A Beginners Guide To Meditation

I wrote a previous hub on how to start in meditation. If your new to meditation or just starting out please take a few moments to take a look at that hub first. You can find it here, I cover the very beginning of meditation and some exercises that will be discussed in more detail this time around. If you've already read that hub or have enough experience in the basics I'm just going to give a brief refresher:

• Meditation is about YOU and getting in touch with YOURSELF
• Relaxation is the key. I cover this and an exercise to do this in the link above.
• There are many benefits to meditation and we just need to focus on them to achieve them.

Like almost everything we do we need to practice meditation to get better at it. It is a learning experience and an adventure all at the same time. We are exploring ourselves, the depths of our mind and becoming more in tune with our bodies. To get better at all of this we have to practice and figure out what works for us and what doesn't. In the studio I train in there is a wall hanging that reads 'Repetition is the mother of all skill'. This statement is not only true for martial arts but true in everything we do. My teacher's teacher always said 'If someone wants to know how to fight they fight, if someone wants to know how to do forms they do forms'. To gain the knowledge we seek we must do the things we seek knowledge in. Meditation is no different and luckily as I've expressed before there is no right or wrong, so all we must do is do. So how do we practice meditation? The answer:

• Practice the basics of relaxation and getting your own way of going about this. Eventually you will be able to just find a comfortable place and instantly relax and flow into your meditation.
• Train in meditation exercises which we will get into a little later
• Learn to focus, this is a very important part of practice. Focusing allows us to stay on track and not interrupt our progress. This reduces the time for things and speeds up our training.
• Stay positive, keeping a positive outlook keeps us from walking away when we are probably so close but don't realize it yet. I've seen a lot of people come very far and then give it up because they lost a positive outlook on what they were practicing.

Now that we know how to practice we can look at exercises that help us in our journey.

These are some beginning exercises to start with and will help build a strong ability to relax and to focus. They will also open doors into more advanced practices and into the world of unguided meditation all of which I will discuss in later hubs. For now let us build upon the exercises I discussed in the hub for starting in meditation:

• Focusing on Breath: This meditation requires us to focus on our breathing. It is important to find a comfortable rhythm and to experience changing that rhythm. Once a rhythm is established we begin to count the number of breaths. At first we are just counting, every inhale counts as one and every exhale counts as one. This builds awareness and keeps us focused on our breathing. When our mind wonders we need to gently bring it back to our breath, this trains an even stronger idea known as single pointed focus. When we can easily get to say 20 without loosing focus too often we are ready to move on.
• Advanced Breath Focus: After we have established an understanding of the focusing on breath meditation we can move on to this. In this meditation we are going to do the exact same thing except count in sets. The focus is to count to 10 without being interrupted at all. When we reach ten we will start over and as we go we will keep track of how many sets of 10 we have been able to do. If you can reach 2 or 3 sets of ten without a problem you will then stop counting each inhale as one and each exhale as one. Now an inhale and exhale together are counted as one, we then repeat the exercise. This is a never ending exercise and will always serve to train focus and awareness. It also builds a strong foundation in using our breathing to bring ourselves back to a single pointed focus.
• Focusing on Body: This exercise is used to train more physical awareness and also deeper forms of relaxation. I previously discussed the two different ways of going about this meditation. These are known as the non-existing body and the feeling body versions of this exercise. The idea is to tell the body it does not exist or to ask it how it feels, we do this by talking to individual parts of the body. Later as we move through these different versions we will no longer have to ask or tell the body it will just instinctively do what we want. This allows for a greater understanding of the body so that it will work harmoniously with the mind and not against it.
• Advanced Body Focus: This is the same as the focusing on body exercise except the scope is more defined. Instead of going through the entire body we will focus specifically on one part of the body. It may be easier when starting this advanced training to use larger areas of the body and then progress to individual muscle groups or parts. This practice will lead to a greater understanding of your own body as well as give you the ability for instant relaxation. Instant relaxation will grow into conscious awareness of your tension levels and how to relax even during normal everyday life.

Those two exercises in their beginning and advanced form will help build a foundation so strong that all meditation practice after it will come naturally and easy. It will also plant seeds that will grow and be seen in everyday life. Meditation as you progress will move beyond the secluded, quiet, still, and comfortable realm we start in. Many practitioners find it aids in everyday life and can often be seen there as well. There are stories of masters who use their meditative skills to accomplish great feats. To get there we must first practice and build the knowledge we seek.

It is very important to keep practicing and work towards achieving our goals. Stay positive and stay relaxed and meditation will soon become second nature to you. These exercises are just the beginning of a vast world your just starting out in. Even those well practiced in the art of meditation will come back to the beginning at times. These exercises become a familiar comfortable place to return to and help us always. Look for more hubs in this meditation series to help you progress or to strengthen your background.