Suggestions for beginner

Spirituality
#1

I’m trying to establish a daily meditation practice at home but I don’t know where to start. I have meditated before but under no particular form or instruction – just simply sat with my eyes closed and focused on my breathe.

Can I do just that? Do I just to sit in a particular way? What should a beginner know? What do you guys recommend for me to read? Practice?

When meditated I would sit on a chair/bench, I tried meditating in lotus but it extremely painful for my ankles and I experienced an immense amount of discomfort. I also do vinyasa yoga, so that’s also my form of meditation.

#2

There is no set way to meditate exactly, every body is different and what works for one may not work for another. If the no form meditation proved useful and helpful to you then by all means continue on. However if it didn’t and you are just starting out, try yoga journal.com they have pod casts of meditations, that could at least start you out in determining what type of meditation style works best for you.

#3

I can give you some ideas to begin, and then you can take what you like and forget the rest. As a starting point, it will do you well to find a comfortable seated or kneeling position. It is very important to have a straight spine, so the position you take will need to allow for that. Easy pose (sitting cross legged) may work for you. It sounds like lotus pose did not work so well (doesn’t work for me either…I couldn’t force my way into it if I wanted to). Comfortable is the key word…if easy pose doesn’t work you can try vajrasana (thunderbolt) pose which is kneeling. In thunderbolt you can put a cushion between your sit bones and your heels if you need to take some of the pressure off of your knees…also sitting on a cushion or bolster in easy pose is an option. If you can’t find a comfortable position in any of these with a straight spine, then sit on the end of a folding (or sturdy) chair with your feet planted on the floor and your spine straight. Palms can rest on your thighs facing down, and if you like you can touch your thumb to your index finger on each hand. Tilting your chin slightly towards your chest seems to aid relaxation. In yoga, meditation is not emptying the mind and it is not pushing thoughts away. In yoga, we talk about a one-pointed mind…focusing our awareness on the one object of our desire. This may sound easy, but in practice it is very difficult. Most people tend to have a ‘monkey’ mind, with thoughts bouncing around and numerous distractions. This is the reason that in our yoga practice we constantly bring the awareness back to the breath. As the mind and the awareness begins to wander, we return the awareness to the breath…the fastest way to come back to the present. In this way, we are cultivating a one pointed mind…training the mind to be one pointed. Your meditation will be similar. I would begin by bringing the awareness to the breath, and think about relaxing with each exhale. Inhale long deep and slow through the nose feeling the abdomen expand in all directions like a balloon, and exhale long deep and slow. Acknowledge one of the thoughts bouncing around in your mind on the inhale…let it go as you exhale. Keep working at this…acknowledge a thought on the inhale…let it go on the exhale. It’s difficult if not impossible to explain what meditation is…but one way to think about it is being an impartial witness. You are witnessing your physical self without judgment…your mind is clear (not empty…rather without the distractions of the monkey mind).

That’s probably a lot to process, but maybe it will give you a place to begin.

One other thought to consider is that when we wake up in the morning, if you were to close off one nostril at a time…you will most likely find that one of your nostrils breathes much easier than the other. We tend to breathe through one nostril much more dominantly than the other…and this switches back and forth throughout the day every 2-3 hours. Now consider this…after you practice yoga, check your nostrils. Most likely you will find that both nostrils are very open at the same time. This is the time for meditation…when both nostrils are open. You can also look up analom valom (nadi shodinen)…not sure about the spellings exactly…but they are two names for the same thing, which is alternate nostril breathing. This simple daily exercise does so much for opening the nostrils, energizing the body and I think will help you with your meditation.

Best of luck to you…it’s not really something you can try harder at. If we really get to the heart of the purpose of asana (postures)…the purpose is to open the body so that we can sit comfortably for meditation. They really go hand in hand…so keep up your yoga practice…as you stated that is your meditation…and also work on ‘sitting’. For now, maybe it is just ‘sitting’…but if your intention is correct you will get to where you need to be (or you are already there).

Hope this helps

Namaste

#4

[QUOTE=ohthemaya;70519]I’m trying to establish a daily meditation practice at home but I don’t know where to start. I have meditated before but under no particular form or instruction – just simply sat with my eyes closed and focused on my breathe.

Can I do just that? Do I just to sit in a particular way? What should a beginner know? What do you guys recommend for me to read? Practice?

When meditated I would sit on a chair/bench, I tried meditating in lotus but it extremely painful for my ankles and I experienced an immense amount of discomfort. I also do vinyasa yoga, so that’s also my form of meditation.[/QUOTE]

Perhaps; don?t read, discuss or practice meditation with anyone, forget about ?establishing? forget about ?focus on my breathe?, if lotus does not agree with you sit crossed leg?experiment from that which rises spontaneously from within, see where it takes you before outsiders fill you head with conceptual nonsense.

#5

Ohthemaya,

As a beginner, there are a few things which may be helpful to understand. The first is that all of the postures that have been used for sitting meditation have a scientific function. They were intended as helpful tools to induce a meditative consciousness. If you adjust your body in a particular way, this can help to create a certain atmosphere in the mind where meditation can start blossoming. For now, when sitting, try to sit with an erect spine. This will help the electrical signals to travel more smoothly to the brain, and will create a mental attitude of being attentive. But the physicality of it is really not the essential thing, what is essential is your inner space. You can sit in a perfect posture, motionless like a statue, but within yourself there is a great storm happening. This is not true silence. The first thing that I would suggest is to come to a thorough understanding, one which is without a doubt, that the spirit of meditation lies in your witnessing. Whether you are concentrating on your breath, a mantra, a yantra, a chakra center, it is not very much relevant. What you are witnessing is not relevant, the object of your concentration is not relevant, what is relevant is that whatever you are witnessing, to witness things in the moment with neither attraction nor aversion, neither liking or disliking, without judgement. The moment you start becoming clinging to whatever you are experiencing, you have lost your contact with the Witness, your clarity has become clouded. When witnessing the breath - when you see that your mind has become distracted from the present, just gently notice it and bring your attention back onto the breath. Allow nothing else to enter into your perception - just a steady, unbroken, one-pointed stream of concentration onto the breath. Practice consistently, everyday if possible. The minds programming will not cooperate so easily, it just wants wants to follow whatever has been written on it. So dont expect from a single sitting, that you will see some kind of great change. It needs consistent practice - even if it is just five minutes a day, but five minutes of sincere and whole-hearted involvement.
Eventually, with consistency, if you have been practicing in the right way - one day your concentration will transform into meditation. The mind will become silent by itself, without even your doing anything. It will be a spontaneous silence, coming without any warning. That is what meditation is - it is a silence of the mind which arises by it`s own nature, you cannot do it, you cannot force it into existence. The only thing that can be done with your effort is to prepare your inner space for meditation, but meditation itself is an effortless happening. Practice. Time is short, and flies by like a flash of lightning. Everything in life is in a constant state of change, the river is always moving, nothing is permanent. Seize this rare opportunity of human birth to enter inwards and discover something within you which is birthless and deathless.