For someone who has never meditated, beginning a practice can be an intimidating hurdle to leap. In the past, people used to think that you needed to be a monk, a nun, or at least some kind of recluse in a hermitage to meditate. Fortunately, that prejudice has been corrected in the last sixty years or so. Today, even devout Roman Catholics and members of the Protestant denominations meditate. If you want to, you can find meditation groups in most large cities around the world, but you do not need to join a group to get started. It helps to have someone experienced in meditation to ask questions when you are curious about some experience in meditation or are unsure about your practice, but you can find that help both online or off. And while there are a huge diversity of meditations practices, they all share some common elements and considerations: place, time, posture, and preparation.
Place
Choosing a place for meditation is very important. It needs to be quiet. This means a place where outside noises like televisions in other rooms and people talking, for example, will not be heard or are at least very minimal. You must also be able to control the sound in the room. In a well prepared space, all alarms and phones are silenced for the time you are meditating. You will also want to be free from distractions in the space. It is a sacred space, and you don’t want people or even animals to be able to wander in to get your attention while you are meditating.
If you can find a spot out in nature to meditate, that is always the best, but most people do not have access to a place in nature that they can go to at the same time every day and not be pelted with rain or scorched by the sun. The next best place is a quiet room or corner of your home. If you can establish a meditation room, that would be wonderful, but it is not necessary. Choosing one corner of a quiet room works very well. Do not use that space for anything else but meditating. Do not use your work/study or your sleeping space. The habit of sleeping in your meditation space can leak into your meditation practice and stimulate the desire to sleep, and meditating in your work/study space will often inspire thoughts and worries about your tasks during meditation. Make the space special. You can decorate it with meaningful images, add a candle and/or incense, or bring in some stones or other meaningful things from nature. You will not want a cluttered space, but one that invites you to come and do your practice.
Time
It is best to meditate at the same time every day. For many people, the morning is the best. When we meditate, we want our minds to be alert but not too active and busy. The morning is the best time for that, before we have begun our tasks for the day. On the other hand, if you are slow to wake up as I am, the late evening or before bed may be better. I tend to get very drowsy if I sit for a long time in the morning. My body takes time to fully wake up, so I prefer meditating before bed. For some people, those are very busy or noisy times of the day in their homes with children running around. Some people prefer to sit in the afternoon, and can find a quiet time and place in the middle of their days. The time itself is not as important as the regularity.
The next consideration for time is how long to meditate. I have found that twenty to thirty minute spans work well for most people. If you want to meditate for more time than that, consider breaking up the meditation with short periods of rest every twenty minutes or so. For example if you are doing a seated meditation, rising and doing a brief walking meditation every twenty minutes can help to ease the body’s endurance for longer stretches of meditation. If you have never meditated before, I suggest doing what I teach my students. Start your first week meditating for five minutes a day, and then add five more minutes every week until you are up to twenty minutes a day. Do that for a month, and then you can consider working up to more time. If you are really enthusiastic, you might even want to work yourself up to doing one twenty minute meditation in the morning and another twenty minute meditation at night.
Posture
The correct posture for your meditation is the one that is at once the most comfortable and the most stable. Aside from waling meditation, which is also very good, almost all other forms of meditation are seated. You will be seated without moving for long periods of time, so it is important that the body is comfortable and stable. The more relaxed and stable the body is, the more relaxed and quiet the mind is. If you are physically tense, you will notice the mind is more active and downright noisy, which is not what you want. If your seated posture causes regular pain, then you will be distracted from your meditation. But please note, your body will try to rebel as much as your mind will. It will cause itches and twitches and discomforts because it isn’t used to sitting still in one place for long. You may also notice that your legs fall asleep. That is all normal. But if you feel real pain from the posture itself, it is best to choose a gentler one.
You don’t have to sit like the Buddha in a full lotus posture. It is probably the best posture for stability, but it is also the most difficult, particularly for western bodies not used to sitting cross-legged on the floor. A half or quarter lotus position are also fine. The half lotus has one foot on the thigh and the lower foot under the thigh. The quarter lotus has one foot on the calf and one foot under the thigh. You can tuck a firm cushion under the buttocks to help point your knees to the floor; I do this. It adds stability to the posture for me, and eases pressure on the lower back. You can also sit on a straight backed chair with your feet flat on the floor and your back erect, not leaning against the back of the chair. I never recommend sitting with the back against a wall. I have tried it and it encourages both poor posture and lower back discomfort.
When you sit, you should be erect yet relaxed, with your shoulders slightly slumped. Too much tension from a strait back and squared shoulders will lead to distraction and pain during the sitting, while too much slumping will cause lower back pain. Your lower back may take some time to get used to settling like this and be achy for a while, but your muscles will develop with time. If you are feeling pain rather than achiness, then consider changing to an easier posture.
Your head should be slightly pulled to the rear and tilted ever so slightly down at the chin. There should be no tension in the neck or jaw. To minimize saliva, I find it helpful to lightly touch the tip of my tongue to where the upper teeth and gums meet. You want your teeth closed but never clenched. You can meditate with your eyes closed or slightly opened. I open my eyes slightly and lightly rest my gaze on the floor about three feet in front of me, or at that approximate angle. You are not staring at a spot on the floor or wall, but gazing at it in an unfocused way.
