What can meditation give us?
We live in a world where everything comes at a price, so what is the price we pay for meditating?
The answer? Time! As much or as little of it you want to give or can spare.
It is possible to enjoy a fully-formed meditation in ONE MINUTE, but we’ll come to those another time.
The question is ‘What do we get from meditation?’
And the answer is ‘a lot’.
How long does it take you to count to one hundred without being distracted by company? Or perhaps the question should be ‘How many times did you restart before you reached the one-hundred mark without being distracted?
We live in a world where we have so many balls up in the air at a time it becomes hard to focus for long on any one thing. Meditation retrains our brains to do just that.
Many people describe meditation in different ways. Here are three to play with this week. Take time with each one, but not too much time. Just enough to recognise the difference between them. And later on we’ll come back to them and go a little deeper.
- To focus on Concentration means focusing your attention on one object only. (like the canvas in the last blog). Block out everything else going on around you and concentrate. For example, concentrating on the flame of a candle, or simply focusing on your breath.
- Focus on Generation by this I don’t mean age groups. When you do this you generate a state of loving kindness by using your memory, your imagination and the sensations of your body. (A bit like listening to the picture on the canvas in the last blog)
- Focused on Reflection (reflective meditation). Is almost a contradiction of the previous forms of meditation. This time when you have reached a state of ‘Stillness’ you simply allow yourself to become aware of your surroundings and what is going on without reacting. You allow yourself to become aware of the sensations flowing through you and at the same time remaining non-responsive to them. In doing this, you are, through meditation, retraining yourself and your reflexes to take time out before automatically reacting to events rather than respond to them.
These examples may seem pretty benign to newcomers to meditation, but please open your mind to the experience and next time I’ll talk about the benefits of meditation.
3 comments:
You're right, time is a commodity and finding time to relax is often difficult. Still, you have drawn my interest. I tried focusing on imagining a square canvas but my mind didn't quite get there.
:-) Rhobin, don't fret, when you have a couple of quiet moments stand in front of your favourite picture, -photograph, painting on the wall, whatever. And just imagine yourself in the centre of that picture and see where *the picture* takes you.
Like everything else/writing, it takes time to trust enough to simply 'let go'. Hence only try for as long - or short- a time that feels comfortable to you.
Hugs
Sherry
I like this, 'standing in front of a favorite painting'. I too have problems with visualizing my canvas.
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