­tion

The thought of sit­ting still and doing “noth­ing” can seem odd — even unset­tling — in a world full with noti­fi­ca­tions, dead­lines, and diver­sions. How­ev­er, med­i­ta­tion has been used for thou­sands of years as a potent tool for self-dis­cov­ery, tran­quil­i­ty, and clar­i­ty in many cul­tures. What sages, monks, and philoso­phers have long known — that med­i­ta­tion can change the mind and, ulti­mate­ly, the qual­i­ty of your life — is now being con­firmed by sci­ence, which is catch­ing up to old wis­dom.

How­ev­er, what pre­cise­ly is med­i­ta­tion ? Does it have to do with clear­ing your head ? Is it based on reli­gion ? Is it reserved for monks perched atop moun­tains ?

Let us exam­ine what med­i­ta­tion actu­al­ly is, what it isn’t, and how to start prac­tic­ing.

Med­i­ta­tion : What Is It ?

Delib­er­ate­ly focus­ing your atten­tion is a key com­po­nent of med­i­ta­tion, a men­tal train­ing tech­nique. Being aware of your thoughts, feel­ings, and sen­sa­tions with­out let­ting them rule you is the fun­da­men­tal goal of med­i­ta­tion.

Mak­ing your mind go blank is not the goal. Med­i­ta­tion instead trains you to notice your ideas with­out respond­ing to them. Imag­ine tak­ing a step back and observ­ing your thoughts rather than allow­ing them to con­sume you.

Med­i­ta­tion improves focus, emo­tion­al equi­lib­ri­um, and men­tal clar­i­ty in the same way that phys­i­cal activ­i­ty devel­ops the body.

The His­to­ry of Med­i­ta­tion

The prac­tice of med­i­ta­tion is not new. Its ori­gins date back thou­sands of years. The ori­gins of ancient med­i­ta­tion tech­niques can be seen in cus­toms like :

Hin­duism : The Vedas, holy writ­ings com­posed more than 3,000 years ago, con­tain ear­ly men­tions of med­i­ta­tion.

Bud­dhism : Under the Bud­dha’s teach­ings, med­i­ta­tion became essen­tial to spir­i­tu­al enlight­en­ment.

Chi­nese Tao­ism placed a strong empha­sis on breath­ing, bal­ance, and har­mo­ny with the nat­ur­al world.

Chris­tian­i­ty : Med­i­ta­tive ideas are reflect­ed in con­tem­pla­tive prayer and still­ness.

Islam : Focused aware­ness is a com­po­nent of prac­tices like reflec­tive remem­ber­ing (dhikr).

Despite its spir­i­tu­al ori­gins, med­i­ta­tion is now fre­quent­ly prac­ticed in a sec­u­lar man­ner with an empha­sis on pro­duc­tiv­i­ty, per­son­al devel­op­ment, and men­tal well­ness.

What Is not Med­i­ta­tion

It is vital to dis­pel com­mon mis­con­cep­tions before delv­ing deep­er.

“Stop­ping Thoughts” is not the goal of med­i­ta­tion.

The pur­pose of your brain is to think. It is like expect­ing your heart to stop pound­ing if you expect to have no thoughts. The goal of med­i­ta­tion is to observe thoughts with­out becom­ing engrossed in them.

It is Not a Reli­gion to Med­i­tate

You do not have to be reli­gious to med­i­tate, even though it is a com­mon prac­tice in many spir­i­tu­al tra­di­tions. It is a men­tal abil­i­ty that any­one can pos­sess.

You Can not Escape Real­i­ty Through Med­i­ta­tion

Avoid­ing issues is not what med­i­ta­tion entails. In actu­al­i­ty, it gives you greater clar­i­ty and poise when deal­ing with life.

How Med­i­ta­tion Oper­ates

Think of your mind as a snow globe to com­pre­hend med­i­ta­tion. Just as snowflakes swirl around when shak­en, so too do your thoughts after a hec­tic day. The snow grad­u­al­ly set­tles when you put the snow globe down and do not move it.

