How To Meditate

To practice meditation is not difficult as long as you understand the reality of meditation. The word "meditation" may have different connotations for different individuals. What does it suggest to you? To me, meditation is all about reality - the reality of life. Lao Tzu, a great Chinese philosopher, said, "The truth always sounds paradoxical." Believe it or not, you are living in a world in which everything seems to be real, but not quite. How is that?

The past is no longer real: It is gone forever. However, memories may still linger and continue to be "real" to you. In fact, your future, as well as your present, may be controlled by the very quasi realty of the past. For example, you make your decision based on your past and present thoughts.

To illustrate, you just received an instruction from your supervisor to perform a certain task. The instruction was in the past, and is therefore no longer real. However, you project the quasi reality into the future: You see yourself performing that very task in the next ten minutes or so. In other words, you have conjured up a "reality" in your mind's eye, which is not real. Indeed, anything could happen between the lip and the teacup, as the saying goes. Therefore, the future is not real, though it may look "real" to you. To sum up, the past is not real, and neither is the future.

What about the present? The present may seem "more real" to you just because you are actually experiencing it in your mind. But even the present may not be "totally real" in that the present is adulterated with past and present thoughts, making your mind confused and interfering with its function. In addition, every moment changes with the moment. What seems real to your right now immediately becomes a thing of the past as soon as you mind begins to process that thought.

The objective of meditation is to separate the past from the present, or the present from the future, and to distinguish the real from the unreal. The result is to make the present "more real" to you so that you may be in a better mental state to discern the truth. Meditation gives you mind a meaningful "break" in that it helps you focus on the present to the exclusion of the past and future thoughts. Because your present is always inundated and intertwined with thoughts of the past and future, your mind is not functioning optimally. However, through meditation, your mind is geared to concentrate on only the present. It is this concentration on the present that gives your mind the relaxation it rightly deserves.

Once you understand the reality of things, you will get a handle on how to practice meditation.

1. Choose a quiet place and sit comfortably. Wear comfortable clothing. Do not slouch or else you might tend to sleep, but sit with an erect back to keep yourself fully awake. You must be fully aware of your surrounding but without being self-conscious. This is the paradox.
2. Focus your eyes on a distant object. You can focus on a candle flame, a decorative object in the room, or just about anything. Look intently at that object of choice, and focus your mind on it.
3. Breathe naturally. Notice your breathing in and out.
4. Start counting "ONE" after you have finished breathing in and breathing out, and repeat the process, counting "TWO" and so on until you have finished a set of "FOUR." Repeat the process as long as you want.
5. If you mess up your counting, begin "ONE" afresh.
6. During the process, past and future thoughts may come up. Gently dismiss them by focusing more on your breathing.
7. Gradually, you will notice that the things around that object of focus will begin to blur. Your mind has become conscious without being self-conscious.

This is just one of the many basic ways of practicing meditation. You can meditate with your eyes closed, you can meditate while walking, while waiting for the bus, and you can meditate while you are eating or even while you are driving (focus on the driving, not listening to the radio or the music). The important thing is to understand how it works - seeing the reality of things, separating the real from the unreal.