Meditation came pretty easily to me. I mean, comparing myself to others. Comparing myself to monks I know in Thailand that have practiced for a dozen, or dozens of years… meditation, jhana, it all came so easily in comparison. In less than a year I was experiencing all jhana levels.
Did I do anything special?
Not really. I followed a really simple process. Supremely simple. I sat and watched the breath for 20 minutes a day and I practiced mindfulness when I was at work or doing other things outside of meditation.
Whether there is nothing more to the process coming to visit – than what I did during that year, or whether all I did prior to that year – helped tremendously or not – I don’t know.
I was a triathlete, bicycle racer, ran in 10K races often. Did my hours of working out prepare me for having jhana visit? I don’t have any idea. My workouts sometimes went for 7 hours… bike rides could be that long in the mountains of Western Pennsylvania. Hawaii. Miami. Tampa. When I rode the bike or ran, my mind was strangely silent. This was well before I ever meditated. My mind seems to stay rather quiet as I exercise for prolonged periods. I still have thoughts sometimes, but I’m pretty much in a zone of some sort where thought isn’t necessary.
When I run, I concentrate on the rhythm of it. I focus there. I focus on looking at my body and assessing what is going on – like a dashboard checking out the engine.
When I bike I watch the wheel in front of me, and the road ahead. My head isn’t filled with thoughts of the past and future… and in this way, I was probably practicing mindfulness – without even knowing what it was.
Many times, and for hours at a time I would concentrate on my breathing… keeping up a pace that gave me the right number of breaths and the right beats per minute of my heart.
Did all that help me when I started meditating?
I’ve no idea. I hope not. I really hope that it is available to everyone as it came to me. Make no mistake – it came to me, I didn’t do anything remarkable. All my secrets are in the simple book I wrote about meditation – “Meditation for Beginners – a 22 Day Course” that you can find at Amazon and Smashwords.com.
The book is $2.99, and covers the bare essentials – and not the fluff of meditation.
I hope it helps you… if you are stuck – you should try this style. It’s the unstyle really. It tears away the religious aspect of meditation, the special words for breathing, for focus, for sitting, for everything. It’s meditation without religion.
It presents you with a super-simple method to use meditation to find relaxation. Maybe more comes, maybe not. The point is the relaxation… meditate to relax, not to become the next savior of mankind…
Go to the right column – and click the book to see more about it…
😉