Plac­ing the snow globe down is the act of med­i­ta­tion.

You may anchor your atten­tion by con­cen­trat­ing on some­thing basic, like your breath­ing. The inces­sant men­tal chat­ter even­tu­al­ly slows down. You become more focused, more con­scious, and less reac­tive.

Accord­ing to sci­en­tif­ic stud­ies, con­sis­tent med­i­ta­tion can :

Decrease anx­i­ety and ten­sion

Boost con­cen­tra­tion and focus

Boost emo­tion­al con­trol

Reduced blood pres­sure

Boost the qual­i­ty of your sleep

Become more self-aware

Stud­ies using brain imag­ing have even revealed alter­ations in regions linked to mem­o­ry, empa­thy, and judg­ment.

Med­i­ta­tion Types

There is not just one “right” way to med­i­tate. The func­tions of var­i­ous styles vary. These are a few of the most wide­ly used kinds :

Med­i­ta­tion with mind­ful­ness

Nowa­days, this is the most com­mon­ly used form. It entails focus­ing on the here and now, observ­ing your breath­ing, feel­ings, and sounds with­out pass­ing judg­ment.

You just watch what is going on right now.

Med­i­ta­tion on Lov­ing-Kind­ness

This tech­nique, which is often referred to as “met­ta” med­i­ta­tion, focus­es on cul­ti­vat­ing kind­ness and com­pas­sion for both your­self and oth­er peo­ple.

Phras­es like this can be repeat­ed silent­ly :

“I hope I am safe.”

“I hope you are hap­py.”

“May there be peace among all beings.”

Con­cen­trat­ed Med­i­ta­tion

With this approach, you focus on just one thing :

Your inhala­tion

A flame from a can­dle

A catch­phrase

A noise

You gen­tly pull your thoughts back to real­i­ty when they stray.

Med­i­ta­tion with a Body Scan

This entails men­tal­ly exam­in­ing every part of your body, from head to toe, and not attempt­ing to alter bod­i­ly feel­ings.

Med­i­ta­tion with Move­ment

Sit­ting still is not always nec­es­sary for med­i­ta­tion. Move­ment and aware­ness are com­bined in tech­niques like yoga and tai chi, which trans­form move­ment into mind­ful­ness.

The Fun­da­men­tals of Med­i­ta­tion

Despite dif­fer­ences in style, the major­i­ty of med­i­ta­tion tech­niques have three fun­da­men­tal com­po­nents :

1. Pay atten­tion You decide to con­cen­trate on some­thing, usu­al­ly your breath.

2. Con­scious­ness You can tell when your thoughts are stray­ing.

3. Absence of judg­ment Rather than berat­ing your­self for becom­ing dis­tract­ed, you gen­tly refo­cus. The core of med­i­ta­tion is this cycle : focus, detect dis­trac­tion, return.

Your men­tal dis­ci­pline gets stronger every time you come back.

The Advan­tages of Med­i­ta­tion

Med­i­ta­tion has an effect on many facets of your life.

Advan­tages for the Mind

Increased lucid­i­ty

Decreased over­an­a­lyz­ing

Enhanced orig­i­nal­i­ty

Enhanced mem­o­ry

Emo­tion­al Advan­tages

Reduced reac­tiv­i­ty

More tol­er­ance

Increased resilience

Increased com­pas­sion

Advan­tages for the Body

Low­er lev­els of stress hor­mones

Reduced heart rate

Enhanced immu­ni­ty

Improved sleep

Med­i­ta­tion grad­u­al­ly assists you in chang­ing your auto­mat­ic respons­es to delib­er­ate ones.

Why Med­i­ta­tion Can Be Chal­leng­ing at First

Because med­i­ta­tion is painful, many novices give up. Sit­ting qui­et­ly makes you sud­den­ly aware of :

Rush­ing thoughts

Rest­less­ness

Feel­ings you have been dis­re­gard­ing

How­ev­er, this dis­com­fort is aware­ness rather than a sign of fail­ure. Your thoughts will not become chaot­ic when you med­i­tate. It makes the already-exist­ing chaos vis­i­ble. You can learn to sit with it gen­tly with prac­tice.

