Meditation


There are dozens of meditation techniques that will effectively give you freedom from meta-level robotic machinations. Two of them appeal to me for their easy access to that freedom and their nondogmatic approach. Its ironic because they both derive from religions that are thousands of years old.

The Buddhist Approach

My experience is that the effect of falling into flow is identical to the experience created when practicing a certain Buddhist meditation. It is about getting involved in the moment. The Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh describes it best, in my opinion. He says we can experience mindfulness by simply repeating to ourselves that we are doing what we are doing. We can evoke the experience at any time. ˜˜Sitting at the keyboard, typing, I am aware of sitting at the keyboard typing. Or even, ˜˜Breathing in, I am aware of breathing in. Breathing out, I am aware of breathing out. Instead of allowing our attention to float to wherever our minds meta-level wants to take it, we direct our attention to what we are doing.

This sounds easy, but in fact most of us tend to drift . It sounds perhaps even of low value. After all, what magic can ensue by saying to ourselves that we are doing a certain thing and that we are aware of doing it? Well, its actually pretty special. Try it, for twenty minutes or so. Youll probably discover yourself forgetting to direct your attention to what you are doing. But when that happens, simply go back to verbalizing (out loud or to yourself) what you are up to and that you are aware that you are up to it. After the twenty minutes there is a great chance youll notice a favorable effect on the chatter racing in your head and your consequential feeling of centeredness.

Hindu Meditation

I learned to meditate using a mantraa sound I repeated in my head when I was nineteen years old. This was meant to be the easy kind of meditation. One doesnt have to try hard to concentrate with a mantra. All one has to do is catch oneself forgetting to repeat the mantra and casually go back to the repetition. You close your eyes, relax, and start repeating the sound, at whatever frequency feels comfortable. You could use the sound ˜˜im (as in ˜˜chime), or ˜˜ima, or any sound you wish. Fifteen to thirty minutes of this, once or twice a day, can yield some interesting effects.

After a few thousand hours (no kidding) of this kind of meditation, it became clear to me what was happening. Essentially the chatter stops when you have some place to put your attention. The mantra became the attention-grabber. Now, you might ask, why in the world did you spend so much time learning how to stop your chatter? My answer is that the experience of being awake without any stuff going on in your head is pretty nice. Meditators often call it ˜˜ transcendence , meaning simply that they rise above the normal chatter and feel peaceful. There are plenty of favorable physiological effects that have been well documented. They include reduced blood pressure, improved immunological responses, better ability to concentrate on work and study. There is no doubt that quieting the mind is good for you.

But it also feels good. While reading these pages, you have probably more or less been concentrating on the messages and periodically having a few private thoughts along the way. You have been judging whether you like what you are reading, how it applies, how you agree or disagree whatever. You and I have been on this little journey together. But, if you close your eyes for a minute, youll see that your thoughts take off on their own. Earlier we labeled those thoughts chatter. We said they are generated by the meta-level function of your brain. They judge, they produce the sense of self, they are the source and the conscious experience of emotion.

Now, imagine these thoughts stopping. Youre still awake. But there are no thoughts. Whats left? What is consciousness without thought? Thats an experience of closed-eye meditation. When your eyes are open and you are engaged in activity, then its a very pleasurable engagement. When your eyes are closed and you are experiencing no thoughts, you fill with joy. If you let yourself focus too much on that joy, it fades. The more you direct your attention to it, the more it fades. The ideal experience is to just experience.




Face It. Recognizing and Conquering The Hidden Fear That Drives All Conflict At Work
Face It. Recognizing and Conquering The Hidden Fear That Drives All Conflict At Work
ISBN: 814408354
EAN: N/A
Year: 2002
Pages: 134

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