Hand position is up to the individual. Some teachers describe the symbolic or energetic significance of different hand positions, but for me, the best position is the most comfortable. Resting the hands on the knees with palms up is common, and I’ve sat that way, but my wrists started hurting over time. I’ve sat with my palms resting on my knees, and that has been the most comfortable for me, except for in the summer when my palms get sweaty. In summers, I’ve resorted to lightly resting my wrists on my knees palm down from time to time. The pose that you can maintain the most comfortably for the longest period is the best. You can also cup one hand in the other gently resting your hands on your lap with the thumbs lightly touching. This is a good posture that can help be a test of attention. When attention wanes in this posture the thumbs usually slip out of alignment.
Along with posture, the clothes we wear in meditation want consideration. It is best if the clothes are loose and allow very free movement. Though we are not moving at all in most meditation practices, we will want to stretch before a sitting. In addition, when we are sitting, we do not want our bodies to feel any constriction from our clothes. We want to be able to breathe very deeply and comfortably while we are meditating. We also want to be warm in cold weather and cool in hot weather. For me, I strip down to the bare essentials when I meditate in summer, usually without a shirt. In the winter, I put on sweatpants and a sweat shirt, and I sometimes even drape a lap blanket over my shoulders on particularly chilly nights.
Preparation
Preparation for meditation can be as or even more important than the sitting itself. If you go into a sitting with tension or a chaotic mind, it is very possible to begin a twenty minute or more session of pain and distraction. So getting ready for the sitting is very helpful. It is best to refrain from doing anything stimulating like watching TV or playing a game on your phone directly before your sitting. Some people like to read something inspirational or listen to music before their sittings to get them centered. We want our minds and bodies to be at ease when we begin our meditation. Doing some light stretching to ease muscle tension and joint flexibility is a great choice. I stretch my neck, shoulders, back, and hips before I sit. Stretching and relaxing the facial muscles is a good idea as well. Perhaps you could also give yourself a light and brief facial massage. The last thing I do when I get into my posture is flex and relax my hands and wrists a few times. You would be surprised by how much tension we store in our hands and wrists.
I like to use a timer. I’ve got an application on my Smartphone called Insight Timer that has some very gentle bell sounds to time my sitting. You can use any kind of timer, but be sure that the finishing bell or other sound is not harsh or jarring. We want to transition out of our meditation as gently as we transition into the sitting. I would also suggest using a timer that is silent; the ticking of a kitchen timer can be considered white noise, and white noise like rain or the sound that TVs used to make when they were on a channel that was not broadcasting and there was “snow” on the screen can actually help us in meditation, the ticking of a clock can distract many people. Find a dependable timer that makes a gentle ending sound and that you don’t have to look at.
When you are ready to begin your meditation, it is good to take some cleansing breaths. I usually recommend four deep breaths to begin a sitting. You can add some thoughts to the breaths to get yourself centered such as, “I breathe in peace and love” on the inhale, and, “I breathe out tension and worry,” on the exhale. Thich Nhat Hanh, the Vietnamese monk, has a very good one. On the inhalation we think, “Breathing in, I calm body and mind.” On the exhale, “Breathing out, I smile.” On the next inhalation we think, “Dwelling in the present moment,” and on the next exhalation, “I know this is the only moment.” These days, I’m doing a four deep breath exercise at the beginning of my sitting. I breathe in on a count of four, hold the breath for a count of seven, and then slowly exhale, making sound, to a count of eight. This helps me to draw attention to breath and open up my lungs. Then, I allow my breathing to flow naturally from there. After the four cleansing breaths, I place four questions in my heart, each on an exhale. I was inspired to do this from after hearing Deepak Chopra talk about the four questions at a workshop. The first question is, “Who am I?” The second question is, “What do I want?” The next question is, “What is my purpose?” And the last question is, “What am I grateful for?” I do not look for answers to the questions, I see them each etched on my heart in turn and allow them to flow deep into the vastness of mind. And then, my practice begins.
This may seem like a lot, but once you have got the elements down and have done the preparation a couple of times, it will all come naturally without having to think about it. For me, I get dressed in my lounge clothes, go to my space in my bedroom, light my candles, turn on the timer application on my Smartphone for the white noise that it also has and begin to stretch for ten or fifteen minutes. Then I get into my posture for my sitting, switch the application to the timer that also has a warm-up period, and begin my cleansing breaths. When my sitting is finished and the timer bell has quietly sounded, I slowly uncross my legs because they are dead asleep and they need to get the blood circulating in them again. I stretch them out and lie on the floor for a few moments to get my legs back to working order and then slowly get up. I finish my meditation with a fifteen minute journal writing session.
If you haven’t tried meditation yet, I hope you will make the joyous decision to begin. Remember, there is a learning curve to everything, but every step on this path will be of great benefit to you in every aspect of your life. Start out with baby steps and try to enjoy the process. Think of it as your gift to yourself, and stay consistent. And when it gets boring, as it will, you will learn to create interest. Reading this, you have taken one large step on your journey of self-discovery as an eternal being of Love, Joy, Wellbeing, and Awareness.
