Practice paying attention to what is happening right now.
These days, meditation is gaining mainstream popularity, from dozens of meditation apps to the Netflix show Headspace, as well as through tens of thousands of academic papers on meditation. Meditation can reduce stress, provide health benefits, and help you be more aware and in control.
Meditation lets you observe your thought patterns and emotions in real time, reduce reactive responses, and change your behavior. Finally, perhaps the ultimate benefit of meditation is that it can be a path to liberate you from Ego Delusionβthe idea that there exists a βyouβ thatβs separate from the world and is subjectively more important than everything else.
There are multiple ways to meditate, including mindfulness meditation, body scans, walking meditation, Oshoβs dynamic meditations, nondual meditations, and more. You can meditate with your eyes open or closed, in silence or guided, and even while engaged in other activities, like doing the dishes or conversing with people. The ultimate benefits of meditation are realized when itβs not done as a separate practice but rather integrated into your everyday life.
One of the most common forms of meditation is mindfulness. To practice mindfulness meditation, start by setting aside some time. Ten or twenty minutes is fine, but if youβre low on time, even five minutes can be beneficial. Sit with your eyes closed and observe what is happening moment by moment. Your objective is simply to notice everything that happensβthoughts, feelings, physical sensations, and soundsβwithout judgment and without holding on to anything that catches your attention.
Youβre not trying notΒ to think but rather to just notice your thoughts and other phenomena such as feelings and sensations. If you catch yourself lost in thought, gently return to the practice of observation. And if you find that youβre judging yourself as βnot meditating well enough,β simply observe that as another occurrence. It might be easiest, especially in the beginning, to meditate using a recorded guide or an app or even to attend live meditation sessions.
Attention is like a muscle, which meditation builds. The best way to build and maintain that muscle is with daily practice. Even a short meditation, repeated daily, is better than a long but sporadic one. As mentioned above, there are various ways to meditate, each with unique characteristics. While itβs good to have a core practice you can rely on, itβs also worthwhile to experiment and find what attracts you at any particular time. See Tools 6.2 and 6.3Β for a few suggestions. Whatever you choose, try not to restrict your practice to formal sessions; this tool is meant to be integrated via short yet meaningful mindfulness moments throughout your day.
Remember, meditation is a life-long practice: itβs not something you achieve and forget about. There are always higher levels of awareness to be reached in the present moment.
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