Meditation. It's an arcane and still somewhat esoteric world that a lot of people are intimidated by, or dismiss thanks to the less "grounded" practices that are often associated with it by those whose practice. Fortunately, that stigma is waning as a more scientific backing is developed, and people of power come out to discuss to their practice.
I've been meditating for quite a short amount of time - only about 2 years now. My practice is also fairly relaxed - 10-20 minutes every day. Despite that, or perhaps because of that, I'm a huge advocate of it and am often asked to share my motivations and experiences.
It's quite difficult to relay that information in absolute sense - it's not like physical training where we can often attribute a set of values to our progress (squat weight, mile time, throw distance). It's far more subjective than that, because the way we experience ourselves and our own minds is too fundamental. It's difficult to subvert that, and discussing the practical benefits of meditation is like discussing weight training only in terms of strength gains. The effects are deeper rooted, and such a practical explanation is only addressing the high-level manifestation of what is really happening.
So, the short of is: just try it for awhile. Trust the studies and rational, successful people who advocate it.
Below is an email I recently wrote to a good friend of mine's mom. She asked me to describe what it is I have gained from meditation. I attempted to mix in the practical with the fundamental, and stand by it being as good as an explanation as my current experience allows me to provide.
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Hey ___,
I'd be happy to [discuss my experience with meditation].
Book wise, the books that I used to introduce myself to meditation and mindfulness were:
10% Happier
- This book outlines the journey of Dan Harris (some new anchor) as he discovers and learns about meditation. The book is somewhat slow-paced and verbose, but it’s a good read and an effective way of understanding meditation, as he generally guides you through his own past learning experience.
Real Happiness
- The book is much more informational, and focuses on philosophy and techniques. This book will guide you through a routine that you can repeat indefinitely, and will expose you to many different forms of meditation. If you had to choose any one book to read, this is it.
Buddhism Without Beliefs
- Purely philosophical, this book outlines some core teachings of buddhism without the religious aspect. I read this after already being somewhat familiar and experienced with meditation, and it helped me take my experience further.
There’s plenty of pretty stellar books out there, and I believe 10% Happier comes with some recommendations as well. I feel it’s incredibly important to do this reading and familiarize yourself with the underlying philosophies of meditation - going into it blind will likely leave you confused and discouraged.
I’ll give my take on meditation and what it means to me, but I’ll start by saying it’s a very subjective experience. Meditation hits very core components of the mind, and the way it gets expressed at a conscious level is very dependent on the individual. So, with that in mind, here’s why I do it and what it means for me personally:
I used the terms benefits before, but in reality I think that’s a poor way to describe meditation, as it doesn’t quite focus at the core of what we’re trying to accomplish. Benefits are more symptomatic. What we’re trying to do with meditation is strengthen our consciousness. It’ll take a lot of explaining to express what that means, so I’ll start by listing some things we aren’t trying to do with meditation:
- Relax
- Destress
- "Clear our minds”
- Become monks
In fact, despite the way people like to title their books, I don’t even see meditation as a way of achieving “true happiness."
As a human being we’re always in a state of contention inside ourselves. There’s these two warring, etherial sides of our minds; we often notice them when they clash. We know we shouldn’t eat that - but there’s a part of us that overwhelms, and we can’t resist. We know we should sit down and get some work done, or get up and go exercise, but there’s a part of us that overwhelms, and we can’t turn the TV off. We shouldn’t get angry, but there’s a part of us that overwhelms, and we can’t help it. We know we shouldn’t have prejudice, but there’s a part of us that overwhelms, and we express it anyway.
We notice these parts of ourselves as they clash, which I think paints an overly negative picture. People often talk about “overcoming” or “defeating” that part of us, but I don’t think that’s quite the right idea. That same part of us is what makes us feel happy or in love, and what gives us insights and empathy. It’s our “subconscious", and it comes as a “package deal”. We don’t really get to choose what gets shoved into our conscious mind, but we can choose how we react to it, or if we even react at all.
In a sense, meditation is about strengthening the partition between our conscious, high-level thought, and that subconscious pit that burps out thoughts and feelings. By doing so, we can better control how we react to those outputs. Meditation helps us understand the architecture of our mind, and the properties of our thoughts. In the end, it helps us control our mind.
