Meditation: Beginners Guide

 

It does not matter if your personality is inward or outward, all types are suitable for practicing meditation.



Many extroverts feel that they are active and meditation is too quiet and boring. In fact, it is a misunderstanding that we associate meditation with introverted and a withdrawn personalities.

An extroverted person may practice meditation, and there may be fewer words, but this is not because their personality has changed. It is just that their heart has experienced precipitation. They do not have much to express and release, but they can still be an extroverted person. In other words, whether your personality is introverted or extroverted, you can be an inward walking person.

People who practice meditation regularly are those who walk inward. They can gain insight into the truth of things, increase their wisdom, improve their ability to judge things, and make their lives full and meaningful.

So, don't worry about the suitability of your personality anymore, just practice first!

 


Before meditation, the most important thing is sitting posture

First, find a relatively quiet room that is not easily distracted. Sit on a chair or directly on the floor. It is best to put a cushion on the floor.

Jack Kornfield, who is a Buddhist and a meditation teacher, once asked: "Sit quietly like a king and a queen." During the practice, keep your body straight and hang your hands naturally or on your legs. Go up, relax your shoulders, open your chest, and relax your abdomen.

 


Practice the basic skills before meditation-daze

Practicing in a daze is to allow us to adjust our physical state, reduce our body's sensitivity to the outside, reduce the activeness of our thinking, and make it easier for us to calm down.

It is easier for many people to be in a daze with their eyes open than with their eyes closed, anyway, I am like this. Let’s start with the simple things. Normally, people are most likely to be in a daze when they stare at something that seems to be non-seeing. So the current training in this area is mainly focused on seeing the object. Practice making yourself staring in a daze.

If you practice in a daze that seems to turn a blind eye to hearing and not listening, you will be successful. Then practice closing your eyes in a daze, because the initial meditation practice is basically carried out with your eyes closed.

The basic skills are learned at this stage when the exercises are completed with closed eyes in a daze.

 


Beginners must learn: the inevitable view of breathing

Close your eyes and concentrate on feeling your breath. Just focus on your normal breathing style. You don't need to change it deliberately here. Just follow a certain breathing style or rhythm and just be yourself. When your thinking is chaotic, breath is your beacon, it always leads you.

Now start to count your breaths, count one breath, and one breath. After counting to 10, return to 1 and count again.

This process is to help you connect your brain to your breathing. When you are inattentive or distracted, you have to count again and try again and again. In the end, you will be able to grasp your breathing rhythm without passing the count.

When counting your breaths, you must let yourself be in a very relaxed state, otherwise it is easy to breathe fast and slow, and the rhythm is unstable, which is easy for novices.

You can relax by taking a slow and long deep breath. When you inhale, all the breath from your lungs is inhaled, the lower abdomen is closed, and all the breath from the abdomen is expelled. When exhaling, expel all the breath in the body.

You can complete 8 deep breaths at a time, which can be performed alternately with ordinary breathing.

 




"When meditating, what should I think?"

Meditation is not about blanking your brain and thinking about nothing. In fact, you can't do it without thinking about anything. When you want to blank your brain, this thought has already taken over your brain.

After focusing on breathing for a period of time, you can slowly begin to observe how your body feels. For example, your legs may become numb after sitting for a long time. At this time, don't rush to change your position, continue to feel it, feel the feeling it brings you, allow this feeling to exist, focus on this feeling, and connect with them. Remember at this stage, no matter what you experience, still keep feeling the breath.

After paying attention to your body's feelings, you can proceed to observe your own emotions. You may feel sleepy, tired, bored, anxious, painful... Don't mistakenly think that you interrupted meditation just because you feel this. You are still meditating, and everything you feel is part of the journey. Recognize these emotions, find their origins, don't fight them, they come from your heart, and being with them is very important to release and practice.

Emotions rise and dissipate. Then you need to observe your own thoughts. Thoughts often appear after emotions. For example, you feel sudden irritability. After irritability, you will definitely think: "I have not finished a lot of work at hand, so it is special. Be irritable!" After observing your own thoughts for a long time, you will slowly know how your brain thinks and how your own thinking patterns are formed. Will you be better at listening to your inner voice, or will you be fettered by your thinking shackles?

In the end, these thoughts come naturally and leave naturally, and you just observe them without indulging in them.

Using meditation properly, you will not only get the release of stress but also feel the beauty of living in the moment. If you persist in practice, you will gain nuanced observations on your mind, body, emotions, etc., so that you can truly become the master who controls yourself.

When you are the busiest, the most anxious, the most depressed, and the most exhausted, try to practice meditation to return yourself to the bottom of your heart. You may get unexpected gifts.

 

Burhan Altaf

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