Meditation is one of those things that people think they're talking about the same thing when actually they're not. It's not just one thing - different religions and traditions have completely different approaches. Sure, there are some key concepts common to all like "awareness" and "mindfulness" - but awareness and mindfulness of what? Christians might "meditate" on a passage in the Bible. Theravada Buddhists have the Four Foundations of Mindfulness. There are Zen koans. I have no idea on other forms but I imagine there are way more.
Even among Theravada Buddhist meditation instructors there are clear disagreements on what the experience should be, how concentrated the mind should be, etc.
For example, for something as simple as a pull-up there are questions like: what muscles are being worked? What is the proper form? Pronated or supinated grip? What pace and why?
If I read an article on any subject I expect to see lots of footnotes.
Meditation is something way more subtle than doing pull-ups, yet most guides seem to assume that there is one concrete definition in the learner's mind. Where did the prescribed method come from? What is the goal? To just put instructions or information about any subject without mentioning background or citing any sources is strange to me - is meditation so new, obscure, or insignificant a subject that it doesn't warrant a little more rigor?
TLDR: meditation is a bigger subject than most people reslize.
One reason meditation is so varied is that it's unlike most skills. You can't learn it by watching someone else, and teachers can't see if you're doing it wrong. Progress is only made through trial, error, and dialogue. This is quite different from any physical activity, where visual feedback makes errors obvious.
To borrow an analogy from Sam Harris: Imagine if looking at the stars required building your own telescope. Nobody could ever see someone else's telescope, or even the images from it. They could only listen to each others' descriptions. This would make research much harder and much less rigorous. But the stars would be no less beautiful. That's the state of meditation today.
True - meditation means different things to different people. It's obvious the author is referring to the "mindfulness" version though and is trying to do so in simple-as-possible guide form so as not to distract with all the depth and nuance you allude to. I think most people get that there are many different types of meditation. I appreciate the article's simplicity because when I was a once a beginner all I seemed to be able to find was less than simple school-specific (Zen, Shambala, etc) instruction. The problem with the school-specific teachings, IMHO, is that they are all mindfullness-oriented, yet each adds their own special ritual and ceremony which as a beginner you mistake as being essential. At least for me, I've converged on an intentionally Occam's razor style approach aimed at stripping the non-essential. The coolest thing about Bhudda's story to me is he just sort of figured it all out for himself and said each of us should do the same. I've figured out for myself, for example, that it is not necessary at all to sit cross-legged. It makes no difference for me yet standard teachings always strongly encourage it to the point that you feel like you are "doing it wrong" if you don't. Teachers will even say, "if you can't sit cross-legged it's ok..." but when everybody in the group is doing otherwise, the overwhelming signal is it is actually not ok.
I guess one thing I'm saying is the kind of folks drawn to try meditation are often the same kind of folks who will willingly dive down rabbit holes investigating the differences between the schools and entertaining themselves with koans, etc. all the while distracting themselves from actually getting started with the meditation itself. Can confirm; was one of these people. That's why I'd caution against trying to raise awareness of all this complexity to the beginners this guide is intended for.
I can't agree with you enough. Also, looking at all the comments, I'm amazed at the complete lack of discussion of love and compassion. Regardless of your personal beliefs, if you're not including either, you're doing it wrong.
Oh, and nothing is as perfect as you believe it to be.
Your comment is a breath of fresh air. Meditation really is very very complex. Primarily because there is the visible side and then there is an invisible side, and the invisible side is not only different in different traditions, but also it is supposed to be different for each practitioner.
Even if you focus on Muslim meditation traditions, there's a huge variety. The Chishti tradition considers a state of dance to be meditation (eg the twirling dervishes) where as the Naqshbandi tradition is more inline with the Buddhist side that involves sitting still and focusing.
> Sure, there are some key concepts common to all like "awareness" and "mindfulness" - but awareness and mindfulness of what?
This is perhaps the most fundamental difference and its astonishing how most "meditation guides" completely ignore this part. See, while a lot of people sell meditation as a relaxation technique, almost all of the original traditions have much deeper goals than this.
Using the example of exercise, there are a million recommendations you will get on not just how, but whether to do the pull-up or a push-up or jumping jax. If your goal is to maximize general health then you monitor your heart rate, breathing rate and duration and quietly ignore those people and their absurd arguments to get to the top of some advice pyramid.
