Mindfulness Meditation: Finding Your Inner Peace
This article seeks to dispel the mystique and complexity associated with meditation that prevents people from benefiting from the effects of meditation.
It is believed by many eastern philosophers that western humanity lives in sleepwalking condition, utilizing between 3% and 5% of our total brainpower. Our natural tendency is to absorb life instead of live it. In fact, since we live in a relatively unconscious manner, we may never be where we actually are! Meditation can remove us from a customary state of awareness and allow a new perception, a more objective awareness, to flow into our consciousness. The aim is to nurture an inner balance of mind that allows us to confront all life situations with greater stability, clarity, understanding, and even wisdom, and as a result behave in an effective way. Meditation also relaxes and heals our bodies. It promotes mental efficiency, creativity and intuition. Spiritually, meditation enables us to let go of day-to-day hassles and allows our soul to focus onto its higher purpose.
Although there exists hundreds of meditation techniques, some more complex than others, there are two fundamental schools of meditation. In the first, you are taught to focus your attention on one thing whether it is an external object (i.e., a flame, a mandala, a sound, the activity of one's hand) or an internal state (i.e., a thought, an image, a breath). This uni-point type of meditation is what Buddhists call shamatha practice. This type of meditation is used for promoting calmness and transcendence into a deep level of consciousness.
Mindfulness is the other major category of meditation, known as vipassana, or insight meditation. In this practice, you begin by cultivating calmness via uni-pointed attention, but then you move beyond this by incorporating the scope of a curious observer. When thoughts or feelings come up in your mind, you don't ignore them or suppress them, nor do you judge their content. You simply observe them as they pop up in a moment-to-moment awareness. You can then note the flow of your thoughts as well as any feelings that are associated with them. So instead of trying to focus on an object or an internal state in order to minimize distracting thoughts, mindfulness does the opposite. In mindfulness meditation, you don't ignore distracting thoughts, sensations or physical discomfort; instead you focus on them.
Paradoxically, the process of incorporating these passing thoughts and images into your awareness can lead you to feel less caught up in them and provide you with a clearer understanding of your reactions to everyday stress. By observing your thoughts and feelings as a witness, you can grasp what is on your mind in an uninhibited fashion. In this way you may gain insights into how you perceive the world. You also live each moment as fully as possible.
The key to mindfulness is not so much what you focus on but rather the quality of the awareness that you bring to each moment. It is vital that you observe what is happening in your mind and body in a moment-by-moment experience as a silent witness and without judgment. By being more in touch with every single moment, without trying to get somewhere or change something, you are living in the present. Achieving an awareness of present moment can be difficult for many people who oscillate between past experiences and future events. Instead of contemplating about what happened before or what will happen later, concentrate on what you are thinking, feeling or doing right now.
Jon Kabat-Zinn, Ph.D, who directs the Stress Reduction Clinic at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center has successfully taught mindfulness meditation to well over 6000 medical patients. He has extensively studied the short- and long-term effects of his program and reports that participants note significantly fewer medical symptoms and psychological problems as anxiety, depression, and hostility. People report feeling more self-confident, assertive, and motivated to take better care of themselves and more confident of their ability to respond effectively in stressful circumstances. Furthermore, they also feel a greater sense of control, a greater sense of meaning in life and an enhanced feeling of connection with the world.
Mindfulness meditation is then a natural process where you are truly conscious, aware and attentive in your daily activities. This means that you can actually practice mindfulness meditation in any activity that you are performing whether it be eating, walking, or washing the dishes.
If you wish to learn a meditation technique, beware of the programs that hail magical cures when all other approaches have failed. Instead, look for a sensible and straightforward way for you to better deal with your life or illness. You can start today on your own by being in the present moment more often and being mindful of an activity that you are doing. In order to maintain motivation to keep meditating, it may be helpful to seek out a group of people who are also committed to regular practice.
One effective method of applying the mindfulness practice in a group involves practicing a hatha yoga stretch. This is a gentle but powerful form of body-oriented meditation that can help you to attend to your breathing and to the various physical sensations of lifting, stretching, and balancing.
Mindfulness is best thought of as a way of being, rather than as a technique. The following yogi saying summarizes the true spirit of mindfulness: "You can't stop the waves on the surface of an ocean, but you can learn to surf."
© Stephane Bensoussan, M.A., Holistic Psychologist, 2004
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