Meditating (How-to)
The Sole Purpose of Meditation
Think about this: suppose you are at work, diligently focused on your task, when a co-worker pops in to ask a question. You stop what you are doing to answer the question, but once complete, what do you do?
Do you return to your task or say “f**k it, I’ve been interrupted; I can’t go back to work now!”
Most of us return to our task, but when it comes to meditation, we assume that if a random thought pops into our mind, the whole meditation is ruined.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
If you get nothing else out of this section, understand this: meditation is not about clearing your mind of random thoughts, it’s about recognizing those thoughts and saying, “That’s not what I’m focusing on now.” When first starting to meditate, you may run with a thought for a full 10 minutes before recognizing you’ve been distracted.
That’s ok.
Meditation’s sole purpose is to recognize that you’ve been distracted. Whether that takes 5 seconds, 5 minutes, or 5 hours is irrelevant. Your incessantly chatting monkey mind is the annoying coworker to your meditation. You don’t have the authority to fire this coworker, but you do have the authority not to give it your attention.
No one, absolutely no one sits through an entire meditation session without letting their mind run off with a random thought. Let’s suppose such a person did exist, though, a Tibetan Monk able to keep their mind clear for hours at a time. You both sit down to meditate for 10 minutes, and at the end, you’ve caught yourself multiple times getting distracted while they maintained their focus entirely. It could be argued that you got a better workout because you did more reps. You exercised the part of your brain that identifies random, non-productive thoughts more than they did.
Why Meditate At All
Who cares?
We’ve already established that your meditation will always be filled with identifying and redirecting random thoughts, so why bother?
Let me ask you this:
Have you ever said something stupid you wished you hadn’t as soon as the word left your mouth?
Have you ever been in a disruptive environment where you wished you could have 5 seconds to think?
Have you ever struggled to think through a difficult situation with focus and intent?
I’m betting the answer to at least one of those questions is “yes,” and that’s where meditation helps.
It buys you space. Meditation trains the mind to identify and ignore random thoughts and refocus on the task. After all, random thoughts are just rogue electrical impulses in the brain, much like static electricity on a cold, dry winter morning. They appear they get your attention, then you refocus.
Meditation has health benefits as well. Meditation can help lower blood pressure, reduce anxiety, decrease pain, ease symptoms of depression, and improve sleep. So now the big question: how do I meditate?
How To Meditate
First, you’ll need a large robe, preferably dark red or burgundy, a mountaintop retreat, and a signature chant phrase from a spiritual leader at the quest’s end. Shaving your head is optional but highly recommended.
I’m kidding, but that’s how I viewed meditation before beginning the practice. There are multiple types of meditation and multiple ways to meditate. I’ll explain the common ones here, or if you’re impatient, skip to the bottom for the TL;DR (Too Long, Didn’t Read).
Focused Meditation
Focused Meditation involves using any one of the five senses. It most commonly involves focusing on the breath: feeling your belly expand on the incoming breath, feeling it collapse on the outgoing breath. After a few breaths, you’ll realize that you are no longer thinking about your breath and that your mind has run off in some random direction. That’s ok: drop the thought and return to the breath.
Movement Meditation
Movement Meditation uses gentle forms of movement to focus your mind. Yoga is a popular example, but it can also be done with walking, qigong, or musical instruments. I’ve been using this one recently with my guitar. I’ll pick a piece of music and play it from memory or sight reading. Sure enough, as soon as my mind wanders to something else, I start missing notes. This has been helpful because the incorrect notes provide immediate feedback that I’m not focused.
Mantra Meditation
This is what I perceived as meditation before learning differently. It’s the “Ooooooohhhhmmmm” meditation. It’s commonly used in Hindu and Buddhist traditions. It uses a repetitive sound (“ohm”) to clear the mind.
Spiritual Meditation
Prayer, anyone? A deep prayer is a form of meditation. Think about it: during prayer, you are deep in thought and highly focused on connecting with your spiritual being of choice. When random thoughts appear, you shove them aside and resume your prayer. I’ll be damned; that sounds like meditation to me!
Transcendental Meditation
Just don’t. You may be shocked that I have pretty strong opinions on some things.
Transcendental Meditation is the Pyramid Scheme of Meditation. It does have positive benefits, and it works… but. Search for it on Google, and you’ll end up in a quagmire of “Transcendental Meditation introduction” centers that offer to help you with the process. For a fee, they will “help” you get started and “learn more about you” to identify the “perfect” mantra for your meditation. Here’s the ugly truth they don’t want you to know: they have a spreadsheet of mantras and randomly give you one from the list once your credit card charges successfully.
TL;DR
“Cool story, bro. Just answer the question. Use [Headspace] or [Calm]. They both have free versions and are available on iPhone, Android or from your computer. I’ve used both successfully for years and have nothing negative about either. Both have a “getting started” track to help further clarify the points I’ve made here, namely, “Yes, you’re gonna get distracted, and yes- that’s ok.”
Today’s Tasks
Look at that! We get to add another task to our daily task list! Starting today, we’re adding meditation to the list. It doesn’t have to be a marathon 4-day fast + meditation from a remote mountain top —just 10 minutes. And if you spend 9 minutes, 45 seconds of those 10 minutes wondering if you’ve ever bought milk from the same cow twice, that’s perfectly ok.
- Drink 1 gallon of water
- Workout for 45 minutes
- Read ten pages from your book
- Stick to your meal plan
- Meditate for 10 minutes
Once completed, head to the tracking site and mark them as completed to track your progress for the challenge. Tomorrow we will talk about goals, but avoid the self-help guru bullshit that usually accompanies it.