Meditation. Why it matters.
Meditation. Why it Matters.
One of the main things I hear from folks is, “I’m no good at meditation, I can't stop thinking.” The goal of meditation isn’t to stop thinking. One of the main things that occur when you begin a meditation practice is that you become aware of the nature of the thinking mind in a way that you might not have before. This is a good thing. Your awareness of yourself as more than a thinking thing is happening.
We work to shift our seat of awareness from “the thinker of thoughts” to a deeper and more spacious awareness that can hold thoughts as an object. This is one of the first steps in the process of psychological untangling that occurs continuously with a meditation practice.
Over time as we develop our consciousness, there is a perpetual making of objects of what were once elements of our subjective experience, our self.
The news couldn’t be better. You’ve noticed you’re not solely the thinker! Samadhi!
The View or an Informed Meditation Practice can easily be thought of as the ‘why’ of a meditation practice. This is where you are left hanging with the apps, guided meditations, new age movements, and the proponents of the McMindfulness movement.
The practice and path of meditation invites us into direct contact with our thoughts, emotions, and feelings so that we may examine them from a engaged yet non attached place, letting go of that which is false, and the clarity to take action upon that which is real and wholesome.
The View proposes the beginnings of a framework, a framework is essential for depth of insight.
We love this quote from the great teacher Thich Nhat Hahn:
“Our happiness and the happiness of those around us depend on our degree of Right View. Touching reality deeply -- knowing what is going on inside and outside of ourselves -- is the way to liberate ourselves from the suffering that is caused by wrong perceptions. Right View is not an ideology, a system, or even a path. It is the insight we have into the reality of life, a living insight that fills us with understanding, peace, and love.”
Don’t meditate just because you think you should. As the Buddha taught, test it out, see for your self. Then make the decision if these teachings work for you.
Meditation is a simple and profound tool on your wellness journey that can enrich all aspects of life.
When we start a meditation practice, we start to cultivate the ability to stay centered and present within our own awareness. Usually, the mechanism used to establish ourselves in the present moment is the breath, as it is always with us. One of the first things encountered is the mind's discursive nature and how much our stories distract us from and cloud the reality of the present moment. Through our work with the breath, we begin to find our seat in a deeper awareness than that of the self-referential process we know as ourselves, the ego.
The practice of meditation supports a shift into deeper and more vast awareness. From this place, many aspects that we’ve identified as ourselves begin to become objects with which we can have a clearer relationship. These objects could be emotions, stories we tell about ourselves, stories we have internalized and inherited, bodily felt senses, the movement of energy through the body, or lack of movement, etc.
For those of us with trauma in our history, making contact with the moment and the body may not feel safe. One of the great benefits of practicing meditation as informed by a rooted tradition is that there are teachings and techniques to support us in working with an over or under-activated nervous system, i.e. trauma.
Thus, we can reduce our reactivity to our felt senses and stories and people and situations in our lives. I don't think how this serves our healing and development needs explanation.
Beginning to establish safety within our nervous system promotes the internal capability to relate to our experience rather than as our experience in increasing degrees of intensity over time. When we are able to embody this stance, we are much more able to rest peacefully within the moment as it is without any need to change it.
Thus, we are able to make the unconscious conscious, deepening our self-discovery and self-realization.
Meditation's effects on our nervous system are why it can be such an effective stress management tool.
As we are able to manage our stress more powerfully, we reduce the inflammatory cascade generated from the embodiment of runaway stress.
Engaging consistently in meditation practice also has positive results on our attention span. We build the muscle of attention, allowing us to choose where to place our attention consciously—reducing negative self-talk and rumination.
Meditation is associated with improving memory and reducing cognitive decline.
Other benefits of meditation are the practice's effect on sleep and the reduction of blood pressure and pain.
The practice of meditation supports our ability to stay present with the unavoidable ebb and flow of life without becoming frozen in a moment and living in the past.
Consistent meditation practice can help facilitate neuroplasticity, literally opening our minds. This provides a foundation with which we can work to establish new patterns of behavior, thought, self-talk, etc.
What can be thought of as healing at one level can easily be seen as self-development at another. Meditation is an irreplaceable part of the journey of self-unfoldment as the fruits it bears ever deepen.
