Often in posts, especially in RP, I quote Flynn's famous line –
“...the old man's gonna' knock on the sky and listen to the sound...” One day my buddy Spark asked me if I really did meditate, and I said yep, sure do. That plus my form of prayer are what keeps me going ... prayer being the way to talk to the God of my understanding, meditation being the way I listen to what He says by quieting my mind enough to hear.
So then she asked if I'd teach some folks here how to meditate, and encouraged me to start a thread about meditation. Right then I thought – "Hm, a thread teaching others how to knock on the sky? That's a cool idea!" But then again, a somewhat daunting task - in a way that's like teaching others how to look at the sky - everyone appreciates it in their own way.
At first I was a little shy and not sure how to proceed, because while meditation is a vital part of my life I'm by no means an expert on it, and besides -
"on the path of spirit we are always at the beginning" as they say, so I'm still very much a student myself. Not any kind of guru and don't profess to be. Just glad to share my experience, and glad to help others when and if I can.
Okay so let's get started with this......
I . What meditation is and how it's done
There are a variety of ways to learn to meditate. There are also are a zillion different spiritual or religious disciplines out there which incorporate meditation, and while they have their virtues that's not gonna be where I'm coming from with this thread … just focusing on the process itself.
At it's core, meditation is a very simple thing -
it's all about just quieting the mind, relaxing the body, getting all parts of the inner self aligned, keeping in that steady state - basically tuning out the outer world for a while and bringing the inner world to a state of relaxed, balanced awareness regardless of the outer surroundings.
The posture you want is keeping the back straight – not forced but comfortably so – with the spine being aligned but relaxed. (also, as I learned, it's way too easy to drift off to sleep if you meditate laying down. Learned that many times in fact, LOL) Some sit meditate in the classic yogic “lotus position”. Some sit on a zafu cushion with knees bent (a la Flynn in the safehouse) and still others just sit in a comfortable cross-legged position. I kinda make a combo of the latter two, except my zafu isn't anything fancy...just a plain old small silk throw-pillow on the floor. Helps to center the cushion under the tailbone, that way the back just naturally stays straight without a lot of effort. Sometimes I'll even sit with my back resting against a wall or the couch.
II . Music or silence when meditating?
I think that's a matter of personal taste and comfort.
I often like just meditating in the silence, but when I was first learning to meditate I did so by using sound to help quiet the mind first ...would sit and listen to very soft music, eyes closed, headphones on, while paying attention to my breathing and remaining relaxed, and from there I learned to take note of what that meditative state felt like, and to try to duplicate it by just breathing and relaxing without the sound. Then as time went by, I also added some basic self-hypnosis/mental relaxation techniques too, to relax each part of the body from feet to head before starting to meditate.
….......so as for sound or no sound, that's up to you. Some like to listen to music, others listen to soft drumming, or the sound of rain, water fountains, crickets, etc. When I do listen to music, the music I usually prefer is a fave CD called "Coalescence" by Jim Cole and Spectral Voices. Would definitely recommend it. It's over an hour long, voices doing soft chanting, recorded in an empty water tower, which really takes you into a meditative state. But there are lots of wonderful meditation CD's out there to choose from.
Several years ago a friend and spiritual mentor introduced me to Tibetan singing bowls, and those are awesome things. For those unfamiliar, singing bowls are basically like bells which sit inverted, and when a soft wooden mallet
(called a 'striker') is run along the rim of it, the sides of the bowl vibrate to produce sound.
The bowls do require a little physical action to keep the sound going, because you have to slowly run a wooden stick along the edge of the metal bowl to make the sound, so that's not just a case of "drift off and be still" kind of thing, but, it can be really soothing to master the subtle coordination between doing as little as possible and letting the mind drift while still keeping the sound going. Kind of a Zen thing in itself. Sometimes when you're mind wants to keep feeling the need to do something while you're trying to be still and meditate, the Tibetan bowls can help steady and chill out excess energy and stress, or at least it seems so for me.
III . Starting on the path …
I think a good first step is to find a sitting posture that works, and simply sit quietly for a while, get used to the process of just being still, focusing on the breathing thing, slowly in through the nose, slowly out through the mouth.
Next step – patience. Letting go of expectations. Rather than trying to force things and going,
Okay, I gotta learn to meditate!...right-now-and-here-goes!..." instead try just being where you're at, meaning getting used to letting it happen in its own time.
And realize it sometimes does take time - if you think about it, when learning to meditate you're in a sense temporarily unlearning some of what your body sees as “stress survival skills” … you're allowing yourself to relax the body's daily fight-or-flight reflex which is the unconscious nervous system's common response to stress, and you're giving yourself conscious permission to ignore the constant inner dialogue of thought which makes up most of our daily mental process as we reason through each day. So, yeah, it's normal that learning to let go of those things for a brief span of time can at first feel weird or take some time to accomplish.
So..... a good start is, at first just notice how it feels to simply quiet the mind and listen to the body, to focus on the breath. Don't be surprised if all sorts of thoughts and feelings start jumping to mind - it happens - just let those pass in and through your awareness as they will, and rather than stopping to linger on any of them or to try to shoo them away, re-focus on your breathing instead. And, just be patient ... it's a “do without doing” kinda thing, the journey being as important as the destination.
Okay, I've rambled on enough, yet still feel I haven't even scratched the surface about what meditation is and how it's done. But now comes the "we" part of it ... gonna encourage other folks to add to what I've started here, to elaborate on relaxation/breathing techniques, postures, what music and sounds you like, etc etc.
And thanks for listening.
Peace...