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The Layman’s Guide To Meditation And Mindfulness

RocksMeditation is a valuable tool in maintain psychological well-being and achieving balance in your every day life. You hear about Buddhist monks locking themselves away and spending years to achieve enlightenment but it doesn’t have to be that mysterious or difficult at all.

There are no real rules for meditation, all we are trying to do is stem the mind-chatter and  all that internal criticism and judgement that seems to automatically run our lives from behind the scenes.

The quick and easy way to meditate is observe completely on something in your immediate environment:  a dripping tap, the sound of birds in the garden, a candle flame, watching the flames in your fireplace or even watching the movement of people and things in the scenery around you. Observe without thinking about it or letting your mind wander. It will but the trick is to bring the mind back again to your observing.

A more effective method for the long term practice of meditation is to regularly focus on your breathing for a set period preferably at the same time each day.  There are several reasons why:

  1. The same time each day develops a habit like in going to the gym. Once you’ve established the practice it becomes an automatic apart of your day. First thing in the morning is commonly best because your mind is at its least stressed and you can integrate it into your morning routine easily if you awake just a little earlier.
  2. A set time each day means that it’s easy to reserve time for it.  If you can’t do half an hour, do twenty minutes, fifteen or ten. Even five minutes is worth while. Little and often is the key – much like the gym.
  3. The reason why breathing is an effective focus is that it is always with you; independent of your environment where you can easily select something to observe. More importantly, breathing is both a conscious and a subconscious act and bridges the conscious mind and the sub-conscious mind. You can consciously hold your breath until the subconscious kicks in and you feel your body urging you to take in some more oxygen.

People argue that there is a difference between mindfulness and meditation. Whatever they are called they achieve a similar purpose: to shut that voice up in your head. If you are thinking “I haven’t got a voice in my head.” That’s the one I’m talking about. I’ll cover both meditation and mindfulness here.

Meditation:

Many teachers say you shouldn’t lie down to meditate but it’s up to you. I wouldn’t recommend it as it is so easy to fall asleep and sleep isn’t meditation. Try meditating while lying down but if you find you fall asleep, give it up and find a comfortable sitting position. The best position is sitting upright with a straight back. The problem is that your legs influence the position of your hips, which influences your back posture. If you sit cross legged without a cushion, you are likely to end up slouching forward with a curved back, and that’s not good. The old image of the traditional posture is misleading for many of us but if you have a few cushions to sit on this position can be very comfortable. But sitting on a chair with your feet on the floor is just as good as long as you are not reclining. The aim is to focus on your mind, not on how you look. Find your own comfortable position that you can sit for between five and thirty minutes.

There is and old saying that if you think you are too busy to meditate for fifteen minutes then you should meditate for an hour. Once you experience some of the benefits then you’ll naturally fall into your own time frame. Anything is better than nothing.

You might find a clock useful but it isn’t really necessary. Resist the temptation of looking at it every few minutes if you have one though, Sometimes I have meditated for thirty minutes and swore it was only ten.

Once you are comfortable take a few deep breaths and focus on the area between your top lip and your nostrils, like being a sentry monitoring what’s coming and going. After you feel settled with a few deep controlled breaths, relax and watch yourself breath naturally. It doesn’t matter if you can’t tell whether it’s you consciously controlling your breath or not, just relax and observe and let it be.

What you will find is that after a few seconds your mind will wander off and try to think about something else. It is your job to return to focussing on the breath as soon as you notice. It doesn’t matter if you catch it within five seconds or you’ve been on five minute mystery tour of the past and future, the magic is in the coming back to the breath. Meditation isn’t about sitting there with a blank mind for half an hour, that’s impossible. It’s more like dog training. As soon as your mind takes off it’s up to you to go after it, reel it back in and find stillness by watching the breath and just to keep doing that every time.

It’s probably best to stick to the same time each day. In the morning after waking is a good time to manage as well as you are still relatively relaxed to start with. It’s up to you.

Mindfulness:

Mindfulness is the act of focussing on what you are doing. Watch carefully what you are doing, notice how it feels and how you are interacting. See what’s happening all around you. It’s about being present. You can even do this in the queue at the supermarket.

How often have you driven to work and not remembered how you’ve got there? What were you thinking about? Mindfulness in any task is beneficially. It is similar to meditation in that, if your mind takes off like a dog off its leash, it’s up to you to fetch it back and focus on driving, putting up shelves, washing the dishes or whatever you are doing.

The hardest thing about mindfulness is that it’s easy for you to forget to be doing it and carry on regardless. Good practices for focus are things like art and crafts and other hobbies. Writing and painting forces you to focus by default.

Summary:

Meditation:
1. Get comfortable
2. Focus on the breath
3. Fetch your wandering mind back
4. Return to step 2 and repeat as often as necessary.

Mindfulness
1. Engage your senses in whatever you are doing. Both, focus on your task and expand your awareness.
2. Fetch your wandering mind back.
3. Return to step 1 and repeat as often as necessary.

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