Meditation on sound is a classic and popular technique that can be useful towards developing such meditative attributes as concentration and a deeper richness of perception. There are various objects that we can choose to focus our attention on when we do this practice – soothing audio recordings, naturalistic sounds, music, and some advanced choices too.
Developing concentration and focus is a central goal of many meditation techniques. This post explores some of how we can best accomplish this.
Meditation is, unfortunately, sometimes boring. Meditating while bored, however, can often increase our power of concentration, and provide other benefits as well.
I wrote an article for the Children and Adults with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (CHADD) website, an introduction to meditation for ADHD people. I am reposting the article here too. I discuss three useful techniques, some overview ways of understanding meditation practice, and some tips for getting started.
Mindful, meditative eating is a powerful practice popular with both ancient monks and modern Americans, and consists of bringing focus, attention, and presence to the process of eating.
Walking is a popular posture for meditating, either as something that we can give our full attention to and do intentionally as a formal practice, or when walking functionally, while we are on our way to a destination.
Last weekend, I ran a 10k race. It was my first race at that distance in maybe 25 years. I had a good showing, and I think that that came in part because I was doing a concentration meditative technique during the whole race, which I think helped free, unify, and integrate my body’s energy.
A friend asked me about how to use meditation to avoid feeling physical pain. I replied that, yes, classically, there are mindfulness techniques that help us to turn away from and avoid pain, but usually these are just preliminaries to turning towards and fully feeling the pain.
People sometimes ask me my opinion of Transcendental Meditation. This is what I have to say about it:
As we know, our modern electronic internet/social networking/cell phone culture is stimulating, entertaining, and short-attention-span-ish, but accomplishments that fulfill us the most take patience, focus, and a long attention span. A quote that I just saw and like, from “The Organized Mind” by Daniel Levitin : “As already noted, the Internet has helped some of…
I’ve noticed that it feels unmistakably more fun and satisfying to challenge myself, to get out and go climbing, to get on some routes that are edgy and difficult for me, and then to be skillful, brave, and persevering, and do what it takes to get all the way to the top. This is, of course, similar to many other areas of life: we don’t have to take on challenges, and we don’t have to succeed at them – but it sure does seem to feel better to win than not to play.
* Settle in a meditative posture, a posture you can sit as comfortably in for the duration of the meditation This often means body relaxed and hanging off of an upright and extended spine * When you’re ready, attempt to feel the physical sensation at the crown of your head. Make contact with whatever sensations…
I believe that breath meditation is the best place for people to start a regular meditation practice; it is the most basic, foundational, beginner meditation practice. This post contains some breath meditation instructions for beginners.