Hey everybody,
So before we begin on getting into like breathing techniques mantras posture or really anything else I think we need to clear up really what meditation actually is right so Because most people they have a completely wrong idea about it they think meditation means basically sitting down closing your eyes and somehow forcing your mind to stop thinking and And then they try it for basically like two minutes and their mind keeps going and they think,
Well,
I am terrible at meditation.
Sound familiar?
But it's not failure,
Right?
That is the actual practice itself.
I mean,
Your mind thinks,
That's what it does.
And the same way your heart beats and your lungs breathe,
The mind actually produces thoughts.
So you don't have to fight that and you don't have to somehow become completely blank either.
Meditation is simply learning to notice what is happening without immediately getting dragged away by it.
That's really where we begin.
Basically what you do is you So what you do is you sit down,
You place your attention somewhere simple,
Usually the breath,
And eventually your mind will begin to wander.
I mean,
You start thinking about work,
You remember something somebody said yesterday,
You start planning dinner,
You suddenly remember something embarrassing you did 15 years ago,
Right?
This is completely and utterly normal.
The moment you realize your mind wandered,
You gently return your attention back to the breath.
And that return itself is meditation.
So,
Not really the perfect silence,
Not the absence of thought.
Of the actual return.
So every time you notice that you become,
I guess,
Lost in thought and bring your attention back What you're doing is you're actually strengthening awareness.
It's kind of like building a muscle,
Right?
You don't go to the gym and lift one weight and then assume that you're finished,
Right?
You repeat the movement.
The repetition is basically what creates the strength.
In meditation,
It works the exact same way.
So I mean your attention wanders,
And then you notice,
And then you return.
Right?
It wanders again.
You notice.
And you return again.
You might do that 50 times in 5 minutes.
It doesn't actually mean that you had a bad meditation.
It means that you had 50 moments of basically waking up.
And to me,
That's important,
Right?
Because most of us go through huge parts of our day without noticing where the mind has gone at all.
I mean,
We're physically in one place,
But mentally we're somewhere else.
We're replaying the past,
Worrying about the future,
Rehearsing conversations,
Judging people,
Blah,
Blah,
Blah.
It goes on and on,
Right?
Just one distraction to another.
And meditation is what begins to show you this.
It lets you see that there's a difference between having a thought and being completely controlled by that thought.
So you can notice anxiety without immediately becoming the anxiety.
And you can notice anger without instantly acting from that anger.
And you can notice a painful memory right in without having to follow it through the same old mental loop over and over.
Now,
That doesn't happen overnight,
Right?
But this is where it actually begins.
So,
I mean,
For your first practice,
Don't worry about sitting cross-legged on the floor or anything like that.
You don't need special clothes,
Incense,
Candles,
Music,
Or some perfect spiritual atmosphere.
Do this,
I mean,
Just sit in a chair,
And let your feet rest on the floor.
And allow your back to be,
You know,
Reasonably upright,
But don't make yourself super rigid.
Let your hands rest comfortably,
Basically wherever they land.
And you can close them,
Close your eyes,
Or you can actually keep them slightly open and just kind of look towards the floor.
And then after that,
Uh,
You just notice.
You just notice that you're breathing.
You don't try to breathe in some special way,
And you don't make these,
Like,
Enormous breaths,
And you don't force yourself to actually relax.
You just feel the natural breath as it enters and leaves.
You might notice around your nose.
You might feel your chest moving.
You might notice your belly rising and falling.
Just choose whatever method is,
I guess,
Easiest to follow,
Right?
And then stay with one breath.
Cheers for what?
Feel the inhale.
And then,
Feel the exhale.
And then the next breath.
And eventually a thought will appear,
And that's fine,
Right?
You don't have to push it away,
And you don't have to really finish it either.
Just recognize that I'm thinking.
And then come back to the breath.
Try not to get angry with yourself.
I know it's hard.
That frustration is just another thing to notice.
You might realize you've been thinking for 30 seconds before you can catch it.
And that's okay,
Right?
The moment you notice,
You're back.
That moment matters so much and more than how long you were actually distracted.
So I mean,
For the first week practices for this,
Uh,
I go for about five minutes a day.
Uh,
In honest,
Five minutes though.
So I mean,
Don't really worry about having a profound experience.
Don't look for visions,
Energy,
Peace,
Or even enlightenment right away.
I mean some days you might feel calm and other days the mind may feel like completely chaotic.
And to me both are useful because meditation is not about manufacturing a particular feeling.
What it is,
Is,
It's about seeing clearly what is already happening.
So,
The first lesson is extremely simple.
Sit down.
Feel the breath,
And notice when the mind wanders,
And then return back to the breath without judging yourself.
And that's it.
I mean,
You're not trying to become somebody different using those five minutes.
You are simply learning how to be present for the life that is already happening.
Thanks for listening.
Namaste.