In meditation you also need to ignore your mind imitating those people which is easier if you start by not reading all their opinions. If you really want to know how you are doing it is increasingly practical for anyone to buy an EEG.
" it is increasingly practical for anyone to buy an EEG."
That's a fantastic idea I had not thought out before (getting old - I've fixated in my mind an image of an EEG as heavy and expensive specialist tool). Any references where I could get one cheap :) ?
building one yourself was usually around $200 in parts but there were always interesting ideas to do simpler devices. You will find references to consumer ones people were considering, and responses that are helpful for figuring out which specs matter. I would also look for the names of new projects people are developing and maybe some of the hobbyist communities that are still active and debating the minimum specs for a budget device today..
What is the goal? In my understanding it's to get rid of all this goal-seeking business for a moment. Which is a beautiful contradiction and the reason why you don't need a lot of literature in order to practice. If you try hard to do it right, you're doing it wrong.
That's one way to look at it. There are many other ways. In traditional Buddhism, for example, there are many goals like increasing stages of concentration, insight, etc.
I like Castaneda's wording on meditation - stopping the world and not doing. Well, it's not actually on meditation but the outcomes are very similar... or could be.
To perceive the world as it is and not as it's described to us. To experience it directly without any thought or language.
I really enjoyed that book and Harris' approach to meditation. Since Harris is a neuroscientist and an atheist, there's no mysticism in the book. No talk about "feeling the energy".
In addition to the meditation information, he also goes into some neurological theory of thought generation in the hemispheres of the brain that I found quite fascinating.
When I first started meditating I found the book The Relaxation Response helpful. It has a one page guide to activating the parasympathetic nervous system and is non-spiritual in its application.
For those who are interested in advanced meditation and pushing the limits, I can recommend book "Focused and Fearless". Covers very powerful techniques. I went from unable to sit for 15 minutes to 1 hour of effortless deep meditation within a week. YMMV.
Sadly, I never made it to advanced meditation. 10 minutes in and I fall asleep. Used to do that in the shower right after I got home from sports/training. Meditate for 10 minutes under a very light stream of water. The results from doing that for nearly 6 years serves me well every single day
Sometimes 10 minutes is all you need. I feel like years of heavy partying wrecked my memory and I've been meditating for about 8 months and I can feel it returning to what it once was.
Jhanic states mostly. Proper meditation gave me a new perspective on Zen and Buddhism as a whole. I've studied it extensively before and disregarded meditation as being superfluous. I was really wrong. It helped tremendously with understanding esoteric parts of Buddhism.
The first experience that got me 'hooked' or rather made me realize that it's not hogwash, is the arousal of piti. The warm sensation in solar plexus that came out of no where after long breath meditation concentration and it turned into waves with each breath-in. It's hard to describe but it's unmistakable when you start getting better at meditation. That book covers everything.
Make no mistake, it's not easy. For whatever reason I got lucky with being able to tune in to deeper meditation, some people struggle for weeks and months to get there. I did Zazen previously on and off and this never got me anywhere. Anapanasati meditation is what will get you to jhanas. From then on, as some scriptures say, the real path to Buddhism begins.
Even if you are not into Buddhism, the pay off is still tremendous. Here is the practical and measurable result of proper deep meditation: ability to calm your mind and achieve total equanimity with virtually no thoughts, just pure awareness and tranquility that lets you sit for hours if you wish to, with zero desire to even move an inch, just sitting still. The ability to exercise your brain like that is pretty huge. In the long term and consistent practice it's beneficial to overall well being.
I found a helpful primer to meditation and associated benefits in a good book by Dan Harris - "10% Happier: How I Tamed the Voice in My Head, Reduced Stress Without Losing My Edge, and Found a Self-Help That Actually Works"
Mainly he decouples the practice from the spiritual part of it. so you can go in without expecting a monk to come out the other side.
Well, @cko is definitely right; and there are many kinds of meditation techniques. But for one, without getting into too much detail, there is Zazen (without koans), where you are trying to "just be"; and think nothing. Just be, do not cling to any other ideas or thoughts, and when you realize you are thinking, stop it. Just be.
I'm currently reading it (kindle edition.) Highly recommended. The style makes it easy to read (I'm not a native english speaker), it's very down to earth in its tone and addresses potential problems as it goes.
Here's my issue with meditation. There's no guide to what progress should look like. As in, everything I read says you shouldn't have any expectations and to just do it and there's a lot of benefit in it. I get that, I've been doing it for over a year now regularly but how can I know if it has any effects whatsoever?
