Meditation – a unique activity

This article explains what is meditation and its benefits, what are the most popular meditation techniques for beginners, and also gives you tips to get started with the practice.

Meditation and mindfulness have become quite popular in recent years—yet most people can’t really define meditation, understand it’s purpose, or appreciate what meditation is good for. This page is here to bridge that gap.

What is meditation?

Meditation is a mental exercise that involves relaxation, focus, and awareness. Meditation is to the mind what physical exercise is to the body. The practice is usually done individually, in a still seated position, and with eyes closed.

Meditation isn’t about becoming a different person, a new person, or even a better person. It’s about training in awareness and getting a healthy sense of perspective. You’re not trying to turn off your thoughts or feelings. You’re learning to observe them without judgment. And eventually, you may start to better understand them as well.

Meditation is practiced in one of three modes:

• Concentration: focusing attention on a single object, internal or external (focused attention meditation)
• Observation: paying attention to whatever is predominant in your experience in the present moment, without allowing the attention to get stuck on any particular thing (open monitoring meditation)
• Awareness: allowing awareness to remain present, un-distracted and not engaged with either focusing or observing

In Buddhism, meditation is one of the three core practices for the purification of mind and attainment of Nirvana.

The Benefits of Meditation

There are dozens of scientifically proven benefits of meditation. Studies confirm the experience of millions of practitioners: meditation will keep you healthy, help prevent multiple diseases, make you emotionally well, and improve your performance in basically any task, physical or mental.

Some of the benefits come as soon as with 8 weeks of daily practice; other benefits take longer to mature, and will depend on your intensity of practice.

Meditation is good for several things, and it’s different things to different people.  However, it is usually one of these three things that drive people to practice:

• Specific benefit: improving your health, well being, performance, focus.
• Growth: emotional healing, self-knowledge, self-discipline, letting go.
• Spirituality: connecting with God, inner peace, and other spiritual goals.

Whatever drives you to meditate, that is good. You will get the benefits you seek, in the proportion of your consistency and commitment to building this habit. But the wider you cast your net, the more fish you will get — so I would encourage you to practice not only for one particular reason, but for the sake of the practice itself.

Your motivation may also evolve by time, as the practice starts to unfold in your life.

How to Meditate?

There are dozens of meditation techniques, so it can take some time until you find the one that works best for you.

The approach I recommend is to experiment with different meditation techniques for a short period of time each (say one week), and to journal your experiences. After some time, you will be better able to choose the meditation technique that suits you the most.

Meditation Tips

Here are some general guidelines on the practice:

• Posture: you can meditate seated on a cushion or on a chair. The essential thing about posture is that the spine is absolutely erect, from the lower back to the neck, and ideally not leaning on anything.
• Time: the best time to meditate is first thing in the morning, so you don’t skip it, and the impact on your day is stronger—but any time that works for you is fine!
• Place: a spot where you can sit uninterrupted. Ideally a place that is quiet, clean and tidy, in order to create a better influence on the mind.
• Length: you can start with as little as 5 minutes, and increase 1 or 2 minutes per week, until you arrive 20 minutes sessions and beyond.

Here are six other tips to make sure your practice is optimal. They are not mandatory, but they make your meditation go easier:

• Your body should not be exhausted. So ideally not right after heavy exercise.
• Your mind should be awake. So not good when you are sleepy or tired.
• Your belly should not be full. Wait 2~3 hours after heavy meals.
• Put your phone on airplane mode during your practice.
• Relax your body with deep breathing exercises before meditation.
• If you are meditating at home, wear clothes that are comfortable and loose.

Once you choose your technique, the next step is to work on building the meditation habit, and having a better understanding of the process of meditation.

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