Experiments in Living

 I have been meditating daily for two months now, and here I post about some things that I have noticed about the practice and how I am integrating it into my life. I think that many other beginning meditators have similar experiences, so I’d be interested in your comments, or if you have more meditation practice under your belt, then please share how you worked through your beginning weeks and months.

What are you expecting from meditation, really?

Why do you want to meditate? Unless you are a holy mystic wearing a hair shirt sitting on a mountain top, you will have some kind of “worldly” motivation to meditate. Are you stressed and looking for a way to relax? Are you interested in developing your spiritual life? Have you heard of the health benefits of meditation such as lower blood pressure and thought you’d give it a try? Your favourite celebrity is saying how wonderful it is?

It’s a good idea before embarking on any project or practice to examine your expectations and motivations. The concept of meditation (ie sitting and doing nothing) is very alien to our western consumer-driven culture, and coming from that culture, you will need some kind of logical reason to pursue it.

The first time

I would recommend reading some books on the subject and perhaps doing a guided meditation to start you off. There is something quite comforting about having a guide during your first experiences, even if that is only a recorded voice on a CD. Some people like to stay with guided practices and although I think they are a good idea once in a while, meditation is an individual practice. You are seeking to turn your consciousness upon itself, and I’m not really sure if a guided practice is the best way of doing this.

Having said that there are some excellent guided practices on the internet which you can listen to for free.

Best time and conditions for meditation practice

For me, the best time is first thing in the morning. The reason for that is that you need some peace and quiet, no interruptions, and getting up before anyone else is up and about is the easiest way to ensure that you’ll get it. Wear loose, comfortable clothing, no belts or jewellery. As I meditate first thing, I am usually wearing my pyjamas. If it’s not too cold, it’s a good idea to have a window open.

Hitting a wall

The first wall you will hit will probably be boredom. Sitting in silence for 20 minutes, well, that’s really boring right? Yes, it is really boring in the beginning. Because we are used to doing all the time, being is something that we find difficult. You may also find you have some physical discomfort, usually in your legs or back. If you are not used to sitting cross-legged with your back straight for 20 minutes then I would say that you are in the majority. However, your back muscles will strengthen as you continue practising.

These walls are kind of like a pain barrier that you have to break through. If you come up against them it does not mean that you are “no good” at meditation or you stop meditating, instead see working through these barriers as a right of passage.

Thoughts, thoughts and more thoughts

Before long you find yourself at the point where many people give up on meditation. They were seeking calmness, but all they got was inner noise, the maelstrom of their own thoughts. So what to do? Meditation is not about suppressing your thougths, not least because then you get caught up in thinking about not thinking
Thoughts will come to you during meditation, sometimes flashes of inspiration which may otherwise get buried in your everday life where you are always busy and doing. You wouldn’t want to suppress these, would you? The best way to handle thoughts which occur during meditation is to acknowledge the thought and let it go. You may not even be aware that you are thinking at first, because we are all so used to the discursive mind as the default setting for our consciousness. However, once you catch yourself thinking, that’s when you take a note of the thought and sort of put it up on a mental shelf for your attention later on.

Not all thoughts are productive ones, and with these you have to be vigilant not to get caught up in the drama.  

Hey, I can do this

I have got to the point where I am starting to feel that my meditation is becoming a useful practice. It has taken two months to get this far and I still have a long way to go. Following on from the previous point about thoughts, during meditation you may start to feel your conciousness shifting gear. This is where I am now. The only problem is that my discursive mind starts getting in the way and I find myself rationalising the experience instead of experiencing the experience.

The good thing is that I can go for longer periods without this happening, and as my mind gets used to the sensation I will no longer have to keep rationalising things. As I said earlier, it’s all part of the process. It’s like dredging a muddy pond; to clear it you have to stir up the water first.

If you enjoyed this article, you may be interested in these other posts:

Meditation Observations

Morning meditations days 1-6

Dedication to meditation days 7-15

Dedication to meditation days 16-24

Tags: meditation, personal development