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Meditation

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Meditation for Beginners

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Learning Meditation

Sit upright with your right leg on your left leg. Place your right hand on your left hand. Let your right index touch your left thumb. You can sit with or without a cushion on the floor. Feel free to adjust your sitting position until you feel comfortable.

Close your eyes very gently as if you are about to fall asleep. Relax every muscle in your body--from your eyelids to your cheeks, your chin, your shoulders, your arms, and your legs, down to the tips of your fingers.

Free your mind from all kinds of thoughts. Drop all your personal baggage of duties, worries, and problems. Assume they do not exist for now.

Breathe in deeply and gently exhale three times. Imagine that you are sitting happily alone in the universe. Indulge in peaceful solitude. Tell yourself you deserve happiness, and this is your relaxation time. Also imagine that the inside of your body is hollow and transparent--with no internal organs. To keep your mind from wandering, imagine that a crystal ball is floating in the middle of your stomach.

For this purpose, you can use other neutral objects that you’re familiar with such as a scoop of ice-cream, a football or the moon. Make sure not to strain your eyes or force an image. Just visualize as you comfortably can--and relax. In meditation, you see with your mind, not with your physical eyes. To keep thoughts from entering the mind, recite the words “summa arahung” “summa arahung” which means the virtuous path toward freedom from all evils of the mind.

Recite the words as if you’re humming a song while quietly observing whatever scenery there isat the center of your body. If thoughts arise, there’s no need to fight against them. Let thempass through the center of your body like a passing view that you happen to see from the window of a moving train. Accept thatthey are present but don’t take them to your heart or think further.

"> Alternatively, you can choose not to visualize anything at all and simply observe whatever you see at the center of your body without making any judgment or emotional response to it. Whether you see darkness or bright light or anything else, just accept it without any thought. Depending on the degree of stillness and clarity of your mind, after a while you will experience a sense of peacefulness and refreshing joy as if you’ve come out of an inner spa.

It is a nice practice of compassion to end your meditation session by spreading the inner peace and all the good feelings that you’ve received to all living beings regardless of their race, nationality and faith, and even your personal feelings:

“May all living beings have a share the peace and happiness that I have received from meditation, whether they are in my country or anywhere else, whether they are a member of my race or any other race, whether they are a follower of my religion or any other belief system, whether they love me or loathe me, whether they see me as a family, friend or foe. May this air of purity resulting from the meditation dissolve all the anger, sadness and suffering in their hearts. May those in pain be free from suffering and those already happy be happier. May people of all races, nationalities and faiths live together in peace, forgiveness and compassion.”