By Vanessa Shribman
Imagine that your mind is like a clear blue sky; open, spacious and clean. Now imagine that your thoughts, feelings and fears plaster clouds across that sky. They obscure the clarity and light of the sky layer by layer until it is hard to find the sky at all. This is an image used in traditional Buddhist and Yogic teachings. The supposition is that we all inherently have this clear mind and can rediscover it by training the mind through meditation practice.
Many of us have tried to learn to meditate to reduce stress in our lives, ameliorate the symptoms of chronic illness and live happier lives. The benefits of meditation are well researched with thousands of studies extolling the benefits for mental and physical health. A regular meditation practice helps to improve sleep, lower blood pressure, reduce depression amongst many benefits. However, as the well known contemporary meditation teacher Jon Kabat Zin states “it is the hardest thing you will ever do.”
Honestly, it is boring and repetitive and can be slow to yield the benefits everyone applauds. Most of us enthusiastically download apps and hope to become competent meditators but after a short time we give up because we do not feel anything apart from boredom and distraction.
But meditation ultimately is a very simple process. You choose to settle the mind on something other than thinking. You might choose to focus on the breath, sound or a picture. Each time you notice that the mind has wandered you kindly and gently bring it back to your object of focus. You do this again and again.
Training the mind is like training muscles in the body; it takes regular practice, repetition and discipline.
A few meditation hacks for beginners and long time practitioners
If you would like to start a meditation practice, start small. Between five to ten minutes every day is better than 30 minutes sporadically. Sit on your cushion no matter what.
You will find that you need to meditate most when you do not feel like it. No expectations! Just be in the present moment with each sensation. Find a group to meditate with and discuss your difficulties as this will encourage you to persevere.
I once asked my Buddhist Master if yoga was really worth the time. Would it be better to meditate instead? He said that yoga is a great way in. It is really hard to sit with the mind but yoga does the preliminary work for you. Yoga teaches you to be mindful and focussed. It teaches you to be still.
Many yoga poses calm the nervous system so that you are primed to meditate. I find that after my daily yoga practice I can sit more easily without the agitation that arises without my practice. If you have tried to detox the negative thinking with meditation without success, I suggest that you start with a yoga practice.
You can also try this exercise from the late Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hahn. Repeat to yourself:
Breathing in, I calm my body.
Breathing out, I smile.
Dwelling in the present moment,
I know this is a wonderful moment.
Vanessa Shribman is a Senior Iyengar Yoga teacher, Buddhist Meditator, Holistic Physiotherapist and Childbirth Educator. She teaches Beginner-Intermediate Yoga classes, Therapeutic and Back Care Yoga and Prenatal Yoga and Birth Skills at the Body Voice Centre Footscray.