I won’t go into exactly how meditation accomplishes that, since those are details that you’ll learn through reading as well as subjectively through the practice itself. I’ll give you a few practical benefits that I feel in my day-to-day life:
Mindfulness
Mindfulness is the state of conscious engagement in the present moment, and cultivating it is the goal of many meditation techniques. Mindfulness is a halting of the storm of thoughts in our mind at any moment to maximally enjoy the very state of being alive, right now. I think of mindfulness as a “child-like state”. As a kid, we’re very engaged in everything that happens around us. Everything is interesting. As we age and things become familiar, we recess into our own minds and let most of our moments pass by un-noticed. The lack of engagement in the present-moment is, in my opinion, a large factor in why we perceive the acceleration of the passage of time as we age.
Another state of mindfulness you might be familiar with even today is that of “flow”. “Flow” is the state of maximum focus, where we’re completely engaged in the task at hand. You may experience it while playing a sport, or working on a project you really enjoy, or immersing yourself in a book.
Before I started meditation, I would have these strange moments of actualization, where I realized I had been operating on auto-pilot for the past several days. I could never quite articulate it, but I felt that I hadn’t been conscious in quite some time, up until that very moment. Talking with others I’ve come to understand that this isn’t particularly uncommon. I would come to understand this as mindfulness.
Mindfulness is not something I personally experience 24/7. A persistent state of mindfulness is the goal of gurus and monks, but for us, we hope for mindful moments: the ability to calm our minds for a few moments, and just enjoy being alive. Then, we get back to what we need to do. Mindful moments can occur anywhere such as driving, walking, or falling asleep (these are most common for me).
I’m a very future-oriented person. I’m always thinking about growth and improvement, and where I want to be months, years from now. Mindfulness is important to me because it allows me to put that aside, even for a few moments, and just enjoy the state of being alive. You can’t enjoy life if you’re always looking ahead.
Calm
By understanding the nature and origin of our thoughts and feelings, we can better identify and respond to external circumstances. Stressful or angering situations can be tempered by our own control over our emotional state. As conscious beings, we can control how we feel, and what we do with those primal reactions that bubble up from our subconscious. By training that control through meditation, I find I can react much more logically and effectively to situations in my life. I can put aside my ego when confronted with a mistake, I can have empathy and patients for a irritated coworker, and I can be better content in states of pain or discomfort.
Control
Like I mentioned before, these clashes that occur in our minds can prevent us from doing things we know we should be doing. Before meditation, these conflicts are entirely free to resolves themselves, with the strongest inclination winning. Sometimes we feel particularly motivated and we can overcome our hesitation to exercise, sometimes we don’t and we fail. With meditation, we shift the power to our ability to logically choose what action we wish to take. You may very well chose to stay in and skip your workout today, but the important thing is you chose, consciously and logically, to do that. You didn’t just do what you “felt like doing”. Of course, you better have a good reason for skipping your workout :p - but that’s an accountability you’ll be able to hold yourself to over time.
Growth
This is more of a combination of the above benefits. When you put the ability to be calm, and in control, while simultaneously having a deep sense of what it means to be alive and present, what you get is an ability to grow while enjoying life as it happens. This is the #1 factor for me and what drives me to meditate every single day.
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Cultivating your conscious mind through meditation is like putting on glasses after a lifetime of blurry vision. I would never, ever, stop meditation and would recommend it to anyone under any circumstance. It’s exercise for the mind at the end of the day, and it’s shocking to look back and think about how out of shape you were.
Like all exercise, it takes effort, consistency, and time. Meditation can be tedious, boring, strenuous, and difficult. It can also be relaxing, enlightening, and energizing. But, after you do it every day for long enough, you’ll never stop.
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Surprisingly, it doesn’t take a massive time commitment to meditate. I personally spend 10-20 minutes every day meditating. It’s not a lot, but what’s important is that it’s done every day, and that you’re familiar with the philosophy and purpose. I do a few different forms of meditation, all of which I learned in Real Happiness, but primarily a very simple, zen breathing meditation. I recommend you follow the routine that book outlines for you and then chose your own routine from there.
Anyway, that’s a summary of my thoughts on meditation. Apologies for the length: it’s hard to succinctly describe these things because I do think they’re very fundamental and profound. Please let me know if you have any questions!
- Nick
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Since sending that email, I've also been made away of some stellar Apps that work to guide new practitioners through the meditation, slowly introducing concepts and philosophies. Apps such as Headspace and Calm seem to be the most popular at the time of writing this.
I think Apps and programs like these are great, although one should be cautious about developing a dependency on guided practice. Much like a personal trainer in the gym, it's a great way to be introduced to that world and to ensure you're engaging in it properly, but once that familiarity is established it's best to forge on independently. That resource will always be available to you if you feel the need to go back and reconnect with that guidance.
