BEGINNING YOUR MEDITATION JOURNEY. Part 4 of 5

The following are some of the stages you may go through on your journey to just being:

·         Getting acclimated to not moving

·         Developing the capacity to concentrate inward

·         Having difficulty focusing your attention

·         Being repeatedly distracted,

·         Becoming more concentrated

·         Becoming calmer as you meditate

·         Observing short times when your mind calms down

·         Seeing small moments of silence and tranquilly

·         And here's arguably the most perplexing contradiction of all. If you meditate regularly, you may finally realise that you've never left your house, even for a second.

If, as the ancient adage goes, a thousand miles begin with a single step, then the path of meditation starts with the cultivation of awareness or attention. In reality, awareness is the mental muscle that propels and maintains you on your trip, not only at the outset but throughout. The key to meditation, no matter what route or technique you pick, is cultivating, concentrating and directing your consciousness.

Consider another natural metaphor: light, to understand better how consciousness works. You may take light for granted, but you can't function without it unless you've gained the particular abilities and heightened awareness of the blind. The same may be said about awareness: You may not be aware that you are aware, but awareness is required to complete even the most basic actions. Light may be used in a variety of ways. Ambient lighting may be used to softly and diffusely illuminate a room. When the room is dark, you may focus light on a flashlight beam to assist you in discovering items. Or you may focus the same light into a laser beam powerful enough to cut through steel or transmit messages to the stars.

Similarly, in meditation, awareness may be used in various ways. You may improve your awareness by focusing your attention on a particular object. After establishing your focus, you may widen your awareness — like ambient light — to highlight the complete spectrum of your experience by practising sensory awareness. You can then focus even more to generate pleasant emotions and mental states. You may also use awareness to study your inner experience and ponder the essence of existence. Concentration, sensory awareness, cultivation, and contemplation are the four fundamental applications of consciousness in the world's great contemplative traditions.

To achieve almost anything positive, you must focus your consciousness. The most creative and productive people in any industry, such as world class athletes, performers, entrepreneurs, scientists, artists, and authors, can block distractions and thoroughly immerse themselves in their jobs.

You've seen the results of total concentration if you've ever watched Serena Williams hit a forehand or Meryl Streep transform herself into the character she's portraying. Some people are born with the capacity to concentrate, but most of us need to learn to master it. Buddhists liken the mind to a monkey, continuously chattering and leaping from branch to branch, topic to topic. Did you ever notice that you have little control over your monkey mind's whims and vacillations, which may space out one moment and obsess the next? When you meditate, you train your monkey mind to be focused rather than scattered and distracted. Concentration is the fundamental meditation discipline many spiritual systems teach their followers. They say that if you focus on the mantra, symbol, or imagery, you will ultimately achieve absorption or what is known as Samadhi.

The sensation of being a separate "me" fades away during absorption, leaving simply the object of your focus. When carried to its logical conclusion, the concentration technique might result in a feeling of unity with the object of your meditation. If you're a sports fan, this may be your tennis racket or golf club; if you're a budding mystic, this could be God, a being, or the universal intelligence. Even if you don't know how to meditate, you've undoubtedly experienced times of absolute immersion in which the sensation of separation vanishes:

·         Staring at a sunset

·         Listening to music

·         Producing a piece of art

·         Looking into the eyes of your lover

When you're so immersed in an activity, whether job or play, that time stops and self-consciousness fades, you've entered what psychologists refer to as flow.

Activities that encourage flow exemplify what most people mean by enjoyment. Discharge may be extremely rejuvenating, energising, and even profoundly significant – because it is the inevitable outcome of uninterrupted attention. According to China's ancient sages, everything is made up of the continual interplay of yin and yang - the universe's feminine and masculine elements. If the concentration is the yang (focused, forceful, penetrating) of meditation, then sensory awareness is the yin (open, expansive, welcoming). Whereas concentration disciplines, stabilise, and roots the mind, receptive awareness loosens and stretches the bounds of reason and provides more internal space, allowing you to become acquainted with its contents. Whereas concentration cuts out extraneous inputs as distractions from the task at hand, sensory awareness absorbs and integrates every experience that comes its way. Most meditations use a combination of focus and sensory awareness. However, some more advanced forms teach only sensory awareness. Simply being open, aware, and welcoming of whatever occurs is what these tactics urge. Suppose you follow it all the way through. In that case, sensory awareness will help you move your identity away from your ideas, emotions, and the tales your mind tells you and toward your genuine identity, which is being itself. These directions are, of course, hard to follow if you don't know how to work with concentration. That is why most traditions recommend beginning with focus practice. The attention offers a strong foundation for practising meditation by quieting and centring the mind just enough so that it can open without being blown away by a flood of unnecessary sensations and ideas.

Come back tomorrow for part 5.

Be well.

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