At the heart of each of the world’s great religions is a profound wisdom tradition with inner transformational teachings and meditation practices. While the outer, exoteric religious traditions offer ethical and moral guidelines necessary for harmonizing and aligning our lives with a universal nature and sacred reality, it is the inner transformational teachings of the meditative traditions that reveal the spiritual essence of these great traditions.
Within the world’s diverse & ancient wisdom traditions, there are millions of profound and practical methods of meditation. The diversity of techniques range from single pointed concentration or chanting OM or a single note, to awesomely complex contemplative sadhanas that weave together sequences of simpler meditation practices into extensive “symphonies” of contemplative practice. In this brief introduction we offer a brief orientation of a variety of methods and guidelines for meditation practice.
Meditation: A Working Definition
The vast array of disciplines/practices drawn from the world’s great wisdom traditions that refine the quality of attention and intention in order to increase the practitioner’s capacity for self-awareness, self-mastery, self-transformation, and self-transcendence & the realization of one’s truest nature and highest potentials.
The wide variety of inner psychophysical, psychoenergetic, and psychospiritual disciplines that promote greater awareness of the many dimensions, problems, and potentials of human experience while promoting greater freedom from limiting patterns of mind, psychophysical reactivity, and associated habitual & limiting patterns of behavior.
Foundation: Right Relationship
Making peace, building harmony, and cultivating “right relationships” lays the foundation for success in meditation. As you reduce the turbulence in your relationships, your mind will naturally become more peaceful, present, and undistracted. This ethical/relational foundation is essential to your success in meditation.
Meditate “On Purpose”
Your attitude and intention sets the direction for your meditation. At the beginning of each session clarify and state your intention for meditating. Is it to relax and ease your stress? Is it to cultivate greater clarity or peacefulness? Is it to awaken more fully to your True Nature & Highest Potentials? Is it to increase your capacity to inspire and help others? Be clear on your intention: meditate “on purpose!”
Frequency & Duration
Frequent short (1 to 5 minutes) meditation sessions are generally better than longer sessions. When you are able to keep your attention present in a meditation practice for 3 minutes with minimal distraction, then, gradually add more time, Emphasize the quality of your attention over the quantity of time you practice and don’t indulge in sloppy meditation habits.
Distractions
Don’t hold on to any experiences…and don’t push any experiences away. Simply allow thoughts or “distractions” to come and flow without getting involved with them. If your practice int his way gradually the mind will become more clear and calm. If you let the mind naturally settle then thoughts and other “distractions” will cease to be a bother. Han Shan says, “Oh how freely come and go the myriad forms of things!”
Sleepiness
Meditation is about awakening and cultivating lucid clear presence of mind. If you are drowsy when you are meditating, open your eyes, do standing, walking, or moving meditation, or stop meditating and take a nap. Avoid cultivating sloppy habits of lapsing into drowsiness of sleeping during your meditation practice. This said, there are advanced practices of meditative dream yogas which cultivate a lucid clarity of mind even during sleep and dreaming. The foundation for these practices is to cultivate a lucid clarity of mind in waking life.
Physical posture
The Buddha taught that the practice of meditation has four postures: sitting, walking, standing, and lying down. Taking this advice to heart, virtually ever activity can be transformed from mindless habit into a practice for awakening more fully to your true nature and highest potentials. As your practice meditation keep the following physical guidelines in mind:
-Body in a balanced position (Sitting in a chair is just fine!)
-Spine straight
-Body comfortable and relaxed
-Eyes softly open, closed, or half open
You can learn more about meditation and more about Joel and Michelle Levey on their website http://wisdomatwork.com/WisdomAtWork/Home.html Also, stay tuned for Meditation – an introduction Part II
