An Introduction to Meditation: benefits, practice, meaning, and learning
I
am having some renewed thoughts on meditation. I practiced meditation
for some time in the past and found it useful and interesting.
I am starting to remember some benefits of the practice. One
benefit was like the result of a good nights sleep or a nice little
vacation. I may be misleading to put it like that. I often felt
refreshed after a practice. Another benefit was that after meditating my
mind felt more organized and calmer. My thoughts seemed more usefully
filed, organized, and prioritized. I remember that my mind was better
structured and organized when I had meditated regularly.
I
suspect that meditation can be an effective and lasting way of
structuring one's mind. There are a variety of benefits. One becomes
more able to effectively focus on that which one has decided to focus.
One becomes more alert, aware, and conscious of one's self and of what
is going on around one. Structuring is an ongoing process and so is
meditation.
I
thought of my practice as a regular ongoing doing. It seems it was much
about self and awareness. It was a lot about paying attention.
Much can be learned about meditation online. You can learn a lot about it on Esoteric to Exoteric. I expect I will continue to post about it.
Your
dictionary may correctly inform you that to meditate is to ponder, to
plan, and intend in mind. You may be correctly told that much
contemplation and prayer is very like meditation. And also told that
meditation may refer to a devotional exercise of contemplation. Being
told all this one may still wonder why one would want to meditate and
also how one could do it effectively.
For me meditation is an exercise and a practice much like working- out
regularly at the gym. However, one doesn't need a gym or much of
anything to meditate. I once heard that a man did satisfying meditation
as he plowed his fields. No you don't need a plow to meditate. I have
preferred a siren and quiet atmosphere where the chances of interruption
were small, but have meditated on a bus. The idea is that one needs
very little to meditate, but may have many preferences.
There
are many reasons to meditate and many good reasons to to change ones
ways and means of meditation. One reason I had was gaining
self-knowledge. another was to broaden my awareness. For some it could
be part of a process of purification or much about experimentation. I
have been told that the major purpose or goal is, or ought to be the
conscious integration of mind, body, and intellect.
I
hope you are begging to get a better feel for what meditation can be. I
also hope to post more about the "why" and "way" of meditation.
For
right now here is some more about the "what" of meditation.
Consciousness is important to the practice of meditation. Conscious
means to have in mind, to be aware. So, if you add focus, you
pretty much have the heart of meditation. The practice of focusing
attention one happening, thought, area, field, doing or something is
meditation.
So,
meditation is about maintaining the focus of attention on that which
you choose, about being mindful only of that which you have chosen. Its
the practice of keeping conscious attention on that which you choose to
focus, say I.
It can be a sort of game of getting back to your chosen object of focus as soon as you can when you wander from it.
Some
have called their practice sitting. For some of them the object may be
to sit. They may choose to sit for half a hour. Once they have sat for
that time, they may feel that they have completed a good practice. They
may very well be right.
Please
feel free to comment on meditation or the content of this post in the
"comments" window below. Use your name, a name you chose, or you may be
anonymous.
Its meditation.
RCS