Dear Readers,

When I began a meditation practice several decades ago, I was very serious about getting all the details right. I read books about how to set up a practice, how to actually meditate, how often, how long.  I read about the benefits of meditation and the dire consequences of not meditating.  I prepared a meditation space with my rocking chair, special pillow and shawl, and special clothes just for meditation so that the meditation energy could be accumulated and conserved in my environment, making it easier to reach a meditative state in subsequent sessions.  I sat for meditation daily, sometimes more than once a day, and attempted to make my mind still by focusing on the breath and repeating a mantra. Eventually, it became easier to sit in stillness for about a minute…gradually, I was able to sit in stillness for longer periods of time

In my experience, the benefits of meditation were, and continue to be, subtle as well as cumulative. I remember that after I had been meditating for several months, something happened in my life to disrupt my meditation practice and I began to notice that things didn’t seem to flow as smoothly as they had been. Life felt like fitting the square pegs into round holes.  It was that disruption in my practice that helped me understand how a regular meditation practice was helping me handle life’s bumps from a place of calmness and peace.  And I began to see some light.

As a meditation neophyte, I had many questions: What is meditation? Why meditate? How do you meditate? No, really, HOW do you do it?  What should I expect to happen?  The answers I received were not satisfying: Meditation is stilling the mind and you should meditate because this is a desirable state.  You meditate by sitting in a darkened room focusing on the breath and not engaging in thought. Eventually, you will reach Enlightenment. You have to just do it. You’ll see.

Over the decades, this is my experience:

Meditation is a focusing of attention. It is the nature of the mind to always be thinking something, entertaining some idea, pondering.  When I began practicing meditation, the activity of my mind was the equivalent of a Tower of Babel: voices/ideas constantly chattering and clamoring for attention, none able to be clearly heard above the din. Thinking about my to do list. Thinking about what I had to accomplish today, tomorrow, next week. Thinking about how to pay the bills.  Thinking about my family’s needs.  Despairing that I would ever get what I wanted.  My mind was always either in the future or in the past. It always scurried away from the present moment.

With practice I realized that focusing my attention on the breath was a way to focus my attention on the present moment. This is how I do it: I inhale for a count of 8, exhale for a count of 8, and repeat. I don’t bother with inhale through the nose and exhale through the mouth or the other way around.  I keep it simple, because as soon as I add a “refinement,” my mind starts chattering at me: “why did you do it like that?” “you inhaled through your mouth when you should have done it through your nose!” and we’re off! So K.I.S.S. is key!

So, now I’m focusing my attention on the breath and the present moment.  How does that work? Well, since I need to breathe right now to stay alive, and I must breathe and stay alive in the present moment, then by focusing my attention on the breath, I can only be in the present moment.

I’m in the present moment, and my mind is still chattering at me.  What to do? One traditional technique is to repeat a mantra.  While there is much discussion and argument about which mantras are alive, and which ones are more effective, my experience with this technique is this: it doesn’t matter what you choose to repeat because the purpose of the repetition is to keep your attention focused and not allow your mind to engage in chatter.

Another technique that is put forth by the 20th century American mystic, Joel Goldsmith, is that of argument.  This technique would go something like this:

Me: I am alive

Chattering Mind: How do you know you are alive?

Me: I know I am alive because I am breathing

And so forth.  Obviously, this is a simplified example, but you get the drift…

Okay, so now I’m focused on the breath, repeating a mantra (my focusing technique of choice) and being in the present moment. I’m cooking with gas! What’s next? I sit. For how long? [that’s my mind starting to chatter again.] Now, I sit until I’m “done.” “Done” is an internal signal I experience; however, at the beginning, it was difficult for me to trust that I would recognize the signal, so I used a kitchen timer. I started with setting the timer for 5 minutes. The usefulness of the timer is that it freed me from checking my clock every few seconds to see how much time had elapsed. Gradually, I became accustomed to sitting quietly in inner, as well as outer, stillness until I receive that “done” signal.

While many people report meditation experiences that include magnificent visions, earth-shattering epiphanies, blinding lights, I’ve never had such experiences.  To this day, when I sit in meditation, I sit in darkness – inside and out. My revelations come AFTER meditation. And they begin to flow like a tap being turned on. And I’m always surprised.

So, I sit for meditation. It’s dark. I got nuttin’.   I end my meditation session and then, the light starts to go on, both literally and figuratively. I’m in a place of greater calm. Often, a place of greater clarity. While I may not have all the answers I may have sought, there is a glimmer of light in my thinking…the twilight zone. Not quite ignorant; not exactly Enlightened. Somewhere in between. And from this in between space, I can see new possibilities…that were there all along, I just didn’t have enough light to see them. And THAT is how meditation helps me.

Speaking of helping, thank you to my friend Katie for putting that image of the twilight zone into my mind with one of her comments.  You can visit Katie’s blog on women’s health here.

I hope this takes some of the mystery out of meditation.  I’d love to hear about your experiences, practices, and techniques you find useful.

All the best,

Margarita