A Brief Introduction to Meditation
by Gary Halperin
Yoga and Meditation Instructor
The chosen point of focus can be called the anchor—the anchor of the meditation.
Some possible anchors are breath, sounds, sensations in the body, what you see with the eyes closed, a prayer, affirmation, or mantra.
What the anchors have in common is they are all things that are happening all the time. And if something is happening all the time, it is happening now. It is a present moment experience.
So meditation is the practice of being aware of when the mind moves off a chosen point of focus, or another way of saying that, is that meditation is the practice of being aware of when the mind moves at of the present. When the mind moves out of the present and you notice that, you come back to the present by coming back to the anchor.
The most important idea to remember when meditation is this: How long you stay on your anchor in between wanderings off the mind and overall during the course of the meditation is not important. You are still going to get the benefits of meditation, simply by having an anchor and having an intention to come back to the anchor, when you notice that you are off it.
For some people, this is a difficult idea to take in because for most activities you learn how to do them and then the next question is how do I get good at this, how do I do this right, how do I achieve in this activity.
But meditation is a different type of activity, it is not about doing, it is about non-doing. It is not about achieving, it is about non-achieving, it is not about results, it is about process, it is not a performance.
So when we meditate, we choose an anchor and we make an intention to come back to the anchor when we notice that we are off it. We don’t try to stay on our anchor and we don’t even try to notice quickly when we are off the anchor. When we happen to notice we are off our anchor, we gently come back. And it is through that process and that mindset, that we are going to get the benefits of meditation.
Some benefits of meditation are relaxation, stress reduction, improved decision making and increased appreciation for life.
Let’s see how meditation can help with stress reduction. When we meditate we focus on process and not results. Whenever, we do that in our life, focus on process and not results, we are going to bring down our stress in whatever we are doing, because we are focusing on what we can largely control: what we are doing in that moment in front of us. Instead of what we largely can not control: the results of any activity or what others might say about what we have done.
So when we meditate, we choose an anchor and make an intention to come back to the anchor when we notice that we are off it. The process is all in our heads. No one else knows what we are thinking about and no one else cares. It is our own private and personal experience. In that environment, can we practice giving ourselves a break, can we practice taking the pressure off.
And for some people, this is very difficult. So even knowing the ground rules going in, they’ll start to meditate, notice they are off their anchor, and then start having thoughts like “Oh my god I am off my anchor, I don’t know how long I have been off my anchor, I don’t know how to concentrate, I must be doing this wrong.” Those are normal thoughts to have when you first start meditating. All you do, is notice that you are having those thoughts and then come back to the process, come back to the practice, come back to the present, by coming back to the anchor.
In this way, you can make the meditation practice itself a very low stress or non-stress experience because you are not trying to do or achieve anything. Then you take that philosophy out into your life where you choose to. Applying the principle of meditation of focusing on process and not results into your life is called the practice of mindfulness.
For example, let’s say you are swimming in a pool. You can either be having continuous thoughts like “am I going as fast as I normally go, I am burning enough calories, is there chorine getting in my hair, am I going to be late for my next appointment.” Or you can notice that you are having those thoughts, and then come back to the process of swimming itself, focusing on your arms and legs moving in the water, focus on your breathing in the water.
Again, whenever you do this, focus on process and not results, you are going to bring down the stress in whatever you are doing. Meditation gives us an opportunity to practice and experience this philosophy.
Gary Halperin is a certified Kripalu Yoga Teacher and Holistic Lifestyle Teacher and the creator of Deep Yoga & Meditation, designed to bring a practitioner to a profound level of inner peace. His audiotape "Deep Yoga & Meditation for Stress Reduction and Relaxation" is available at http://www.angelfire.com/wv/DeepYogaMeditation.