Since I suspect there might be other techniques than focusing on the breath or body scans, I try to follow different guided meditations. After my session, i feel relaxed and my mind slow but efficient. Like getting up after a good nap.
But so does working out at the gym, sort of. Over there, however, you can directly see progress. With meditation...
Hopefully this doesn't seem an obvious response, but to my mind there seems to be at least two schools of thought regarding meditation. These schools are not mutually exclusive, FWIW.
One school seems to see meditation as an end to itself, the other as a tool towards some other end. I can't speak to the former, but for the latter - one approach you could follow is to identify experts who have written on the area of improvement and who prescribe meditation as a tool. For example, if you're using meditation to improve willpower, then a book on willpower will help you identify whether your meditation techniques are improving your willpower [1].
[1] For example, "The Willpower Instinct" (K. McGonigal) discusses the use of meditation to improve willpower, as well as the 'state of the art' on the subject, so it provides you with some tools you can use to evaluate whether you're making improvements or not
I really like Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha[1]. He spends a lot of time describing different "maps", which are models of progression. (He talks about many other things too. It's more than just a meditation guide.)
There are measurable results in meditation, you just need to know what they are and the proper technique to get there. The problem with meditation is that it's not being taught right, plus there are many variations of it.
If you are seriously looking to incorporate meditation in your daily life then get "Focused and Fearless" book and follow all instructions and exercises as they are taught. You will see measurable results.
Disclaimer: I'm only speaking of my own perspective and goals.
Meditation has been about a lot more than just feeling relaxed. It's been about gaining insight into how my mind works and gaining some measure of control over my thoughts. That awareness and control (mindfulness) extends to the rest of my non-meditating life - whether I'm on a tennis court or at my computer.
Because of meditation, I feel more in the present and less caught up in thoughts that would typically trap me thinking about the past or daydreaming about the future.
Despite the benefits I've seen from it, I know I have only scratched the surface. For example, I haven't experienced a strong "loss of self" that some meditation gurus describe.
If you want a "runged ladder" of some kind of progress, try the four levels of jhana. There are lots of published guides, for example "Beyond Mindfulness in Plain English", various works of Shaila Catherine, etc.
In a way meditation can be seen as a form of play. When you were a kid, did you ask yourself at the end of a day: Did I play successfully today? Did I get better at playing? Chances are you did not. Yet you gained experiences from playing which perhaps an activity that allows to measure some sort of progress can't provide.
In meditation, mental states and thoughts will play out that are never or rarely allowed to play out. If you are ever so slightly sleep deprived, chances are that sleep will sneak into your meditation. Just watch what comes up in meditation, and act accordingly.
It's not a requirement. The reason many vipassana guides say to breath through your nose is because most people can easily feel the air at the tip of nose and it gives them a clear point of focus. You can breath through your mouth too. Some people prefer focusing on air coming into the stomach instead.
When I have a cold or some other build-up in my nose, I just breath through the mouth, no problem.
Don't get hung up on the minor detail. It's super easy to do with meditation but unless you are following a very specific style, it's just not important.
It doesn't have to be the nose. You can use the rise and fall of your stomach as your focus. It is merely a point that allows you to notice when you've become distracted.
I practice a form of meditation called Passage Meditation. Though simple, Passage Meditation is definitely not easy. However the results I have seen from myself and others, makes it an extremely beneficial practice.
Here is a free online course for those interested in it.
My favorite guide to meditation is:
Being nobody Going nowhere
by ayya khema
This subject also highlights how irrational i am. I still remember how beneficial meditation was for me when I practiced it. But getting back into the practice ..... sigh
Even among Theravada Buddhist meditation instructors there are clear disagreements on what the experience should be, how concentrated the mind should be, etc.
For example, for something as simple as a pull-up there are questions like: what muscles are being worked? What is the proper form? Pronated or supinated grip? What pace and why?
If I read an article on any subject I expect to see lots of footnotes.
Meditation is something way more subtle than doing pull-ups, yet most guides seem to assume that there is one concrete definition in the learner's mind. Where did the prescribed method come from? What is the goal? To just put instructions or information about any subject without mentioning background or citing any sources is strange to me - is meditation so new, obscure, or insignificant a subject that it doesn't warrant a little more rigor?
TLDR: meditation is a bigger subject than most people reslize.