Simple meditation, no Buddhism required

It had been a long time since I last meditated. And then I am talking to a woman and she says she wants to take up Buddhism. Anything in the world is fine by me, I think, as long as it does some good. And what it is called — Buddhism, NLP, psychoanalysis, the Distance course — what difference does it make! But I ask her what for. It turns out the thoughts in her head give her no rest, and rest from thoughts is exactly what she wants.

She wants to replace them with spiritual thoughts, through meditation. That is how she arrived at the idea of Buddhism. If it is only a matter of finding rest from your thoughts, there is a simpler approach than taking on a whole religion. Meditation has long since entered the lives of advanced, strong people, and it goes by many names. In NLP it is called "putting yourself into a TRANCE". At Sinton it is called "Calm Presence". Being "Here and Now" can be heard in a great many places. So anyone who wants to try freeing themselves from cares and thoughts by brute-force hacking can read the user manual in Dan Millman's book "No Ordinary Moments". There is a chapter there called "The Gift of Meditation". I will try to convey its meaning in plain words.

The technique of meditation

1. RELAX, sit comfortably, find a quiet place to yourself. Put the phone well out of reach, hang up a "Not now" sign. Not against people as such, just so that nobody distracts you for the duration of the meditation.
2. The main thing: choose ONE OBJECT OF ATTENTION and focus on it for a long stretch of time. Or on one and the same kind of object, if they keep changing.
3. Holding your attention on the object, watch your thoughts from the outside, LET THEM GO and do not follow them. There are two sides to this: observing your own thoughts, and not reacting to them. It takes effort and persistence, but you will definitely like the results)
4. Keep it up for 20 minutes and it will get very entertaining indeed.

What can meditation look like?

Completely different things. It does not have to be the lotus position:

• You are driving along the motorway. They say people are at their happiest while driving. I would say at their calmest. Because they are relaxed in the seat and focused on the road. That is meditation.
• You take a box of matches, open it and start pulling the matches out one by one, laying them out on the table in a little fence. Once all the matches are on the table, you put them back into the box one by one, in reverse order. Tried it? That is meditation.
• You are walking down the street. Instead of thinking about work, family and shopping, you carefully count the windows in the buildings you pass. That is what is called "being here and now", and it is meditation too.
• In the middle of a conversation you let your gaze go soft, picture a pleasant background behind the person you are talking to, ask yourself to speak with them in the most agreeable way possible, and step into the flow of the conversation. Along the way you marvel at where this gift of the gab has come from) That is meditation.
• You are listening to music. It is calm, rhythmic and you like it. That is it, you are in meditation.
• You are sitting in the sauna counting your breaths. You have to count up to 100 in-breaths and out-breaths. Catch yourself losing count or being distracted — start counting again. That is meditation!
• You are humming a song in a steady rhythm. That is meditation!
• You are playing a computer game, and really absorbed in it! That can be meditation.
• Tying your shoelaces or washing up, like any household chore, can turn into meditation if you do not let your attention wander off into your thoughts. Just be here and now, with this chore and nothing else.
• And of course you can sit in a cave in the lotus position and spend half a year like that in Tibet. That is meditation too, but why make such sacrifices when there is an easier way?

If you do not believe it, just try watching a video for 5 minutes, listen to some music, and describe how you feel at the end. Did you manage to free yourself from the negativity, the anxiety or the cares of the day?

What is not compulsory in meditation:

• Eyes half closed. Or closed. Or open. As you can see, it does not matter.
• You do not have to sit. You can stand, lie down, run. What matters here is deliberately holding the position of a detached observer of your own thoughts, not relaxation.

What happens during meditation and afterwards?

Let me describe how it felt after my first attempt, which lasted 25 minutes. I sat down on the bank of the Danube, chose a leaf on the nearest tree as my object of attention and stared at it.

• For the first few minutes it is hellishly hard to keep your attention on the leaf. It sways in the wind, you want to take a look at the other leaves. Then you get bored, and the sounds of passers-by distract you.
• After a couple of minutes I can hold my attention. Thoughts came crawling in. Things to do at home. Problems, resentments, work, brrrrr.... Then fantasies came crawling in. All sorts, out of boredom) And this is the very essence of meditation. Noticing that my attention has wandered, I bring it back to the object without judging myself — back to the leaf on the tree

I imagined that I had dived under water and was sitting on the bottom, looking up. My thoughts are fish. They swim up and swim away. My job is simply to follow them with my eyes, stay where I am and not swim after them. Just to track one thought-fish until it dissolves in the blue of the water, and then wait for the next one
From the meditation

• Another couple of minutes and the fun begins. VISION suddenly widened. I am looking at my object, the leaf on the tree, but I can clearly see cars and trams moving across the distant bridges to the left and to the right. HEARING suddenly sharpened. I can distinctly hear both the cars and the children behind my back.
• That is how some 10 minutes pass. Or 15. Or 20. At some point I decide to get up and go home.
• On the way home my state is this: pour a bucket of water over me and I would simply shrug and walk on. Complete equilibrium. And it is not couldn't-care-less. It is simply the absence of the cares and questions that make you not care. AN EMPTINESS that makes everything light and simple, because there is nothing to think about. That state lasts about 30 minutes, then the routine takes over. But I still remember that experience, and I had it 8 years ago))

According to Dan Millman in "No Ordinary Moments", if I had not stopped, what would have followed next are hallucinations, visions, ideas and inspirations. And if you come out of that stage too, you can reach Emptiness, Nothingness, transcendental Being, the great Silence. Dan also writes that mastering the skill of Meditation takes months if not years. Only the lady who came to me was not looking for Emptiness and the great Silence; she simply wanted a rest from her thoughts. And that can be done straight away, on the very first attempt. So do not sweat it)

A few recommendations to finish with

But if you do want to sweat it, you can follow Dan's further recommendations:

• Better to meditate for a few minutes every day than now and again.
• If you meditate, do it in one and the same place. So that the habit forms.
• And do go to the loo first, so that nothing distracts you, all right?
• Since meditation is not a race, why give yourself marks for how well you perform in it?
• In meditation thoughts are debris floating on the surface of a river! There is no point grabbing hold of it or clearing it away! The aim is not to stop the thoughts, but to let them flow freely past.

And a simple exercise, "Candle meditation". Once restless thoughts have paid you a visit, simply:

1. Put a candle in front of your face and light it. The distance from the candle to your face is 30 to 40 centimetres. That this is not an invitation to set fire to your hair or the tablecloth goes without saying.
2. Breathe in, breathe out, a little deeper… A comfortable position for the body
3. Look straight at the flame, and keep it up for up to three minutes.

It can be simpler still. At your desk, choose a spot and stare at it for three minutes. See how simple it all is? Enjoy an easy, effortless meditation, friends)))