Meditation to help with peace and happiness

This is generally what people think of when they think of ‘Buddhists’. Buddhism is full of things with which we are unfamiliar and it requires deep thought to firstly understand them, then become familiar with them and finally to start incorporating them into our daily life.

Meditation is basically sat on your backside thinking about things. It can be focused, i.e. thinking about something in particular to deepen your understanding of it or reinforce it in your mind, or unfocused, so that you observe what you’re thinking about it. This helps you to know yourself better and identify what your delusions and virtuous thoughts are. Then you can do something about them.

Another major benefit of meditation is that gives you some peace and quiet, which in itself is hugely appealing and beneficial. A short period of peace and silence helps us recharge and reflect in our hectic lives.

So how do you do it? Just sit down, close your eyes and shut up. It needn’t be anything more complex than that.

One thing you’ll notice when you start doing this is how active your mind seems to be. It will flit from thought to thought, possibly with no apparent connection between them. Many people think that this means they can’t meditate or that it makes their mind even busier than usual. Neither is true.

First of all, this is how busy your mind always is, it’s just that you’ve never noticed before. It’s the act of stopping for meditation that gives you the opportunity to finally see what’s always been happening but that you’ve never really been aware of – that your mind is full of stuff and continually sending you messages or talking to you.

Secondly, it’s impossible to not be ‘good’ at meditating. There’s no achievement involved and it’s not a skill to learn. It’s something private to yourself, all yours, that no-one can take away and that you can do anything you want with. True, it’s beneficial to learn how to still your mind and increase concentration, but take it slowly and gently.

Start with just a couple of minutes at first and concentrate on your breathing. Feel your breath coming into your body and then back out again. Keep doing this until you notice that your mind has drifted off elsewhere (you’ll notice in about 20 seconds that you drifted off 18 seconds ago), then start feeling your breath again. Repeat as often as you like. When you feel ready and willing, you can start thinking about specific things, either a problem you currently face, or some of the points mentioned in this website, or anything else.