Don't Think About It

I have gone around in circles in my poor overworked brain trying to find how to best explain meditation as it exists for me.  Once again, I finally stripped away all of the pontificating and realized in its simplest form meditation is teaching yourself not to think.

I know my comment is a bit of an over simplification, but its a start for discussion purposes.  I once believed meditation was about concentrating basically on nirvana and it would happen!  Silly human!

Meditation is about clearing your thoughts.  Emptying your fears.  Removing your stress and anxiety.  Eliminating your anger.  All of these are self inflicted and caused by our very hectic work-a-day lives and our interpretation of events and people we have interacted with up to this point in our lives.  Only after you can do this can you open yourself up to the love and appreciation you deserve and thus be able to give that love to others.

So, how does one meditate?  Well, again I was confused by all of the "rules" when I first started.  Sit in Lotus position.  Keep your eyes only half closed.  No noise.  Focus on your breathing.  Etc., etc., etc.  I sorted out for myself that; a) Lotus position doesn't work for me - I'm old and have bad knees!  b)  closing my eyes completely when I can works well for me because I have the attention span of a puppy!  Also, sometimes I need my eyes wide open because I meditate will driving.  Closed eyes, even partially, do not work while you are driving and is highly frowned upon by police officers everywhere.  c)  And finally, I do not need to focus on my breathing.  Once I get into my meditation and free my mind, my breathing becomes relaxed all by itself.

To clear my mind I need a visual.  I pretty much see everything in my head as a picture, even words.  I also love nature and seeing it in my mind.  So, to begin my mediation, I see all the current stresses, fears and items causing anger in my life as a bunched up cluster of clouds.  They are sorta gray and have each item printed on the side of a cloud (I know, strange, but it works for me!).  I watch and focus on relaxing and clearing my mind.  The clouds begin to each float away separating from the cluster and rise higher and higher.  Eventually they are so small they appear to be just white fluffy dots surrounded by a vivid blue sky.

Now my mind is clear and I have "un-thought" my stress, fears and anger.  How do I know this works?  Because I am happy.

Each of us must find our own natural way of clearing our mind and allowing peace and self-acceptance to enter our being.  I hope you start this journey and I wish for you only tranquility and love.

Namaste

We can never obtain peace in the outer world until we make peace with ourselves - Dalai Lama