Mediation and Self-Improvement for the Beginners Mind

Let's look at a few other definitions:MedicineNet.com -

Meditation: A self-directed practice for relaxing the body and calming the mind.

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language -
A devotional exercise of or leading to contemplation.
A contemplative discourse, usually on a religious or philosophical subject.
Collins Essential English Dictionary -
contemplation of spiritual matters, esp. as a religious practic

So we see that there are two main definitions of meditation: one of a religious practice and one secular. Which came first?

It's easy to see how meditation could have started. It is widely believed that it began with hunters staring into the fires. I'm not sure if that's the same kind of meditation we speak of today but it's certainly along the same lines. Haven't you ever sat and stared at a camp fire? It's definitely one of the most hypnotic things to do. Listening to a babbling brook or birds in the forest can do the same thing. The idea here is that you begin to lose focus on all the maelstrom of thoughts that are constantly going through your head and begin to turn your thoughts inward.

Let's see how varied (and yet similar) the ideas are that people have about what meditation is:

Luthar.com says:

Some people equate repeating a mantra with meditation. Others say that if you focus on the in-going and out-going breath, that is meditation. There are people who believe that you must be able to sit cross-legged in the lotus position with a straight spine in order to meditate effectively.

Having meditated since early childhood, I can assure you that this is not true. Inviting aches and pains by sitting in a lotus position will not lead to a peaceful mind. Meditation, after all, is about relaxation and peace. Having peace, or recognizing the peace within, is meditation. What takes us away from being peaceful cannot be meditation. Whatever brings us peace is meditation.

From a Soul Searching:

meditation is concerned with how we relate to all our experiences, not about inducing specific sorts of experiences. In essence, meditating teaches awareness of whatever happens and allowing our experiences to come and go without judgment. In this sense, meditation is profoundly ordinary. There is nothing extraordinary or exotic about it...

From http://www.chinapage.com/zen.html:

Meditation refers to contemplation, generally, the contemplation of both the body within and the living principle of Buddhism.

The Tai Chi master Jou Tsung-Hwa once said:

"The Chinese term for meditation is Ching Tso, which translated means sitting still with peaceful mind. Meditation is the training of the inner senses of the body and mind. It is as rigorous as the training undertaken by an athlete or an artist.... By helping us to think clearly and concentrate fully, Ching Tso enables us to commune totally with our God, with distracting or artifical thoughts. ... The highest and most advanced goal of meditation is to gain enlightenment. We want to go beyond the limitations of our knowledge and our three-dimensional view of the world. Our goal is to perceive fully the fourth dimension and understand our relationship to it."

Meditationiseasy.com says:

Zen meditation is the technique which gradually takes us to the state of absolute stillness and emptiness.

The real answer is that you have to experience meditation to know what it is and it's different not only for every person but for every time you do it! It is like the thought that cannot be named. Defining what meditation is requires putting words to an experience that doesn't exist anywhere else.

For now, just think about meditating and then start. You'll naturally progress as you go. The last thing you want to do is put an expectation in your mind - that'll be just one more thing for you to worry about! For part 1, we're going to explore three basic steps.

Books are a great way to learn about Buddhism, guided meditation, transcendental meditation, meditation techniques or anything else about self-improvement.

I've chosen a few excellent books for you to start with. You can see my whole list at My bookstore

Please post any reviews for any of my book selections below or at Realizing {Me}.

What are your favorite books on meditation?

1. Concentrating
   
2. Meditating
   
3. Contemplating

Concentrating is when you try to focus your mind on one thing. When someone asks you, "What is 3 times 12?" you have to concentrate on the answer to know it is 36. Something as simple as that doesn't require much concentrating but what if someone asks you, "Why do you love your mother?" You could take a short time or a long time to answer that. The deeper you go into it, the more and more you realize just how deeply you really feel about your mother. If you are very relaxed and get lost in your thoughts, you're actually starting the next step - meditating.

Meditating is a relaxed focus. It is awareness of something - or everything. It is listening to the thoughts in your mind without thinking them. Confusing? That's because meditating is not something you can really explain. You have to experience it to know what it is. It's like trying to explain the color green without using any examples of anything that is green like grass. How do you explain it? You really can't. Once you see it though, you know green from that point on. Luckily when you follow the steps that have been practiced for thousands of years, your body and mind will automatically follow. It really does want to relax. You just haven't been letting it.

A Swami is a Hindu person who spends a lot of time practicing meditation. One of these people is named Swami Vivekananda. He explains meditation like this:

"Meditation has been laid stress upon by all religions. The meditative state of mind is declared by the Yogis to be the highest state in which the mind exists. When the mind is studying the external object, it gets identified with it, loses itself. To use the simile of the old Indian philosopher: the soul of man is like a piece of crystal, but it takes the colour of whatever is near it. Whatever the soul touches ... it has to take its colour. That is the difficulty. That constitutes the bondage. The colour is so strong, the crystal forgets itself and identifies itself with the colour. Suppose a red flower is near the crystal and the crystal takes the colour and forgets itself, thinks it is red. We have taken the colour of the body and have forgotten what we are. All the difficulties that follow come from that one dead body. All our fears, all worries, anxieties, troubles, mistakes, weakness, evil, are from that one great blunder - that we are bodies. This is the ordinary person. It is the person taking the colour of the flower near to it. We are no more bodies than the crystal is the red flower. The practice of meditation is pursued. The crystal knows what it is, takes its own colour. It is meditation that brings us nearer to truth than anything else. ..."

What the Swami guy is trying to say is that we have deluded ourselves into thinking that our body is us. It is not. Meditating will bring you back to realizing who you really are.

So what is contemplation? Well, that one is even harder to explain. Do you remember the first time you rode a bicycle? You knew the steps that you needed (don't fall, steer straight, pedal) but you didn't really know how to do it. After you practiced for a while, your mind learned along with your body and a part of your mind and body took over from there. This is essentially how you contemplate. You train your mind to focus on just being so much and so often that eventually it just is. Your mind feels like it actually is the Universe!

To put it more simply,

• Your normal mind is all over the place, so it is no where in particular and jumping everywhere.
  
• Concentrating puts your mind in one place but it fights to get out.
  
• Meditating expands your mind into feeling all the things but not getting lost in them. It allows you to feel the Universe inside you and outside you.
  
• Contemplating shows you that you really are the Universe.

Here is a great book to start learning about meditation.
 

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