How to Meditate
Since meditation is built-in, you can just begin any time you like. You can sit on the sofa, or close your eyes sitting there at the computer, or go find a tree to sit under. You need to learn how to let thoughts and feelings flow through your awareness without interfering. And you need to study what you really love, so you can let your love of life carry you into meditation.
The six books we talk about on this site - Meditation Made Easy, Meditation 24-7, Breath Taking, Whole Body Meditations, Meditation Secrets for Women, and The Radiance Sutras - are tools you can use to begin meditation, and sustain, enrich and troubleshoot your practice.
If you want to just immediately begin meditating, take a breath and notice what that feels like. You can start meditating by simply beginning to explore your own experience. If you don't get into a sense of comfort and joy within a day or two, call me and set up a session on the phone or in person, or by email.
In practice, it is often well worth it to invest in some one-to-one instruction. We can focus on where you are in your life and what you need and want out of meditation. You get the advantage of being able to tap into the experience of thousands of meditators over the past 36 years, who have told me about what works and what doesn't work. That's what coaches are for. To help you learn faster.
So – back to reading meditation instructions. There is a slight phase transition between reading what is here on your screen or on paper and meditating. Reading is visual and auditory and semantic. You see words – or, if it is a book on tape, you hear the words. Then you see and hear the words within your awareness, "In your head," as they say. You receive the words internally. We all do this all the time. Internal seing is when you see a mental image or movie. Internal hearing is like when you hear a melody or song in your mind, for in your mind you have both a stereo system and speakers and an audience, which is you.
When you meditate, you change the channels. You don't turn off vision, internal or external, you don't have to turn off hearing, external or internal. Usually, what you do is open up all the senses, with a slight emphasis on inner sensing. When you meditate, what you do is read or attend to all your sensory inputs, including those that tell you of your inner life. There is slight jolt, like stepping onto an escalator, as your senses adjust. When you are reading what is out here on the page, you are using your eyes. Then your brain translates the images into patterns, and you play with those internally. In reading, you are not just using your vision. You may also be using your internal hearing, image-making, and feeling capabilities. So meditating is a way of using your senses, attention to your internal senses of hearing, touch, imagery, smell, taste, and balance.
If you want some coaching to help you get into meditation, or to fine tune your practice, feel free to email Lorin
with any questions you have. We can arrange some training and feedback for you by email, or phone, or in person if you are coming to Los Angeles or I am coming to your area. This is what I love to do, as much as anything in the world - help people learn their own unique way of meditating, that works for them in their daily lives and makes them thrive.
Here is an excerpt from Breath Taking. A simple breath meditation to enrich your sensory experience:
How do you know you are breathing?
Breathing is by nature an intimate act. Atoms of oxygen and nitrogen that have been breathed by other beings on Earth for millions of years come into our bodies, are absorbed by our bodies, and are borne by blood throughout our bodies to permeate every cell. So we are already intimate with breath, and vice versa. And as with any intimate relationship, issues arise that must be dealt with: fear of intimacy, control issues, dominance, coordination, synchronization, and more.
It helps to be grateful, to cultivate gratitude. If we truly appreciate breath, something wonderful is added. If we spy on ourselves, on how we breathe, and make ourselves uncomfortable by being critical—which is, unfortunately, easy to do—then something is taken away: the feeling of freedom, of breathing easily. So let's approach this business of being breath-conscious in a positive way. After all, an intimate relationship should be enjoyable, even if what that means exactly is unique to you. So we are going to approach the breath with an attitude of wonder and gratitude. Wonder includes a sense of inquiry, exploration, and questions. Gratitude is a direct physical experience of pleasure in receiving.
To start, if we were together I would ask you to tell me about breath. I believe there is little need for teachers to tell people things if they know what questions to ask. If someone came to me and said, "Lorin, tell me about breath," I would ask, "What makes you think there is such a thing? How do you know, by direct experience, that there is a process called breathing?"
This is not a trick. You have your own way of being intimate with breath, which is different from anyone who has ever lived. It is shaped by your favorite sensations and by your ability to love. It is limited by your fears, which are based on negative experiences in the past. We can safely assume that you are breathing as you read this, but how do you actually know? What informs you? As you learn from your own direct experience what breath is like for you, then that experience becomes a guide for the next step.
Become Intimate with Breath
Take a minute to entertain this question: How do I know I am breathing right now? Just wonder within yourself. You might want to rest your eyes on this page somewhere, or look at the horizon, or close your eyes completely. You can do this standing, sitting, or lying down. Just don't do it while driving or operating heavy machinery.
After pondering this question for five breaths or so, check how you feel. Do you want to continue? If so, close your eyes and pay attention for 10 to 15 additional breaths.
When you finally open your eyes or focus again, think about what you experienced. If you say to yourself, I could feel myself breathing, exactly what did you feel? What kinds of details did you discern? People meditating say things such as this:
I could feel the air touching the inside of my nostrils as it flowed in. I sensed the motion of my ribcage as it moved with the breath. As I breathed in, my body expanded, and as I breathed out, I contracted. I was conscious of the air sliding down the back of my throat. The flow of breath is very soothing; I felt waves of calmness spreading through my body. When I breathe out, I feel a great relief— I feel the fatigue washing away.
As you can see, the experience of meditation is often very simple, just the sensations of relaxation.
After considering this list of intimate experiences that others have had with breath, become aware once again of your own breath for another 10 inhalations.
Your experience will be different each time you do this exercise, even if you do it every day for the rest of your life. I always discover something new and surprising about breath. Part of this is because I am an explorer, and part of it is because my senses are so open to the world that I am able to perceive differences. What used to seem the "same" to me is now perceptibly different because I have more data.
Here is a format for longer meditations - a gif of a page from Whole Body Meditations.
