A Beginner’s Guide to Meditation (Balance)

Balance.Media, 1/27/18; Ananda (Dharma Buddhist Meditation), CC Liu (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

A BEGINNER’S GUIDE TO MEDITATION (AND WHY IT’S NOT AS HARD AS IT SEEMS)

Mindful meditation (Cathy Thorne/HuffPost Life)

Let's debunk the myths so we can take a few minutes out of our day to enjoy some ultimate "me" time.

Only hippies do meditation, right? They sit cross-legged on groovy cushions and chant while a CD plays whale music. Well, no, actually.

There’s nothing weird about meditation at all. Mean Ellen DeGeneres sums it up perfectly when she likens it to fixing a computer: "Sometimes, when it goes crazy, you just have to shut it down and, when you turn it back on, it’s OK again," she says. "That’s what meditation is."

So how does one meditate? Just sit and relax. A straight back is good, but that can be done with a chair. Sit cross-legged if it appeals – but no one has to. Now "concentrate" [lightly put attention on an object, and lightly bring it back if it drifts off, while abandoning everything else but the] breathing.

When does something like this happen?

Breathe in all the way down, down, into the lungs. Then breathe out simply by letting go, nice and slowly. Drop everything else. Forget about it. Just attend to one thing, this thing, the breath at the tip of the nose.

Don’t think it’s being done wrong if the mind is active. With practice, it’ll be able to clear the head and push other thoughts away as they arise. When will that be? Stop worrying about it; let go. It doesn’t matter. There isn’t really a "right" or "wrong" way. More