Beginners Guide to Meditation
What does meditation mean?
Here it is in a nutshell. Meditation means to focus. The more you practice focusing the more you gain some amount of control over your thoughts. Then the space between your thoughts appears to grow. Thoughts don’t seem quite so overwhelming then. Then focus becomes something else entirely which seems to simply depend on the person meditating, since we are all so very unique and different. Our meditation experiences will always be our own.
But really, when you break it all down meditation is simply training your mind to focus. As a beginner meditator keeping your mind focused on one thing is challenging. You will notice your thoughts simply taking over, often finding yourself down some rabbit hole of a tangent wondering which piece of bread to eat and how to fit through a really small door in order to escape a queen of hearts. But I digress….
The trick, dear reader, is that you simply allow this to happen. So many times I have pushed and pulled, shoved and prodded, all of those ridiculous tangents, thought spirals and lists of things I have to do that day. Succeeding only in giving myself a headache. Pushing thoughts away does not get rid of them. And certainly is not meditation.
Try this instead; you’re firmly down a rabbit hole of thoughts, sitting quietly on the outside so that it looks like your meditating, but really your thinking about that stupid argument you had with your best friend. You suddenly notice you’re on a tangent. Say to yourself, right then as you notice, “thinking.” Sometimes I say, “just thinking.”
The naming and labeling of a thought stops it in its tracks and releases its hold on you. Once you name it, “thinking” the thought becomes something that doesn’t define you. It becomes simply a thought, that you were able to control.
And please be assured, the thoughts will return! It’s okay, let them! And then yet again, once you notice your thinking, say again to yourself, “thinking.”
Guess what my reader, you’re now meditating! Do this five minutes daily, or every other day. When you’re ready, add on another five minutes, and see where it takes you.
“We don’t sit in meditation to become good meditators. We sit in meditation so that we’ll become more awake in our lives.”
Pema Chodron
