Om nom nom

This is what I think about meditation, mostly because Kurt asked. :)

I need to meditate in order to continue feeling sane. I would be unable to function without it just as much as if I stopped eating, drinking, sleeping, breathing, etc. It does not have to be a traditional breathing meditation, although I am trying to make that a regular habit. I do walking meditations frequently. When I’m playing sports (not that often, mostly swimming or ultimate frisbee) and I get in The Zone, I consider it a form of meditation. Writing also puts my mind in a meditative state.

There are very many ways to meditate, and anyone can do it. One of the most popular misconceptions about meditation is that only trained professionals or religious devotees can do it properly. Any time your entire consciousness is focused on a single object (say a candle’s flame) or action (either automatic, like breathing, or effortful, such as writing this entry) then you are meditating.

Another popular misconception is that if you have thoughts in your head, you’re doing it wrong. It is SO HARD to not think about anything at all. Have you ever tried it? Try it right now. Close your eyes, sit cross-legged or stay there at the computer, but try thinking about nothing for five minutes.

*AAAAA-UUUUUU-MMMMMM*

How did it go? It takes me way longer than five minutes to get my head to stop buzzing, usually about fifteen to twenty minutes of breathing meditation. Even when I’ve been practicing regularly, thoughts zoom through my head like balls in Tommy’s pinball machine, hitting levers and bells that create deafening noise in my head. The point is to focus on breathing naturally, and to acknowledge thoughts as they come but then let them go. It’s as if you are watching the sea flow in and out. You know there are shells and seaweed coming ashore, but focus on the surf itself and eventually you become detached from your thoughts. When you really get into it, they even disappear altogether.

Another important thing to remember is to not get angry with yourself if you have trouble empyting your mind of thoughts. If you get upset that you’re not meditating properly, the shells and seaweed will only come into view more sharply, and it will be impossible to meditate properly.

Breathing meditation is challenging for almost everyone, but if you do it regularly (at least once a day) and for at least half an hour at a time, it gets much easier to focus and you begin feeling the effects right away. The other less orthodox methods of meditation I mentioned above, except for walking meditation, may not work for everyone. (Walking meditation is similar to breathing meditation, only you focus on the feeling of your feet pushing down on the ground and the Earth pushing back on your feet.)

There are also many reasons to meditate. It is one of the most effective ways for me to deal with heavy, complex emotions. It keeps me in tune with my community, population, ecosystem, species, and biosphere (ashamed to say I had to look this up to get them in the right order). Most importantly, it helps me cultivate compassion and empathy for all my fellow beings, animal, plant and human.

Sometimes answers or perspectives to a problem that I had not seen before come to mind while I meditate. It helps me accept change, especially negative and hurtful change. When I broke up with my boyfriend of 10 months, meditation was one of the few activities that helped me deal with my sadness and grief.

It is important to know why you are meditating before you begin. If you want help getting through something that is upsetting you, it’s perfectly natural for you to cry. Tonglen and Loving Kindness meditations are good for this.

Tonglen meditation is done by imagining that you are breathing in someone’s pain and turning it into loving compassion, which you then return to them. It helps to visualize pain as dark smoke or something else which is repugnant and associated with negative emotions. You imagine breathing in the smoke as you breathe in, then hold your breathe as you turning it into clean air and light, then release your breathe and return the air, which represents kindness and compassion, to whomever is in pain. At Meditation Club, we begin with ourselves because we can not love others if we do not love ourselves (although to be honest the order does not really matter). Then we think of people that we know are suffering and need help. It is also very important to do tonglen meditation for people we do not like to practice exercising seeing their perspective so that we treat them with compassion.

Loving Kindness is similar, but it involves wishing health, happiness, and safety to different people, beginning with yourself and moving on to someone you love, someone you do not like, someone you barely know, and then building up to eventually wishing these things on every organism in existence.

I would love to do research on meditation to observe any health benefits. Many people have gone before me, even though meditation is hard to study because its effects are so personal and unquantifiable (like religion).

I just found a very interesting article in the New York Times about the improvements in attention that meditation can cause. This is it if you want to read it: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/08/health/psychology/08medi.html

In summary, they had groups of volunteers meditate for three months for different amounts of time each day (those with previous meditation experience meditated 10-12 hours a day, while novices meditated 20 minutes a day). Then both groups were given blink tests with two numbers embedded in a series of letters. People in the expert group were better at finding the second number because, according to brain scans, they would see and then “release” the first number faster than the novice group. Those in the novice group tended to have “attentional blinks” in which the brain holds onto information too long and misses new, fast-moving stimuli.

Meditation also reduces stress, improves the immune system, and promotes a sense of well-being. I rarely ever get sick, I am pretty chill, and most of the time I’m happy – all thanks to meditation!

But in all seriousness, when I finish meditating my head is usually clear and for a little while I feel totally serene, completely in tune with the universe and all it has to offer.

:: Edit :: Oh man, how could I forget about chanting meditation? It's probably my favorite because it's so effective. Any mantra will do, though I like Aum. A-U-M. Seen most often as "OM", it actually has three distinct parts. Repeated aloud in a clear, calm voice, it makes your mouth, lips, chest, and top of the head vibrate pleasantly. In Hinduism, it is the sound of the universe being created, associated with Brahman, the creater and essence of the universe which pervades all things and nonthings. Each sound represents a different godly aspect of Brahman; Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva, respectively.

Walk in beauty.