For those of you who are new to meditation,
I would like to go over some basics.
Meditation is one form of mindfulness practice.
Mindfulness means calling your attention fully and non-judgmentally to what is happening in the present moment.
Very simple,
Not very easy.
That's because our attention is usually dominated by the constant stream of thoughts running through our minds,
And that's a step or two removed from our actual experience.
When you do call attention to what is present,
Even briefly,
It can be very relaxing.
However,
You can't force the mind to stop thinking.
In fact,
The harder you try not to think,
The busier the mind will get.
But the moment you notice you are thinking,
You have a choice.
You can pursue the thought,
Or notice that it's there,
Let it go,
And call attention back to what is present.
Operationally,
The simplest way to do that is to call attention to sensations in the body.
Since physical sensations really only occur in the present moment,
If you are paying attention to sensations,
You're paying attention to what is present.
Any sensation can be used as an object of awareness.
In sitting meditation,
We commonly start by attending to the sensations of the breath.
You will see,
As you start to observe the sensations of the breath,
That the mind quickly jumps in,
And you will be paying attention to thinking again.
Maybe the most important thing to understand about meditation is that thinking during meditation is not a failure.
Thinking is normal.
Every time you notice thinking and let it go,
That's success.
It doesn't matter how quickly your attention wanders off,
Or how often,
Or how long it's gone before you notice.
All that matters is that whenever you do notice that your attention is elsewhere,
You patiently and gently call yourself back and reconnect with the sensations of the breath.
So,
The instruction you can't follow is,
Don't think.
The instruction you can follow is,
Whenever you notice you are thinking,
Let it go,
And come back to the sensations of the breath.
As a consequence of following that instruction over and over,
And over and over and over,
The mind can gradually settle down on its own.
The point of meditation practice is not to be perfectly peaceful,
Although that is a frequent side effect.
The point is to make it a habit to notice thinking and let it go,
So that you can start to have those moments when you are not meditating.
That ability to notice thinking and let it go,
Like any new skill,
Can only be learned by actually doing the practice.
Remember what it was like when you learned to type,
Or perhaps play a sport or a musical instrument.
At first,
It doesn't work very well,
And you have to keep starting over and reminding yourself of the instructions.
With some repetition,
It starts to work.
With more repetition,
It feels natural,
And with a lot more repetition,
It happens automatically.
It's the same thing with mindfulness practice.
All it takes is repetition.
When you first start meditating,
It is helpful to have frequent guidance to keep calling you back,
Which is provided in the Beginner's Meditation Recording.
It is also helpful to have a few tools at your disposal to help settle your attention,
And these are also provided.
The key through all of this is patience.
Just keep coming back and starting over.
So,
This is the overview.
I encourage you to try it out using the accompanying recording.
Again,
The Meditation Recording provides instructions and frequent guidance.
Once you understand the instructions,
You may find that you won't need them anymore,
And you can just use a timer to start and end your meditation.
