Another angle to look at meditation
There are many ways to explain what meditation is and is not.
I’d like to offer you the following one:
Let us consider ourselves as a musical instrument. It might be a guitar, a piano or any other instrument. Every daily act of ours is the sound of that instrument. You may not necessarily hear or see its vibration, but you can feel its presence.
I wonder how you sound? Are your strings tuned in? Do you play a melody worth captivating and heart throbbing to people? Can you handle this instrument properly? Who is playing it? Is it you or someone else?
Meditation helps us to learn to be aware of the present moment of ourselves and to tune our minds and bodies to work as one.
A great musician is just an extension of a musical instrument. The same is your mind and body. They simply complement each other. Most of the problems we face are due to the lack of mind control.
As Budha said:
“More than those who hate you, more than all your enemies, an undisciplined mind does greater harm.”
Once you can discipline your mind, you can achieve great things.
There are some results from meditation which are immediate. You immediately feel better and more at ease after most practice sessions… Other results come in a few months. Yet, never mind about succeeding at it. Just keep building it. It is a practice. Try less and be more natural; allowing your experience to unfold without fighting against it or wishing it was different. The less you expect of your meditation, the more benefits you will get. Over time, you will learn how to direct your mind to certain areas and like striking some strings on a guitar, a fine sound will be heard. At the beginning, the sound of your practice might be simple but that’s OK. With time, you will start to play more complex pieces of music. It all starts with a simple principle of directing your mind’s attention to a particular area. An area that feels important for you to practice is to learn to be attentive and aware. With practice, it is obvious that you will lose your current cluttered, distracted and weak mind thus create a new one.
You will get a sense of mastery and control over your own experience, your own life.
If you imagine yourself seated on a train platform.
Coming and going trains are your thoughts. They invite you to join. But you don’t need to jump on them and follow their path. In average we have 60 000 thoughts per day. Only few of them really requires your attention.
Majority of people are bouncing from one train to another, from one station to another and never really getting «home» or important destination.
With practice, you will be able to choose the train to the place that you really want to explore and ignore the rest.
You also will be able to come back home at any time. To your inner state of stillness and peace.
Whenever any train comes, just notice it and let it go.
Sometimes you can find yourself already on the train. That’s ok. You can go out at any station.
Accept this back and forth movement as many times as it can happen.
Over time you will get more control over the selection of trains to follow.
The space between your thought will get bigger. This space will allow seeing the world as it is without judgment and preconceived ideas. Listen to people instead of hearing and see things, instead of looking.
Clear thinking, clear intention, clear action — clear life!
In our guided meditations we are focused on the most important themes in this comfortable, yet very dynamic and complex world to help you discipline your mind and direct attention to the right places. You can check it here.
