Article Salad

Techniques For Meditation

Posted by harley No Comments

What are the most important techniques of meditation?

Firstly, we want to gain a comfortable posture. The best posture for meditation is the lotus posture, seated on the ground. However, many may find it difficult to sit comfortably in this posture (especially people with long legs like me!). If you find it difficult to sit on the floor, you can meditate well in a chair. The important thing is to meditate with a straight back. A straight back is important because when meditating spiritual energies pass through the psychic centres (chakras) along the spine. Another good reason to sit up straight when meditating is that lying on the ground can cause people to fall asleep. In meditation we want to be fully awake and alert.

Secondly, we want to meditate with a light or empty stomach. If we meditate after eating a heavy meal, our body will be busy with digesting the food. We will feel more sluggish and prone to fall asleep. Also, when we are digesting a heavy meal our subtle nerves are dulled. When we meditate we often have a feeling of lightness and this is helped by having a light stomach. However, if we have to eat before meditation it is not the end of the world. We can still meditate, but, we will meditate better without eating alot. If we want to really help our meditation we can take a vegetarian diet because vegetarian foods are easier to digest and produce a more calming effect on the body and mind.

Eyes Half Open. Many people instinctively meditate with eyes closed as this is a posture we adopt for relaxation (falling asleep). The problem is that if we meditate with eyes closed we can be more prone to falling asleep. There is a technique of meditating with eyes half open. This enables us to be awake and alert but not fully in the world. This technique is known as the Lion’s Gaze. We can focus on a certain object in front of us. If the object becomes a little blurred that is fine. The important thing is to narrow our gaze to a small object.

Heart Beat. An excellent technique for meditation is to make our mind so quiet and calm that we can focus on and feel every heart beat. There should be nothing else in our consciousness except our focus and concentration on our heart beat. We can try and feel that we actually centred inside our spiritual heart (anahata Chakra) This is just next to the spiritual heart.

Breathing. Everyone knows that breathing can have an important influence on our state of mind. If we take deep breaths we can calm our anger and bring peace to the fore. In meditation we can use breathing to quieten the mind and lead us into meditation. This is a very simple but effective meditation technique. All we need to do is be fully aware of our breathing so that we are not distracted by anything else.

More articles on mediation at London Meditation

Tejvan studies meditation under spiritual teacher Sri Chinmoy and enjoys giving free meditation classes to members of the general public.

http://www.freemeditationlondon.co.uk/