PRACTICE MEDITATION

To observe your immediate, ongoing experience without any judgments, preconceptions, or projections is often referred to as "beginner's mind." In essence, it is perceiving something with the freshness you would bring to it if you were seeing it for the very first time.

Almost everything you do during your day is likely to be goal-directed. Meditation is one thing that is not. Although meditation takes effort to practice, it has no aim other than to "just be."

Acceptance is the opposite of striving. As you learn to simply be with whatever you experience in the moment, you cultivate acceptance. Acceptance does not mean that you have to like whatever comes up (such as tension or pain, for example), it simply means you are willing to be with it without trying to push it away.

An important prerequisite for acceptance (as well as for beginner’s mind) is nonjudgment. To practice meditation, it’s important to learn not so much to stop judging but to gain some distance from the process of judging. Simply observe your inner judgments without reacting to them, least of all judging them! Instead you cultivate a suspension of any judgment, watching whatever comes up, including your own judging thoughts.

Another important attitude to bring to meditation is a basic trust in yourself. This means that you honor your own instincts, reactions, and feelings, regardless of what any authority or other person may think or say. It’s you who are responsible for your experience and no one else. To fully embrace that experience, you need to trust it.

A strong commitment to work on yourself, along with the discipline to persevere and follow through with the process, is essential to establishing a meditation practice. While meditation is very simple in nature, it’s not always easy in practice. Learning to value “just being” on a regular basis requires a commitment in the midst of a society that is strongly oriented toward doing. Few of us have grown up with values that cherished nonstriving, and so learning to stop goal-directed activity, even for just thirty minutes per day, requires commitment and discipline.

Though the point is not to strive for anything, a long-term commitment to regular meditation practice will transform your life fundamentally. Without changing anything that might happen in your life, meditation will change your relationship to everything you experience, on a deep level. Most people feel that the hard work involved in establishing and maintaining a meditation practice is worth it.

Find a quiet environment. Do what you can do to reduce external noises and distractions. If this is not completely possible, listen to an audio recording of soft, instrumental sounds, or sounds from nature. The sound of ocean waves also makes a good background.

Reduce muscle tension. If you are feeling tense, take some time (no more than a few minutes) to relax your muscles. The following sequence of head and neck exercises may be helpful.

• Slowly touch your chin to your chest three times.
• Bend your head back to stretch the back of your neck three times.
• Bend your head over to your right shoulder three times.
• Bend your head over to your left shoulder three times.
• Slowly rotate your head clockwise for two or three complete rotations.
• Slowly rotate your head counterclockwise for two or three complete rotations.
• Alternatively, practice you favorite hatha yoga postures before meditating.  Traditionally in India, yoga postures were done as a preparation for meditation.

Sit properly. Eastern Style: Sit cross-legged on the floor with a cushion or pillow supporting your hips. Rest your hands on your thighs. Lean slightly forward so that some of your weight is supported by your knees as well as your lower back.

Western Style (preferred by most Americans):  Sit in a comfortable, straight-backed chair, with your feet on the floor and legs uncrossed, hands on your thighs (palms down or up, whichever you prefer).
In either position, keep your back straight without straining to do so. Do not assume a tight, inflexible posture. If you need to scratch or move, do so. In general, do not lie down while meditating; this will tend to promote sleep.

Set aside twenty to thirty minutes for meditation. Beginners might wish to start out with five to ten minutes. To keep time you may wish to set a timer (within reach) or play background music that is twenty or thirty minutes long so that you will know when you are done. If having a clock or watch available to look at makes you more comfortable, that’s okay. After you have practiced twenty to thirty minutes per day for several weeks, you may wish to try longer periods of meditation up to an hour.

Make it a regular practice to meditate every day. Even if you meditate for only five minutes, it’s important to do it every day. It’s ideal if you can find a set time to practice meditating. Twice a day—upon rising in the morning and before retiring for the evening—is optimal; once per day is a minimum.

Avoid meditating on a full stomach. Meditation is easier if you don’t practice on a full stomach or when you’re tired. If you are unable to meditate prior to a meal, wait at least a half-hour after eating to do so.

Select a focus for your attention. The most common devices are your own breathing cycle (from your abdomen, not chest) or a mantra. A mantra is a word or short phrase to focus on. Traditionally it was a Sanskrit phrase, such as "om shanti," but many people use a common word such as "Relax" or a spiritual phrase such as "Let go, let God." The mantra is simply repeated over and over again as an object of focus. Other common objects of meditation include pictures, repetitive music or chants, or a candle flame.

Maintain your focus without striving to do so.While meditating, maintain your focus on whatever you've chosen as your object of meditation. It's inevitable that your attention will wander. Each time it does, bring it gently back to your chosen object of focus.

If an unpleasant thought or feeling tries to capture your attention, it may help to remind yourself "this is just a thought" or "this is just a feeling." Just be present with the thought or feeling without going into it. Eventually it will shift and pass. With practice it will get easier to let go of distracting thoughts, even frightening or painful ones.

Distraction, boredom, restlessness, sleepiness, and impatience are common reactions during meditation. When they come up, just notice these states, allow them to be as they are, and return to being fully present in the moment.

When you’ve finished with your practice for the day, open your eyes gently (if they’ve been closed) and stretch your body. Notice how you are feeling, but don’t judge that feeling, whether it's positive or negative. If you feel good after your practice, refrain from setting any expectation that your next practice "should" be the same way. Let each practice session be a unique experience unto itself.

If you are serious about learning to meditate, seek out instruction either from a meditation class or from classic books on the subject such as How to Meditate by Lawrence LaShan or Full Catastrophe Living by Jon Kabat-Zinn. An internet search under the key phrase “how to meditate” will yield many excellent resources for learning meditation. The above guidelines provide only the barest introduction to meditation and are too brief to provide proper instruction.