Meditation Class1: Discovering Your Own Personal Operating System

Meditation...mindfulness...you've heard these trendy words, but what do they actually mean?  What are we talking about when we're talking about meditation? You've probably heard someone, maybe even you, say: "Go meditate on that" as if meditation is simply a synonym for "think about it." Well, ironically it's a synonym for "don't think about it." 

You could say the whole point of meditation is to get over thinking, especially that long hot shower mulling over something. You could say meditation is about finding out what you think isn't worth the paper it's printed on. It's just a lot of heavy baggage weighing you down. You could say this getting rid of baggage is why meditation is known to be en-lightening.

Here's a good example. People believe, often with dismay, that meditation is something Buddhist, something "religious" like Catholic mass, so they don't try it because they don't want to get near religion. That's the idea they carry around and operate on when in fact the Buddha who brought us meditation, based on the available Hindu spiritual technology of his time, wasn't a Buddhist himself. That word was invented more than two thousand years later by Europeans, searching for a way to equate this "exotic" practice they'd found in Asia with something very familiar back home.  Buddhism....Catholicism.... Protestantism ...Mohammedism ....Judaism.....  The Buddha called himself a teacher. (I think of him as a spiritual Sherpa.) The Buddha clearly said over and over: "I simply teach how to tame your mind." And he did/does it by just telling us how he managed the job.

So if you like your religion you don't have to give it up to meditate and if you don't like Religion, you don't have to fear finding it all organized in this practice. Think of it as mind science because that is actually what it is.

In case you can't believe me, let's try a very basic introduction to genuine meditation. Push back from your computer and sit in your most comfortable chair in the most comfortable position. If you can, cross your ankles and rest your hands on your thighs. Do not close your eyes but do let your mouth open just a tad so it isn't pinched.  Once you're comfy, set a timer for 60 seconds. One minute. One minute that could change the rest of your life.

Now all you have to do for 60 seconds is sit still and notice that you are physically breathing. Breathe comes in, burrows, then leaves your body. Over and over this happens, has been happening since the second you were born. So just sit there and notice what you forgot. Sit, see and count every breathing cycle: one in, burrow, out; two in, burrow, out....  That's it. Just do that for 60 seconds, no cheating because it's only yourself who will lose, and let's see what you discover.

 ..................... .............................. ............................... .........................

I'm going to bet you got as far as two, maybe even a heroic four breathing counts before your attention bolted for tomorrow or yesterday or maybe even ten minutes ago. Instead of paying attention to what your body is actually doing right now, you were reliving the past or plotting the future. In retrospect you can see attention deficit.  Your operating system was not paying attention to how you are operating. Your mind--your thoughts and awareness--were like a riderless wild horse galloping all over the range. If I am right, you just discovered that while you sat there, your mind took off, meaning your entire life has been an out-of-body experience. That is why the Buddha said: I teach how to tame your mind. If I am right about what happened to you, you just discovered how incessantly you daydream. That's why Buddha literally means: one who is awake.

If you found this helpful, tune in again. Lesson 2 will explain the process for meditation and what mindfulness means.




~Sandy Garson "Wordsmithing to attest how the Dharma saved me from myself!"
http://www.sandygarson.com
http://yoursinthedharma.blogspot.com/
Technorati Tags: Yours In The Dharma, Sandy Garson, Dharma, Buddhist, Buddhism, Spirituality, Meditation, MIndfulness. Religion This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 License.
Click here to request Sandy Garson for reprint permission.
Yours In The Dharma 2001-2010, Sandy Garson Copyright 2001-2010 Sandy Garson All rights Reserved