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Calm the bubbling emotions, sentiments, instincts and impulses through silent meditation. You can give a new orientation to your feelings by gradual and systematic practice. You can entirely transmute your worldly nature into Divine nature.
-- Swami Sivananda
Meditation is about getting to know your mind and how it works; a sort of laboratory for observing and training your mind. There are lots of reasons to meditate: better physical health, less stress, better sleeping habits, and of course, personal spiritual growth. People who meditate are generally calmer, more compassionate and have more insight. Meditation helps increase these positive qualities through the non-judgmental observation of your mind. It helps cultivate the awareness that there is more to life than a rollercoaster ride of thoughts and feelings.
There are many ways to meditate, but each one relies on the same thing: mental focusing, or “one-pointed concentration.” That means exactly what the name suggests, concentrating on one thing only. A simple description, and not necessarily as easy as it sounds. Yet it is a process that holds many profound benefits.
No one meditation style is better than another. The style you choose depends on your natural inclinations, and which type of yoga, spirituality, or religion you practice. Choice of style is extremely personal and people often try various methods before settling down to one. Sometimes they outgrow a method, try something new, and recycle back to the style they enjoyed once before, this time with more awareness or maturity. Meditation can be done however you decide at any given time. The important thing is to start a practice, commit to it, and let it grow from there.
In his book, How To Practice: The Way To A Meaningful Life, the Dalai Lama speaks of a number of different meditation techniques:
· Stabilizing meditation – meditation through fixing the mind on an object (a mantra, or the breath, for example) or a topic (such as attachment), which he calls “calm abiding.”
· Analytical meditation – meditation through reasoning and reflection. This includes:
1. Subjective meditation – meditation to cultivate a new attitude or strengthening a way of thinking (such as compassion)
2. Objective meditation – meditation on a topic, such as impermanence
· Visualization meditation – meditation in pictures, such as visualizing enlightened beings to enhance faith and conviction. This is a combination of stabilizing meditation and analytical meditation. Analytical thought creates the image at the start of the meditation and brings it back to mind when it is lost. Stabilizing meditation develops a clearer visual image and holds it with one-pointed concentration. Some visualizing meditations include:
1. Wishing meditation – meditation where you wish to be fulfilled with a quality, such as peacefulness
2. Imaginative meditation – meditation where you imagine you have the qualities you do not yet have, i.e., imagining yourself filled with unconditional love.
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