Posted on
27 Mar 2021,
in
Life Offline.
As you may have noticed by now I read a lot about productivity. During my research, I have always stumbled upon people who advocate heavily on meditation as their way to stay focused and relaxed. They talk about how life-changing it can be, but I never really thought much about it since I am already a calm type of person. So why should I learn to meditate? Will I get any interesting psychic powers and meet spiritual beings?
Purpose Of Meditation
It will sadly not give you psychic powers and meet spiritual beings, that is not the purpose of meditation. The goal is to be mindful and aware. By doing so, we can get a variety of benefits to our well-being:
- Improves our happiness by decreasing our stress, anxiety and depression.
- Improves our self control by being able to regulate our emotion and introspect on ourselves.
- Improves our social life by being able to be more compassionate towards others and to feel less lonely.
- Improves our productivity by improving our focus, attention and memory.
Misconceptions
Meditation is only for spiritual or religious people
Even though meditation has religious ties, it does not mean that it is only for religious people. Being able to reflect on ourselves and relax are great qualities that everyone should have.
Meditation is running away from reality
It is the total opposite. We are running straight into reality when we meditate. The main goal of meditation is to be mindful and aware. By observing ourselves and our surroundings we are living in the present which is where reality is.
Meditation is selfish
You may think it is foolish to do nothing, that we could be doing something to solve problems and issues. However, meditation is helping us get rid of our greed, tension and insensitivity to the world. By removing that fog that obstructs our compassion for others, we are able to remove our selfishness and begin to be truly selfless. Cleansing ourselves of selfishness is not a selfish activity.
Meditation will solve all of our problems
This will not be a quick cure for all of our problems. It will instead give us the courage to face our problems head-on and with a clear mind. If we learn anything about meditation, it will be patience.
How To Meditate
For the purposes of this post, I will only go over mindfulness meditation as it is the most well-known through Buddhist teachings. If you want to find types you can try looking in the links I provided in the additional resources section below.
Mindfulness Meditation
- Grab a timer and set it to how long you want to meditate.
- Sit in your bed, chair or floor in the pose you usually see monks sit in. Anything works as long as you are comfortable.
- Close your eyes and slowly breathe through your nose and out through your mouth.
- As you breathe, notice the feeling of your breath as it flows through you. Notice how it feels to exhale as you let go. You should be noticing all the little subtleties around you like the sounds and the feeling of where you’re sitting. The aim is to observe any thoughts and let them go.
- If you lose yourself in any thoughts, don’t judge yourself and observe your breathe once again.
Prepare Your Mind
- Don’t expect anything. Just sit back and see what happens. Treat it as an experiment.
- Don’t strain. Don’t rush. Let go.
- Don’t cling to anything, and don’t reject anything (observe)
- Accept everything that arises
- Be gentle with yourself. Be kind with yourself
- Investigate yourself. Question everything.
- View all problems as challenges.
- Don’t ponder. You don’t need to figure everything out.
- Don’t dwell upon contrasts. Notice the similarities.
How long should you meditate for?
You should meditate as long as is it fits for you, whether that be 5 mins a day or longer. Just make sure to be consistent. As the meditation becomes easier try increasing the time you spend.
Philosophical Side Of Meditation
As I delved deeper into the world of meditation I grew to understand that there are many philosophical aspects that are associated with it. A lot of these come from Buddhism philosophy and are very complicated yet so fascinating.
Suffering and Impermanence
“If you are depressed you are living in the past. If you are anxious you are living in the future. If you are at peace you are living in the present.” - Lao Tzu
Life is suffering. It is suffering because we are all motivated to find happiness and once we find it, we realize that it won’t last forever. We remember all of the enjoyable experiences we’ve had in the past and mourn over them being gone. It is absolutely okay to mourn, we can’t escape having painful moments in our life. However, we all have the power to get rid of suffering over them.
We often treat impermanent things as permanent. We think that the walls around us will always be there, yet they are always decaying. Even as you read these words your body is ageing, yet you pay no attention to that. Still, as our lives continue, we will talk about how we miss being young again like we don’t even realize how fast life passes. We understand that things don’t last forever, but we favor ignoring them. Impermanence may seem like a pessimistic view on life, but in actuality it allows us to appreciate everything more.
As you learn through meditation, your breath comes and goes, the feelings and sounds around you come and go, your thoughts come and go. By acknowledging and accepting impermanence, it helps us cultivate our positive well-being by giving us the ability to let go of our desires. It helps us understand that we can’t force happiness. Meditation helps get rid of the negative thoughts that would otherwise make us suffer. By eliminating our suffering, we will be able to find our true happiness.