how to meditate

In the last few episodes, I've talked about preparing for meditation. In this episode, I'm going to give some instructions for the meditation itself.

Of course, there are many forms of meditation. The particular form I'm going to talk about is very good for deepening our ability to concentrate and be mindful. For this form of meditation, we pick a single object to meditate upon. But when I say object, it doesn't have to be a physical object. And in fact, the object of meditation I'm going to discuss is our breathing, one's own breathing.

The breath is a very useful thing to meditate upon. It's conducive to improving mindfulness. And this is for various reasons. Firstly, breathing is something that can happen completely autonomously. We can be totally absent-minded, and our body will keep on breathing. But it's also something that can be completely, or almost completely, under our conscious control. We can bring our full mindfulness to the act of breathing. We can breathe with awareness.

Secondly, the breath coming in and out of the body is right at the boundary of where we normally consider ourself to end. That is, everything inside me is part of me and everything outside of me is not part of me. This might not be the way a spiritually enlightened person feels, but this is the common perception. So the breath is a sort of bridge between the inner and the outer worlds.

Another useful feature of using the breath as an object of meditation, is that it's always with us. We don't need to carry around some physical object. We can meditate upon our breath anywhere: when sitting waiting in the airport, for example. No need to have any paraphernalia with us.

And one last reason why the breath can be a good object for meditation, and that is, for some people, the breath represents a spirit, the Holy Spirit, if you like. Again, it's that bridge between the inner and the outer, only in this spirit sense, it's a bridge between our physical manifest embodiment and the unmanifest world.

So how do we go about meditating upon the breath? First of all, we need to be a little bit more specific about where our awareness is going to rest. Some people like to bring the awareness to the sensations at the nostril, as the air is entering and exiting the body. However, my preference is to bring the awareness to the gentle rise and fall of the belly, as we are breathing.

So, having sat down at your place for meditation and closed your eyes and adjusted your posture, bring full awareness to the in-breath and the out-breath and notice if there's a slight pause between the two. You can allow the breathing to slow down and deepen, but no need to force it. It should be a relaxed breathing.

And now, simply maintain your awareness on the breath. I say simply. Of course, it's much easier said than done. We will be distracted, perhaps by sounds or smells. Most often we'll be distracted by thoughts coming into our head. And when a thought arrives, it captures our attention. And sometimes we can go off in a train of thought for many minutes, before we suddenly realise my awareness is not on the breath. And with that realisation, of course, we bring the awareness back to the breath.

Now, thoughts will come, and it's very important not to be judgemental, not to regard oneself as a hopeless meditator or as a failure. Everyone who sits down to meditate has this experience, of thoughts coming into the mind and sometimes capturing our attention for prolonged periods. Don't judge yourself. Simply – as soon as you notice that your awareness has wandered – simply bring it back to the breath. And that's all we need to do.

If we practice like this, slowly, slowly, our mind will become more concentrated, and thoughts will not dominate us as they have in the past.

Enough for now.