What Is Meditation?
Some say that prayer is asking Higher Power (HP) for knowledge of its will, while meditation is listening for and to the answer.
To some people prayer is a type of meditation, along with TM (Transcendental Meditation), mindfulness meditation, and from the Eastern tradition, Zen meditation, Buddhist meditation, and Taoist meditation.
The meditation encompasses such diverse methods as:
Formal sitting in which the body is held immobile and the attention controlled. e.g., Zazen, Vipassana
Expressive practices , in which the body is let free and anything can happen. e.g., Siddha Yoga, the Latihan, the chaotic meditation of Rajneesh.
The practice of going about one's daily round of activities mindfully. e.g., Mahamudra, Shikan Taza, Gurdjieff's "self-remembering".
All these practices have one thing in common - they all focus on quietening the busy mind. The intention is not to remove stimulation but rather to direct your concentration to one healing element - one sound, one word, one image, or one's breath. When the mind is "filled" with the feeling of calm and peace, it cannot take off on its own and worry, stress out, or get depressed.
All the meditation techniques can be grouped into two basic approaches:
Mindfulness meditation
Concentrative meditation
Concentrative meditation focuses the attention on the breath, an image, or a sound (mantra), in order to still the mind and allow a greater awareness and clarity to emerge. This is like a zoom lens in a camera; we narrow our focus to a selected field.
Mindfulness meditation "involves opening the attention to become aware of the continuously passing parade of sensations and feelings, images, thoughts, sounds, smells, and so forth without becoming involved in thinking about them." The person sits quietly and simply witnesses whatever goes through the mind, not reacting or becoming involved with thoughts, memories, worries, or images.
A SIMPLE MEDITATION (Concentrative)
This meditation process is good to induce relaxation response. Plan to make meditation a regular part of your daily routine. Set aside 10 to 20 minutes each day at the same time, if possible. Before breakfast is a good time.
- Choose a quiet spot where you will not be disturbed by other people or by the telephone.
- Sit quietly in a comfortable position. Refer to the section on postures for recommendations on sitting positions.
- Eliminate distractions and interruptions during the period you'll be meditating.
- Commit yourself to a specific length of time and try to stick to it.
- Pick a focus word or short phrase that's firmly rooted in your personal belief system. A non-religious person might choose a neutral word like one, peace, or love. Others might use the opening words of a favorite prayer from their religion such as 'Hail Mary full of Grace', "I surrender all to you", "Hallelujah", "Om", etc.
- Close your eyes. This makes it easy to concentrate.
- Relax your muscles sequentially from head to feet. This helps to break the connection between stressful thoughts and a tense body. Starting with your forehead, become aware of tension as you breathe in. Let go of any obvious tension as you breathe out. Go through the rest of your body in this way, proceeding down through your eyes, jaws, neck, shoulders, arms, hands, chest, upper back, middle back and midriff, lower back, belly, pelvis, buttocks, thighs, calves, and feet.
- Breathe slowly and naturally, repeating your focus word or phrase silently as you exhale.
- Assume a passive attitude. Don't worry about how well you're doing. When other thoughts come to mind, simply say, "Oh, well," and gently return to the repetition.
- Continue for 10 to 20 minutes. You may open your eyes to check the time, but do not use an alarm. After you finish: Sit quietly for a minute or so, at first with your eyes closed and later with your eyes open. Do not stand for one or two minutes.
- Plan for a session once or twice a day.
