How did you rate your first real taste of beginner’s meditation experience?
- Did you find it challenging?
- Did it disappoint you?
- Did you ask yourself, “what is the big deal about meditation? It did nothing for me”
- Did it inspire you?
- Did it leave you wanting more?
- Or, did you feel, “It was ok. But this isn’t the right time to get into meditation. I’ll do it later when I have more time”.
All these experiences mentioned above is what I went through when I tried my first meditation and yoga meditation classes for the first time back in 1997.
As a teacher of mindfulness meditation and vipassana meditation here in Barcelona, I would say that the purpose of meditation is personal transformation.
The key letter I want to emphasise here is ‘s’ in meditations. There are MANY types of meditations available to us. Some meditation practices are as old as the hills – going back millennia. While, even today, teachers are ‘inventing’ meditations (and relaxation techniques) as we speak.
What meditations have you come across?
Identifying your Meditation Goals
The questions you want to ask yourself if you want to try meditation for the first time or (if your present practice feels stale) and you want to try something new are:
1/ What do you want to gain from meditation?
2/ What type of practice could be more congruent with your persona?
This is the starting point.
Answering these questions can guide you to the type and style of meditation you can absorb at this point of your life. If you can honestly answer these questions, it will save you a lot of time and frustration and will avoid killing your desire to invest time in something unique that will be a real ally for personal transformation.
So, some pointers to your persona:
- Do you tend to do a lot of multi-tasking (whether your good at it or not), or can you focus one task at a time?
- Do you tend to react very easily, or do you have a higher tolerance to absorb people’s ‘stuff’?
- Do you find it difficult to be still or can you be comfortable sitting or standing patiently?
- Do you have a lot of mental chatter that wears you down or can you blank it out?
- Do you need to talk and need company, or can you comfortably say nothing & be by yourself?
- Do you struggle to relax before sleeping (& stay asleep), or can you generally fall asleep through the night?
If your answers are leaning more to the first scenarios of the above questions, then doing unguided, strict disciplinary and deep concentration (or traditional Eastern) practices will be a step too far for you – but only at this point in your life! This is important to emphasise this. Therefore, consider that the purpose of your meditation is more about relaxation, feeling calm, learning to be more present within your body and being able to sleep better.
Choosing the Right Type of Meditation
If any of the above (first) scenarios exist in your present state, then definitively I would encourage you to seek meditations that is guided and trying out a few different styles. including: mantra or chanting meditations, walking meditation, sound meditations, journaling, heart practices, mindfulness meditations and even yoga (ideally that has a meditation component to it).
Doing any of the above-mentioned practices is what I would consider to be ‘low hanging fruit’ for you to achieve and really taste your progress along your journey.
Why is this important? This will help you gain a taste of how your body and mind react to being exposed to these powerful practices. Also, it will build up your experience. String a few weeks (say equivalent of 3-6 months) of a solid practice under your belt. Get into the rhythm of having a practice carved out in your schedule.
More importantly, you will have a sense of how your mind and body react when you do these practices. What emotions and feelings arise during and post session when you do these practices? Write these down in a journal, read an inspiring book and go to bed with a feeling of being relaxed, a sense of accomplishment and notice the sensations in the body. Then, in the morning, wake up with affirmations or intentions, do some stretching and do another meditation.
Personal Transformation: What Can It Look Like?
You will notice that you begin to be moulded by your practice and you will start to accrue the benefits of your practice with a dedicated practice. You will begin to see a shift in yourself being more patient, less reactive, more generous with your time and presence and you will have a bit more energy and confidence. This means you will be shifting from scenario 1 to scenario 2 situations in the questions mentioned above.
After a few months, you will know if you want to carry on with the same practices and really deepen into them and continue to feel relaxed and calm. Or try to move into practices that are more subtle as a practice but that will require a sharper mind and strong connection with your body. These skills will be taught as part of the training of these practices. However, the purpose of these practices is not about relaxation and being calm. They are more about exploring your body-mind phenomenon, understanding “impermanence”, “the nature of suffering” and how to free yourself from “suffering”. So, these are more about detoxing the mind, identifying, and dissolving your “limiting beliefs” and learning to “dissolve the ego”.
And why would you want to do these types of meditations? It’s because your thirst for what is the meaning of this life and understanding what the “ultimate truth” is will be insatiable. And what is the ultimate truth? We do not exist!
But that, my friends, is for another time…
“What you will be tomorrow will be result of what you are now”
(Dhammapada)
What next?
If you want to do a mindfulness meditation course that explores a range of meditation practices, consider purchasing the on-line 8-session programme that is available from: https://meditacionyogabarcelona.com/meditation-video-course/
If, you need guidance to establish a practice or to get help along your existing practice then consider doing private sessions. Contact Edward Niembro at: [email protected]
If you need advice on how mindfulness can be incorporated in a working environment, have a look at www.mindfulimpacts.com to see how meditation and business can mix well together.
Feel free to pass this information onto someone who you know could benefit or is struggling how to navigate the mindfulness meditation minefield!
With loving-kindness
edward
