Whether for health, religion, or self-realization, millions of people practice meditation. Perhaps you have already dabbled in the relaxing sensory deprivation of meditation and you are looking for new methods to boost the experience or maybe you are a complete beginner; either way this article will elucidate two techniques that go beyond the most simple methods of meditation.
Meditation: Not Just for Buddhists
Many people believe that meditation is a difficult rite performed only by Buddhist monks or aloof, enlightened souls. If you are in the group described above who has already started to delve into the practice of meditation, you know that it can be done by anyone with a mind, a body, and spare time (translation: everyone!). While it is true that meditation is central to sects of Buddhism, the positive effects of meditation can apply to any person, Buddhist or not.
In its simplest form, meditation is meant to clear a mind's attention from the clutter of the world and to connect a person with his or her inner self. Today's world of multitasking makes it easy for our minds to become controlled by chaos. For a lot of people, time seems to be a commodity that slips by quickly. Meditation is a way to slow things down. When one meditates, his or her body is able to escape from the things that distract us from listening to our inner beings. Not only is meditation relaxing because it gives our minds a rest, it is medicinally beneficial; it relaxes the body. Studies show that meditation helps reduce heart rate and general stress on the body.
Some people consider simply sitting in a space, eyes shut, with controlled breathing to be a form of meditation. Any person can experience this type of meditation, but there are more advanced forms of the practice that almost any person in the world can experience as well. Read onward for two examples to step up your meditation, to put you one notch closer to the Zen Monk you have always aspired to follow.
Breathing Meditation
The most basic form of meditation focuses on breathing. Breathing can also be used in a more intermediate fashion. Take your normal stance for meditation: back supported either by a chair, a wall, or sit cross-legged; eyes closed, muscles relaxed. Clear your mind of any sort of extraneous thought. Forget the traffic you sat through during the day, the stress of work, or any personal relationship. Instead, put all your attention on your breathing. This simple action is relaxing and proves meditation already a success, but you can take it one step farther!
As you breathe in, say to yourself, "This is an in-breath." When you exhale say to yourself, "This is an out-breath." Repeat this every time you complete a cycle of breathing. The exercise sounds simple, but our brains are conditioned to think constantly in the modern world. You might find yourself having trouble maintaining the mantras for a sustained period.
If you cannot continuously focus on your breathing in this manner, take a moment to regroup and begin again. The act of calling out your breathing to yourself will help you achieve two things. The first is that while you tell yourself "this is an in-breath" and "this is an out-breath" your mind will begin to notice your breathing instead of what you will be fixing for dinner in an hour. Secondly, and most importantly, by focusing on your breathing in this manner you will start to feel the rhythms of your body. Respiration is involuntary, but vital to life.
Our lungs bring air into our bodies and expel carbon dioxide dozens of times per minute, yet we quickly forget that they are even working. Paying attention to your breathing will introduce you to a part of yourself that is often overshadowed in today's loud world. At the simplest level of description, you will be listening and honoring your body for living! The true magic of this method - magic in the connotative sense, of course - is that if you truly focus completely on your breathing, your mind will clear of the problems that inhabited it only minutes before and you will notice a sense of relaxation you probably thought could not occur in your body. All you will be doing is being, something your body desperately needs for relaxation!
Light Meditation
If you ever want to go to the theater to catch a new movie but find you do not have two hours or more to spare, you can always catch a flick in your own meditation space. Sound fantastical? It is very true: the other type of intermediate meditation resides within your own eyelids.
Most people probably already know that when you shut your eyes you can see various colors on the black "screen" that your eyelids produce. Often as kids we learn to shut our eyes and press on them with our hands to make vivid fireworks. Believe it or not, some people who meditate believe that the lights you see when you shut your eyes are a direct representation of your inner spirit. If that idea is truthful, it would be pretty powerful to see a reflection of your inner self, whenever you wanted. Even if the idea is mere theory, the lights in our eyes offer another way to meditate.
As with the breathing method, assume a normal stance for meditation to begin light meditation. As you sit, back supported and eyes closed, focus your attention on the lights that appear on the black backdrop of your eyelids. Again, clear your mind of outside notions. The gist with light meditation is to simply watch a movie made up of the lights your body produces. This act sounds extremely simple, but the catch is to watch and do nothing but watch. Watching the lights but thinking about something else will not help you achieve your meditative goal. Do not attach "meaning" to the lights.
If a shape appears and it looks like a cat, do your best not to assign the shape the definition of a cat. The best analogy is to watch the lights as you would a fireworks show without imposing a plot, characters, or any meaning at all. Simply watch the lights for the sake of watching the lights. This practice is very difficult to master. A mind easily strays when watching something and not thinking or placing meaning. If you notice your mind straying, stop briefly and refocus.
Once you become good enough to keep your mind on the lights and only the lights, you might notice a "jump of blankness" in your mind. What this term effectively means is that your mind was able to shut itself off from the everyday mode of thinking and it jumped into a mode of relaxation. Some Buddhists would claim that you have just caught a reverberation of your inner light, your inner spirit, your inner self. As with the breathing method, if you can achieve this state for even a moment, your body will probably experience a sense of relaxation that is likely to last for hours or days.
Practice!
These methods are not the most intense forms of meditation, but they are not easy by any means. If you are a middle-aged adult, you are fighting decades worth of conditioning on your mind to function one way. Both methods will probably require multiple attempts to even gain seconds of the periods of relaxation and connection with the inner-self that we discussed above. It is easy to become discouraged, but if you stick to the goal of just getting one second of this self-realization and then moving forward from there, your body will respond beautifully. Once you have mastered these techniques you can even move on to advanced study of meditation. In the meantime, tidings of relaxation be with you!