Through meditation, you become more confident, focused, and energetic. You gain inner strength and alertness while relaxing at the same time. Meditation offers the possibility to relax, strengthen self-confidence and create inner clarity, helping us to release invading thoughts and clear the mind.
What is meditation?
Meditation is ancient and present in many different cultures. Meditation is a technique with which you learn to control thoughts, understand feelings,
and recognize yourself.
Meditation is the opportunity to ” enter oneself ” and to observe and control one’s internal processes.
Meditation is a path that a person opens for himself while trying to reach beyond the limitations of the mind.
How is the proccess
During meditation you will learn to control mindfulness, observe the thoughts that come and go without intervening. Meditation works with attention, external circumstances do not affect meditation. The depth of meditation depends on the inner attitude.
Sit or lie down comfortably. When you start meditating, make sure you have only that time to yourself and be at peace.
What meditation techniques are there?
Meditation, like everything, has to be learned. How intense should it be? How much time to invest? Do it daily or several times a week? Two to three times a month? Meditating is like running and a fairly long run, although for some it may be shorter, but more often, if you already have experience, it will be easier, and the choice of meditation technique is very individual.
These are the most used techniques in meditation:
- Observation.
- Introspection (self-reflection).
- Breathing technique.
- Concentration.
- Display.
Meditation techniques
There are many works on the market and in specialized bookstores that deal with this topic and propose specific meditation techniques . These works can be books, videos or guides, which direct and help with the learning of meditation.
These techniques range from counting one’s breaths to, for example, singing or dancing. Here is a basic meditation technique that involves controlled breathing and quieting the mind with the help of visualization.
Practice meditation as an exercise
Choose a pose
Take a few more deep and complete breaths than usual (learn controlled breathing ), become aware of yourself on the physical and emotional levels. Verify that you are in a state of tranquility.
Then go to the level of the mind and realize that you are observing your mind, that it is present here calm, serene, awake, but without being aware of any object.
Take some time to feel the natural automatism of breathing taking place in yourself . Become clearly aware of yourself, that you are present and feeling your own breath. This you should try until you feel true peace.
Then you must maintain that awareness of yourself, without looking at anything, feeling the silence within you, feeling that the thoughts have decreased their “noise”.
Nothing is sought, it is simply that you are present, without being confused with anything, without leaning on anything. In any case, “look for” that reality that you sense as unique. Don’t lose consciousness, stay wide awake.
To quit the practice, do it gradually, smoothly and without brusqueness.
When you achieve a degree of meditation and silence, you remember it as the most satisfying experience you have ever had.
The echo of that experience remains, although later it dissolves until it is almost lost, due to the habitual dispersion with which we live the exterior. But, by doing this work regularly, every day, it is possible to maintain that point of deep awareness and peace throughout the day, while there is activity.
Meditation practice in daily life
Another way to meditate, to enter silence, is through activity. Of course, it is convenient that the person has practiced silence as I have explained previously.
Meditation in action is the deep silence of consciousness. It is what in Taoism is called wu wei (no action): doing without doing. We do without doing when it is not our “I” that does. For example: we go down the street and suddenly we see someone who is about to fall, we jump in and help him not to fall.
It is an unexpected, spontaneous act. In this case we have done, but it has not been our personal “I” that has decided to do that. It has been the situation that has demanded it. As in another moment we will jump to avoid a danger, or we will move away in front of a vehicle. In us there is an intelligence that makes us live.
It is this deep reality that is expressed through everything that exists, therefore through our body, our intelligence, through everything.
However, within this intelligently automatic functioning, the idea of feeling ourselves the authors, the owners, the owners of many of the things that happen to us in our daily lives appears. A bright idea comes to us, and we immediately take possession of it and say, how smart I am! How important that I am, that I have achieved this! Well, this function of the personal “I”, which is always acting in our daily life, is the one that we must learn to silence. That is, we must live very awake, very present, in every situation but with complete silence of our mind.
Then we will discover that life continues exactly the same, that we can continue doing the same things that are asked of us at all times, by external or internal stimuli, but without the need to attribute it to ourselves, without the need for judgment or comparison.
It is learning to live in silence, in the silence of our mind. This is the way to apply meditation and silence to our active life. When we do so we discover that we are in motion to the extent that there is motion; when it ceases to exist, because the action has been completed, a total, lucid stillness remains in us. And both in the movement and in its cessation, a deep consciousness of peace, of strength, of silence persists in us.
It is when our mind is constantly thinking in the service of our ego that we do not find out about these things. But when we learn to live present, with the mind in silence, we permanently discover this presence behind everything.
And action is not an obstacle to living this presence, because we live this same action as an expression of presence, it is an active mode of presence. This is really living in meditation and in silence, living fully. Silence and plenitude are synonymous, because both imply not relying on aspects, modes or forms of reality.
The characteristic of this living in silence is that the action is always new, spontaneous. Because it does not rely mechanically on the precedent, on memory. It is when things emerge best, both physically and intellectually.
Those who practice judo, at their higher levels, sometimes explain how, when they live the fight in this inner state, (which is the true objective of Judo) something totally inexplicable from the technical point of view happens: that They then produce the most extraordinary keys and counter keys, something totally irreproducible at will. It is genius, because the action is at that moment directed by the greatest and most creative intelligence. And this happens in all aspects of life.
But at the same time that there is this extraordinary efficiency, when the action is finished, it does so in all respects. The inner silence and the state of meditation remain in us. The action leaves no residue.
In each moment, each action is something complete in itself. We do not stay thinking about what we have done or what we have stopped doing. There is not that echo of an unfinished thing here, which is normal for our way of life. Each moment is a full, complete situation, and it is so both in the moment of doing and in the silence or emptiness that follows.
Words are too poor to describe this way of life, and each one must discover it for himself. But, in fact, this is the highest step that exists within our current experience about the levels of creativity or capacity to transform that exists in us.