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Basic Meditation
David Scheuneman, facilitator
This self-paced how-to presents the fundamentals of a natural form of sitting meditation. This simple style provides a powerful practice suitable for daily use by anyone -- as an end in itself, or as a basis for elaboration.
For "best results", beginners beginners should try to spend at least a few weeks exploring this material, meditating 15-30 minutes at least every 2 or 3 days — because the effects are subtle and cumulative. Don't be discouraged! The number one mistake people make is to give up after only a few tries.
If you're a more experienced meditator here for a review, or just not ready for a daily commitment, then just read through the sections and absorb the ideas.
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| 2 | Step Zero: The "Be Here Now" Attitude
Everybody comes to meditation with goals. The goals can range from stress-reduction to spiritual enlightenment. Accordingly, meditation is often thought of as a "technique" for reaching those goals. While goals are a vital source of motivation, and while meditation is technically expedient, nonetheless goal-and-technique-mindedness can be profoundly distracting. The true reward of meditation develops out of "practicing presence" as a way of being, for its own sake. So, the trick is to use your devotion to goals as motivation to meditate in the first place, but then drop your agenda as you sit down with a spirit of "showing up".
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| 3 | Posture
Posture is a key element of meditation. With the right posture, deep meditation can be surprisingly easy. Yet even slight posture imbalances can counteract great mental efforts. Attending closely to your posture from the beginning spares a lot of unnecessary exertion.
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| 4 | Breath
Attending to the breath in meditation has countless advantages. For beginners, the breath is a convenient object of attention for improving their ability to stay present. Moreover, breath's deep-down simplicity is an antidote for getting lost in complex thought. Also, since the breath is essentially both mental and physical, attending to it helps one become a whole integrated person. Meanwhile, many people have subtle tensions and constrictions in their breathing tied to various accumulated psychological "obstacles" which meditation can untie and resolve. Above all, in that the breath is mysteriously also Spirit, mindful breathing is an essentially spiritual practice. So breath meditation has it all, and as long as we're alive it is always right here available for contemplation.
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| 5 | Mindful Presence
Here we get to the to the essential practice of meditation: being present. Everybody already has some mindfulness in their lives, whenever they are naturally aware of being in the present moment. But most of the time, our sense of presence is shallow and fleeting. Meditation is training in how to deepen and extend our awareness, and hopefully (for many) to awaken more to the presence of Spirit.
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| 6 | Integrated Meditation
Once you have a sense of the basics — posture, breath, mindfulness — you are ready to try practicing them all at once. And you are ready to graduate from this workshop!
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