What is Meditation?

Meditation is perhaps the most important skill you can learn in countering stress and developing a healthier, more relaxed attitude toward life. For me, meditation and its lasting effects on my mind and body have been life-altering. The heart of any meditation practice is to slow down and tame this busy mind of ours. Our mind is the most powerful and complex system known to us and can be used in countless ways. The nature of the mind, at times likened to a monkey, is busy and noisy.

It is in constant motion, refusing to stay still and calm. Our mind, through thoughts, can either reflect back on the past or try to foresee the future. The trouble is that focusing too much on the past will bring regrets or, at best, nostalgia, and projecting the mind into the future for prolonged periods will bring worries and anxiety. The mind drawing on the past, understands that “future” is very short and uncertain, and thus tries to cram the maximum amount of “pleasure” into the present moment.  This process can trigger an internal mad race to absorb as much pleasure into the present moment as possible while at the same time trying to accumulate more money in order to be able to command similar pleasures in the future. Our mind, thus in overdrive, frantically produces anxious thoughts which result in neither enjoying the present moment nor the illusive “future”. Meditation has the potential to quiet the mind and return it to its proper function. It can also teach us the invaluable lesson of living in the “now”, which is beyond the reach of our thoughts.

A disciplined, quiet mind invariably will lead us to a relaxed state of mind and body. Meditation allows us to develop greater control over our anxious and worrisome thoughts. The short- and long-term health benefits of meditation are well documented and are varied.  Some of its effects are noticed immediately, and some are more subtle. These benefits range from a reduction in blood pressure and better oxygenation of blood to slowing down the aging process.

There are many different forms of meditation developed by humans over thousands of years, mostly in the East. Although most of the meditation practices have been passed down within certain philosophical and religious belief systems, one does not need to share a similar belief to benefit from such meditation practices.  In the past decades, several of these meditation techniques have been streamlined and adopted by Western physicians, psychologists, and other health care workers in order to aid patients in their healing process.

Meditation can be described as the practice of focusing, uncritically, our attention on one thing at a time. It is relatively unimportant what that one thing is. For example, in mantra meditation, a meditator can repeat a syllable, a word, or groups of words, either loud or silently. Alternatively, one can focus on a fixed object, such as a flame, as the focus of their attention.  The technique taught in this book is a form of “mindful meditation” based on focusing on the rising and falling of breath.

As you progress in your meditation practice, you will, in addition to the calming of your mind, attain certain insights into the working of your mind-body apparatus, such as the impermanent nature of your thoughts, feelings, and experiences.  You will also observe that seemingly thousands of thoughts that you have during the day fit into simple repetitive patterns of self-talk with predictable, reproducible emotional and physical results.  Simply by recognizing and observing such patterns, the habitual ways of thinking will begin to lose their grip and influence over your mind-body apparatus.  As you open up fully to your experiences, you will develop an attitude of calmness about life and all that it offers you.

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