Whenever I talk with anyone about trying to live a healthy lifestyle, I always mention that regular meditation practice is an important part of my well-being. Sometimes, I am met with curiosity, occasionally a bit of a dismissive smile, and sometimes eye rolls (mostly from my kids).
I get it. Saying you practice meditation sounds pretentious as if I’m trying to achieve unity with the universe or nirvana or a higher level of existence. But that’s not it at all. Meditation can mean different things to different people, depending on their reasons for practicing. And it’s called practicing for a reason. It’s a rare yogi sitting atop a mountain in Nepal who can achieve the perfect state of existence—the rest of us practice.
So, what does meditation mean to me? It’s a method—countless different methods—of calming the mind and body to achieve a simple state of existence—a state of just being. It doesn’t require any special equipment or a certain location. Despite the stereotype, you don’t have to sit in the lotus position. You can sit, stand, lay down in any way that is comfortable. There are even moving meditations (which, I guess, require you to do something). Yoga is a moving meditation.
At the core of my meditation practice, and the reason I value it so much, is my absolute belief in the sanctity of human life. We exist. We have a right to exist—a right to just be. We don’t need to do anything, produce anything, or prove anything to justify our place in the universe. The fact that our hearts are beating is enough.
A friend once said, “Yeah, I tried meditating, but I didn’t get much out of it. It didn’t do anything for me.” I responded by suggesting he drop his expectations and replace them with an intention, which he may not achieve, but to be okay with that.
As a yoga teacher once said:
You’re not trying to “win” yoga.
Apply that to your meditation practice.
So, when I sit down to meditate, my intention is to reach a state where my mind is still, and I can just be. Sometimes, I achieve that state for a moment, sometimes for several moments, and sometimes, I never reach it. There are days when I go through the mental methods for getting to just being, and my mind wants to race all over the place. This is when a gentle sense of humor comes in handy. I recognize my thoughts with an inward smile because my brain is doing what it’s meant to do. I say to myself the words of another yoga teacher,
“Thinking is unnecessary.”
Then, I dismiss the thoughts and let them talk amongst themselves, knowing I can pick them up again later. I return to noticing my breath, not changing or judging just noticing and studying.
When you see a bird in the sky, are you flying it? Are you flapping the wings and turning it this way and that? No, you simply notice. You passively observe how it soars, darts, dips, and floats. You don’t judge the bird’s ability or decide that it’s flying too high or low. That, too, is how to notice your breath.
After noticing your breath for a while, your mind may settle, and you might reach a state of simple existence, of just being. If that happens, congratulations. Your intention has manifested. And then you might be glad and excited that this meditation thing really works! And then your mind will start darting all over the place with delight, just like that bird in the sky. And you’ll notice that your mind has flown far away, and then you’ll gently bring it back and remind it to notice the breath again. You’ll do this over and over until the time you decide to spend practicing meditation is through.
And when you’ve finished, notice how you feel. Even if you don’t think you benefited from these minutes, you have. At the very least, you have sat still for a few minutes and rested your body.
Did the world fall apart without you?
By JK
Massachusetts First 
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