Meditation techniques produce precious peace of mind. There are different techniques. Try them. Discover how it improves the quality of your life.
Meditation brings serenity, tranquility and peacefulness. We have a free online meditation series that is suitable for all beginners who are interested in one kind of meditation (namely, Zen meditation, which is called 'zazen'). Our free e-series is suitable for all beginners. It is not only for those seeking an aid to weight loss.
In this section of our website we have pages on:
Meditation: a free e-series course
Meditation for All
Breathing Exercise
Meditation Techniques [this page]
You will find the request box for our free e-series at the bottom of this page. The links to the other pages in the Meditation section are also given at the bottom of this page.
Dissatisfaction
Recall or imagine a time without peace of mind.
Perhaps you failed a test at school, performed badly at a concert, got fired from a job, lost your house, suffered a divorce, experienced the death of a loved one, were diagnosed with a serious illness, or something similar.
How did that make you feel? How well were you able to sleep? Did you rapidly lose or gain weight? Were you unable to concentrate? We've all been there.
Right now, in fact, there may be nothing more important to you than settling down and attaining more peace of mind. It could be that you are suffering intensely, that you are acutely dissatisfied with your life.
Even if you are only mildly dissatisfied, practicing some effective meditation technique or other would help.
Dissatisfaction is the chief reason why people begin meditating. Unless we wanted an improvement, we wouldn't try anything different. If you are interested in meditating, it's because you are hoping that it will be a way for you to live better.
Even if all you want to do is to fall asleep more quickly at night and to sleep more soundly, meditating effectively will help.
How much could meditating help? It depends upon how well you master whatever meditation technique you select. We happen to believe that it is not possible to live well without mastering meditation.
Direct and Indirect Meditation Techniques
The best way to sort meditation techniques is into "direct" (stilling) and "indirect" (flowing, moving).
Examples of direct meditation techniques are: zazen (either following the breath [shikan-taza] or koan training), insight [vipassana] meditation, and rajah yoga. Examples of indirect meditation techniques are: bhakti yoga, jnana yoga, Quaker quietism, The Kabbalah, and estatic prayer. There are many more examples of each sort.
It's impossible to tell in advance which sort would work best for you. Similarly, within one sort it is impossible to tell in advance which specific technique would work best for you. To find out, you may need to experiment with several.
Please consider three cautionary notes before you begin experimenting.
(i) If you are suffering acutely, you may need some professional guidance to work on yourself more before meditation will prove beneficial. If that's your situation, you will be able to benefit from meditation, but there's some preliminary work to do.
(ii) When you try a meditation technique, give it an honest trial before rejecting it. Since it's unlikely that any specific technique will work quickly, guard against being too impatient.
(iii) Avoid sampling two or more techniques simultaneously or combining them into your own unique blend. Unless you happen to be a spiritual genius, this won't work. Instead, we recommend humility. Let a teacher help you.
If you already have a spiritual tradition from which you are not alienated, you may already have access to some meditation technique that might work well for you. [For more on this, see the next section below.]
(You may benefit from a brief retelling of my own story, which my meditation teacher has told me is not uncommon. After reading a helpful book about different techniques, namely, David Fontana's THE MEDITATOR'S HANDBOOK, I took a ten-hour course in a version of tai chi, which I enjoyed very much.
Even though I was soon able to feel the chi move, I didn't feel that I was on a path that would be productive for me. This was in 1994 when my partner in a long-term relationship had just dumped me. Frankly, I was emotionally distraught and impatient for greater relief. When I discovered zazen and began "sitting," I felt as though I'd come home.)
When you have the feeling that you have found a meditation technique that makes you feel as though you have come home, you'll know that you have found a meditation technique that will work for you.
If you are hurting and ready to experiment, let us assure you that there is a kind of meditation that will work for you. The task is to find it and get good at it.
Meditation Shouldn't Be Confused With Religion
A meditative practice is a spiritual or breathing practice. It is neither religious nor anti-religious; it's nonreligious. The only faith required to begin meditating is that the practice might be beneficial.
Some religious practices are similar to some meditative practices.
Those with Christian backgrounds sometimes wonder about prayer: Is prayer an effective meditation technique? It can be. It depends upon the kind of prayer.