How to Begin Med­i­tat­ing

It is eas­i­er to get start­ed than most peo­ple real­ize.

Step 1 : Locate a Calm Area

It does not have to be com­plete­ly qui­et. Sim­ply pick a spot where you will not be both­ered.

Step 2 : Take a Com­fort­able Seat

You can take a seat on a cush­ion or chair. Main­tain a relaxed yet straight back.

Step 3 : Estab­lish a Timer

Start with five min­utes. As you become com­fort­able, grad­u­al­ly increase.

Step 4 : Pay Atten­tion to Your Breath

Take note of how air enters and exits your body.

Step 5 : When dis­tract­ed, gen­tly return

Your thoughts will stray. That is typ­i­cal. Just return it to your breath.

Dura­tion is not as impor­tant as con­sis­ten­cy. An hour once a week is not as effec­tive as five min­utes every day.

The Use of Med­i­ta­tion in Con­tem­po­rary Life

Tem­ples and monas­ter­ies are no longer the only places where peo­ple med­i­tate. Around the world, pro­fes­sion­als, ath­letes, stu­dents, and entre­pre­neurs all engage in it.

Med­i­ta­tion is fre­quent­ly used by high per­form­ers to alle­vi­ate stress and improve focus. It is becom­ing typ­i­cal in com­pa­nies, edu­ca­tion­al insti­tu­tions, and even med­ical facil­i­ties.

Med­i­ta­tion pro­vides some­thing uncom­mon in today’s hyper­con­nect­ed world : still­ness.

Typ­i­cal Prob­lems and Their Fix­es

“I am Out of Time”

Take two min­utes to begin. Each per­son has two min­utes.

“I Can not Stop Think­ing”

That is typ­i­cal. The objec­tive is to become aware of think­ing rather than to stop think­ing.

“I Get Bore­some”

Bore­dom is mere­ly anoth­er feel­ing to notice. Con­tin­ue with it.

The More Insight­ful Use of Med­i­ta­tion

Beyond improv­ing con­cen­tra­tion and reduc­ing stress, med­i­ta­tion rais­es a more pro­found query : Who are you out­side of your thoughts ?

You start to under­stand that you are the aware­ness under­ly­ing your thoughts rather than your thoughts them­selves when you study your mind.

Deep inner lib­er­a­tion may result from this insight. You learn to cre­ate space between input and response rather than let­ting fear, anger, or want rule you.

Choice is there.

And trans­for­ma­tion is found in choos­ing.

The Life­long Prac­tice of Med­i­ta­tion

Med­i­ta­tion is not a panacea. Self-dis­cov­ery is a life­time process.

There will be days when every­thing is clear and serene. There will be uneasy days. The process includes both.

Med­i­ta­tion grad­u­al­ly shifts the focus from “doing” to “being.” You start incor­po­rat­ing mind­ful­ness into your dai­ly rou­tine :

Eat­ing

Walk­ing

Speak­ing,

Work­ing,

Lis­ten­ing

What exact­ly is med­i­ta­tion, then ?

The art of pay­ing atten­tion is med­i­ta­tion.
It is an aware­ness-based prac­tice.
It is the prac­tice of repeat­ed­ly focus­ing on the here and now.

It is easy, but not always so.

Med­i­ta­tion is a brave act in a noisy envi­ron­ment. It requests that you sit qui­et­ly, slow down, and have good vision. But in that silence, you might learn some­thing pro­found : know­ing the world inside of you is the source of tran­quil­i­ty, not dom­i­nat­ing the out­side world.

If med­i­ta­tion has piqued your inter­est, the best approach to learn about it is to actu­al­ly prac­tice it rather than mere­ly read about it.

Shut your eyes.
Inhale slow­ly for one moment.
And get start­ed.