How to Meditate In an interview with Lion’s Roar, Thich Nhat Hanh, the renowned teacher of mindfulness, praised the benefits of meditation. “The practice of meditation helps us to release the tension — within the body, within the mind, within the emotions — so that healing can take place,” he said. And yet we can still find it difficult to prioritize meditation. Perhaps we think we don’t have the time, even though a simple meditation practice can be done in as little as one minute. Maybe we feel we don’t have the necessary “props,” even though all we need is our breath and a place to sit. We might also worry that our mind is so busy that the practice won’t work, but meditation is just that: a practice. The truth is, you can’t fail at it. Whether you’re an experienced meditator struggling to keep up with your practice, a beginner finding it hard to stay on track, or you’ve never meditated before, our “ How to Meditate” page should give you just the inspiration you need. There you can learn how to meditate, practice along with guided audio, understand the benefits of meditation, and have your questions about cultivating a consistent practice answered. You’ll find our page below, along with a teaching from Pema Chödrön on how meditation makes us better people, and a guided video breath meditation practice. We hope these resources help you along your journey. —Lilly Greenblatt, Digital Editor, Lion’s Roar |
|
Beginner meditation techniques are simple; if you can breathe, you can meditate. In this step-by-step guide on how to meditate, we answer your questions.
Before you learn how to meditate, it’s helpful to know what meditation is. The most common form of meditation is breath meditation, or mindfulness meditation, in which you bring your attention to your breathing. While breathing in and out, observe when and how your mind wanders to thoughts — for example, everyday stresses of relationships and work — and then return your focus to your breath. By learning to continually bring your attention to your breath and releasing your thoughts without judgment, you are training your consciousness to remain in the present moment. Making this a habit can lead to an emotionally stable state of mental clarity.
|
|
Yes, it’s a strange thing to do — just sit there and do basically nothing. Yet the simple act of stopping, says Pema Chödrön, is the best way to cultivate our good qualities. Here are five ways meditation makes us better people.The fourth quality we develop in meditation is something I’ve been touching on all along, and that is the ability to become awake to our lives, to each and every moment, just as it is. This is the absolute essence of meditation. We develop attention to this very moment; we learn to just be here. And we have a lot of resistance to just being here! When I first started practicing, I thought I wasn’t good at it. It took me a while to realize that I had a lot of resistance to just being here now. Just being here—attention to this very moment—does not provide us with any kind of certainty or predictability. But when we learn how to relax into the present moment, we learn how to relax with the unknown. |
|
Dan Zigmond leads us through a guided breath meditation practice to settle fully in the present moment.Whatever you were doing before you came to sit meditation, whatever you need to do afterwards, whatever you have going on the rest of today, tomorrow, this week, this month, or this year — nothing is more important right now than giving your full attention to this moment of sitting and breathing. If you can give your full attention to this moment, you can give your full attention to the next moment, and the moment after that, and the moment after that, and the moment after that. Giving your full attention to every moment, whether difficult or joyous, is what it means to be fully awake and fully alive.  |
|
|
No comments:
Post a Comment