Meditation for beginners?

I don't even know where to start with meditating. I don't know what I should be doing or what I should be experiencing. Someone please help! I feel as if meditation is crucial for a healthy spirit but I don't even know how to do it!

 

A simple basic meditation is to breathe deeply and attempt to move your breath throughout your body...with each inhale you breathe health into your body and with each exhale you feel your body relaxing inch by inch as the healthy breath reaches it...

With your thoughts you allow any thoughts to come about like clouds and with each breath they are blown away...don't stop to think about or focus on any of the thoughts just let them come and go...

same with any pain or discomfort in your body...breathe and notice, then breathe release.

 

Go to meditation classes in your area. Or do a search here.

 

I have never heard such a simple, BUT DEFINING explanation of how to meditate! AWESOME!

Not meaning to hijack the discussion, my two cents worth:

How I started - found a Youtube video of Meditation For Beginners by Jack Kornfield. While he tells you a story about a ritual in an African village, you don't realize your slipping into meditation (or rather you don't notice he's guiding you into meditation). Before you know it, a little bell goes off, and you realize 20 minutes have passed! Next he takes you deeper, teaching you other methods. HIGHLY RECOMMEND IT.

Peace

 

Thanks Jaxty, and that Youtube sounds very interesting. I'm going to search for it.

OP, have you tried meditation yet?

 

Going to be trying meditation.soon myself. Thx for the info

 

I will tell you the meditation where you start, where you continue, and where you end.

It comes down to simple sitting up straight. Legs crossed (not lotus, unless that's no effort). Your back can rest upon something like a backjack, or pillow. In resting, you are not reclining, but taking some strain off the lower back. You should sit tall, but without straining. Now your position is like this, sitting cross legged, tall, with some bolster for lower back, hands folded in lap. No other specific bodily detail is important. Eyes can be slightly open, or closed.

In the meditation texts it is said that merely sitting tall and straight alone opens the bodily centers and nerves and lets them straighten out and breathe.

Now, only do this, let the mind hover amidst the body. No attention given to breath, heartbeat, or anything in specific. Just given to whatever arises. Bodily sensations, thoughts, feelings, let them come, as the mind becomes attentive to them, just be there with these things. Then as they go, let them go.

This is the entire meditation. You would do this in the morning after bathing, before eating. Once a day. 30 minutes. Every day, though you can take two days off per week.

That's it. What benefits? Inner parity, unity, awareness.

Nothing magical about that, but having more inner parity, unity and awareness means you will have more choices in your life, and you will act from a truer place, and thus your life will have more freedom, and be more integral.

That's worth the time and effort.

Any person who can run can walk, and anyone who can walk can sit, and anyone who can sit can rest, and anyone who can rest can meditate. Meditation is ones inherent state.

This is the supremely unmodified meditation which gets to the root of them all. Anything else is just for those who cannot allow themselves to be but need toys.

 

Agree. Jack Kornfield is an excellent teacher. I have his book on insight meditation.

 

You might try the circulation of white light . This is one method of many that I posted on the now closed Pavlina forum . http://www.stevepavlina.com/forums/psychic-paranormal/68328-circulation-white-light.html desert rat

 

check out my meditation music here, http://jacobstordahl.bandcamp.com/album/shatterd

it could help you alot with beginning!

 

3407LOVE

THIS person couldntve made it sinpler
stick with this.

i suggest lying down first time

 

www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5kHrbgGL_o"]Leela Mata: Traumyoga - YouTube

 

There are two components of the simplest meditation techniques. There's concentration (falling in love). Then there's mindfulness (being present with moment to moment experience as it arises into consciousness).

Concentration means paying attention to the object of focus and merging with it. It can be the breath as it enters and leaves the nostrils. It can be a line of a song, a repeated word or a visualization of a waterfall or deity. It helps if it's something you can fall in love with. Something that invites deep loving absorption.

Mindfulness means that, when you get distracted, you take note of the thoughts or emotions distracting you. They are processes happening in the moment. Use the word "thinking" to recognize a thought if that helps. Thoughts are the waves and you are the ocean. You are the sky and these processes are the clouds moving through you effortlessly. You are the impartial observer. Do this, then bring your attention back to the object of focus. Mindfulness builds equanimity.

The only other ways meditation techniques differ are the warm up practices you use to prepare the mind and body for meditation (yoga stretching, a few deep breaths, breathing exercises or prayer for instance) and the ways you integrate meditation into daily life (chant throughout the day, periodic stretching, gratitude work every hour, etc).

When you experiment with techniques, always note the object of focus and the element of mindfulness. This will help you customize your technique. Are you visual? Kinesthetic? Auditory? Experiment with objects of focus and find what you can really fall in love with.

 

:mickey:hi........................
friends,It's not about stopping your thought processes (maybe in a more advanced meditation). I've pratcied meditation since I was in middle school.

I'm not a serious practitioner. I do basic breathing techniques. Here are some simple tips:

Count. Count your breaths. Your heartbeat, sheep. Whatever. Close your eyes and count.
Try meditating in the shower or a bath.
Focus on the back of your eyelids
Whatever thoughts come into mind, accept them and them push them away.

These few things will help you achieve basic meditation if you do them for a few minutes at a time until you can build up to longer lengths of time.

 

Breathing exercises can help a lot in staying relaxed. If not properly done can cause bleeding. So better go for classes under a reputed yoga practitioner.

 

Desert Rat: You don't happen to be the same Desert Rat who wrote that Food Not Bombs song, do ya?

 

Nothing to worry about it...I've a best place to start meditation, you just go through chamundaswamiji.com and get the all details and knowledge for meditation. Otherwise you can join any healing centre because guided meditation is better for beginners.

 

I would recommend going round to a few groups and go of your gut feeling for what feels right for you at this moment in time – just be cautious as there are a lot of people handing out BS and watch out about getting caught up in dogma and ritual – states of consciousness have nothing to do with being personality, morals etc.

 

Meditation is simple to my mind, but the main thing is "stick-to-it-ness", not giving up even though you feel like you're failing

Find a quiet place to either

A. sit "indian leg" style, sitting straight up with good posture, hands resting on knees
B. sit on a chair
C. lay down prone on your back

Now you get to the actual meditation...

1. Notice your breathe, feel the sensations of your breathing (air flowing through your nostrils, your stomach expanding and compressing) as you...breathe....as in inhale....exhale...inhale...exhale....
2. If a thought* happens, return to step 1 and shift your awareness to your breathe and it's sensations again, learn to let the thoughts go, to release them

*Thinking is not an interruption of meditation. The meditation continues on through the thinking, as you control your awareness and return it to your breathe

Complete doing the step 1 and when you get to step 2, go back to step one, back to the breathe.
You will have to do this over and over. It will get to a point where you're thinking less and feeling the breathe more.

For a beginner, just practicing this for a designated amount of time daily (20,30,60+ minutes) should build a starting base for meditation. You're developing one pointedness of mind (being absorbed in the breathe alone) patience with yourself, mindfulness, and many other attributes.

Meditation is good, if you're going through depression and anxiety, it can be a life saver.

 

You should check this video about meditation for begginers http://www.insightstate.com/practice/spiritual-reality-journey-within/