Unless they are prayers of gratitude or thanksgiving, most prayers seem to be petitions. "Dear God: bring me salvation or cure Tammy of her cancer or feed the hungry or help me lose twenty pounds or end the war." Petitionary prayer is a request for something the practitioner wants.
Some thinkers have made two criticisms about petitionary prayer. First, it is blasphemous. The practitioner is, in effect, displaying the hubris to be telling the Divine what to do!
Second, it is egocentric. It's always about some outcome that the practitioner desires. Shouldn't the practitioner be thinking solely about what the Divine desires? In other words, it's separating the practitioner from the Divine.
All egocentric desires are poisons!
One way to understand this is that all dissatisfaction is caused by separation. Unless there is something such as health or food or wealth or love or peace or weight loss that you want and lack, you will not be dissatisfied.
Desires require dissatisfaction that is based on separation.
Since petitionary prayer presupposes separation from the Divine, it reinforces that separation. Therefore, it seems counterproductive in terms of curing what ails us. If 'Hell' denotes separation from the Divine, petitionary prayer is a symptom of living in Hell.
On the other hand, prayer that diminishes the distance between the practitioner and the Divine may diminish dissatisfaction. It's called "absolute" prayer, which is prayer the way that mystics pray. Its sole object is overcoming separation by union with the Divine. To live in Heaven is to be one with the Divine.
If so, then, absolute prayer may be one religious practice that is an effective spiritual practice, which is one that unifies.
sidebar quotation from Meister Eckhart: "God's being is my life . . . God's is-ness is my is-ness, and neither more nor less."
To succeed, the mystic lets go of self and unites with the Divine.
Perhaps this is what Jesus meant when he said, "If anyone wishes to be a follower of mine, he must leave self behind; day after day he must take up his cross, and come with me" [Luke 9:23, The New English Bible]. We are not theologians, but we interpret his reference to taking up his cross day after day as his way of referring to practicing daily. (A few minutes on Sunday mornings won't cut it!)
In any case, daily practice of some effective meditation technique is required for living well.
How might this be?
Letting Go of Self
All standard meditation techniques can work because they are all based on the same fundamental idea, namely, that it is we ourselves who are causing our own dissatisfaction. We will live well only when let go of our egocentricity. A meditation technique is nothing more than a way of dissolving the self/other distinction.
A meditation technique is a way of reducing dissatisfaction by promoting unity. A meditation technique is a way of dissolving the distinction between me and everything else.
This is the opposite of gaining anything, of making me (the I, the ego) somehow better. Mastering a meditation technique has nothing whatsoever to do with self improvement; it has everything to do with releasing one's attachment to the self. Self improvement is merely about improving one's gain/loss ratio.
When we are young, we think that gaining is the way to live well. We think: "if only I had X, then I'd finally be living well." 'X' denotes anything desired: improving one's body composition, becoming wealthy, achieving more status, gaining a wonderful lover, living in a beautiful house, and so on. There's nothing intrinsically wrong with any of these things—it's just that gaining them doesn't yield living well.
Notice that, without peace of mind, nothing would make you happy.
All master meditators tell us that losing egocentric attachments is the way to live well. There's nothing to gain.
Why not find out for yourself?
If you begin, though, please do not focus while meditating on the benefits of meditation! In fact, don't think about anything at all; suspend all conceptualizing and story telling. Concentrate only on your practice. Otherwise, your attention will be divided. Overcoming all divisions is living well.
To learn more about meditation and how to meditate for weight loss, simply request our free e-course; the link to the request box is at the bottom of this page. The secret for making any meditation technique work is given in the seventh email.
sidebar quotation from Eknath Easwaran: "Someone once asked the Buddha skeptically, 'What have you gained through meditation?' The Buddha replied, 'Nothing at all.' 'Then, Blessed One, what good is it?' 'Let me tell you what I lost through meditation: sickness, anger, depression, insecurity, the burden of old age, the fear of death. That is the good of meditation. . . "
If you are not engaging in a daily spiritual practice, please consider the benefits of doing so. Meditation works. Investigate this for yourself.
If you are not yet ready for meditation but would like to try something else, see our breathing exercise web page:
If you have not read the first page in this section, or would like to request our free e-course on zazen (Zen) meditation, please click on the link below.
