Meditation Motivation

 

09.09.2022 MEDITATION MOTIVATION Why, really, should we meditate?  “I think it changes,” Daniel Goleman recently told me, when I interviewed him and co-author Tsoknyi Rinpoche about their new book Why We Meditate: The Science & Practice of Clarity & Compassion. (It releases in December but is available for pre-order now.) He went on: “I know for me, I began meditating because I was an undergraduate and I was uptight. I was anxious. It calmed me. It helped me focus.”  Tsoknyi Rinpoche, too, has had experiences of anxiety, and notes that while meditation can indeed help us to work with worry and stress, that’s just the beginning: “Through the technique of meditation, you connect with the original state of your being, and whatever stress, whatever anxiety, slowly, slowly, starts to open up. And then, when you open up, you find real  peace—calm, relaxed, and open. And that is actually your real nature. And then that nature shines out, as a compassionate action to other people.”  So the effects of this small act of quieting down and paying attention really can add up to something big. All we have to do is… do it. Which sometimes seems easier said than done. So this Lion’s Roar Weekend Reader is all about reminding us all (I know I need constant reminding) of not just the why of meditation, but of meditation’s doability.  May the teachings here be of encouragement and support to you, whatever your reasons for meditating might be at the moment.  —Rod Meade Sperry, digital editorial director, Lion’s Roar (PS: My complete interview with Tsokyni Rinpoche and Daniel Goleman will be shared on The Lion’s Roar Podcast, and will include Rinpoche’s guided instructions for “dropping,” a practice that gets us ready for meditation by helping us drop out, so to speak, of our thinking minds and get in touch with our bodies. Look for that on the Podcast in the near future.)

You Can’t Meditate Wrong Barry Magid says Buddhist practice is like looking in a mirror — there’s no wrong way to do it. The important thing is to be yourself. A technique is something we can do right or wrong, well or badly. True practice is about being grounded in a place free from these dichotomies. So we need to frame our practice in such a way that we do not get lost in dualisms of right or wrong, progress or the lack of it.

The Science of Meditation: What We Know (And What We Don’t) While people have believed for thousands of years that meditation works, the search for scientific proof is just beginning. The team at Greater Good Science Center assesses the current state of the evidence — what we do, don’t, and might know. The science behind mindfulness meditation has often suffered from poor study designs, lack of funding, and small effect sizes. As a result, there is still a lot we don’t understand about mindfulness and meditation. Here’s a rundown of questions that seem fairly settled, for the time being, and questions researchers are still exploring.

How to Meditate Every Day Diana Winston on committing to meditation practice. Featuring her “Ten Suggestions for Having a Regular Daily Practice Even if You Would Rather Be Thrown into a Shark-Infested Ocean.”  If you don’t meditate regularly, you have good excuses. You’re like most people. It makes you wonder if you should even bother. But you should bother, you definitely should bother, and here’s why.

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