Meditation is a very good form of relaxation, but it is much more than that. It is a way of actively improving your emotional and mental wellbeing, which in turn, by removing stress etc, will also help to improve your physical wellbeing. By using the energy of the mind and focusing on one thing we can slow down the minds incessant chatter or we can allow ourselves to enter into stillness and just BE. I call these active or passive meditations.
Active meditation includes Visualisation and Qi Meditation where we use either our own imagination or an external source, such as a person or CD, to lead us into a place of peace and quiet. This state can also be achieved by the use of a Mantra or by counting/watching the breath.
Buddhist Meditation would be classed as Passive, but we must not get confused by the term ‘Passive’ in this context. It does not mean sitting doing nothing, it is more a case of allowing ourselves to enter into communion with the Universal Consciousness and to simply BE, recognising ourselves as an integral part of the whole. In my book ‘Everyday Thoughts on Life’ I say ‘Be Still, Be Silent and all will be revealed’ or ‘The Tao Te Ching’ says ‘By not doing, everything is done’. ‘Being Still’ or ‘not doing’ are not passive actions they mean removing control from the ego consciousness and allowing the higher Universal Consciousness to provide solutions to our problems. It is probably also worth noting here that Buddhist Meditation, in this meaning, has nothing to do with Buddhist tenet, it is just a form of meditation that Buddhist’s employ.
One of the biggest problems when we first start meditation is trying too hard. We start meditating and a thought comes into our heads, we follow that thought and then get annoyed with ourselves and say ‘I just can’t do this my mind keeps wandering’. It is very difficult, if not impossible, to stop thoughts happening, indeed the answers we seek will come as thoughts. It is not the thoughts happening that is the problem but allowing them to control us. The conscious mind, our ego, will fight hard not to lose control and there will be times when it will shout at us to follow it. With practice we can learn to relax and stay calm, distinguish between thoughts from the ego and thoughts from the Universe. Allow thoughts to happen and acknowledge them but do not follow them, i.e. let them flow across our minds as if they were a movie or belonging to someone else. Then we find that the thoughts lessen allowing us more time in the peace and stillness of the gaps between them.
Eventually we can learn to live our whole lives as a meditation by focusing totally on what we are doing at the time and not on the past or the future. Most of us spend the majority of our time worrying about what has happened in the past or looking for answers in the future and we forget about this moment. We say ‘If I had done this or not done that things might be different’ or ‘If I win the lottery I will be happy’ but this is wrong, The past is gone an cannot be changed and happiness, or any other emotion for that matter, cannot be found in the future. This moment is where all emotions and all the answers to all the questions live. Only by entering into this moment can we fully appreciate our emotions and allow those answers be revealed. Of course we can plan for the future but once the plan has been made we should then live in this moment.
On that note I will leave you with another saying from my book.
‘Be here and now, HERE and NOW’

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