Taking up meditation?

Question

I want to sort of take up meditation.
Where do I start?

Any good and brief resources?
Reading whole books just to get a grasp of the subject doesn't sound like too fun. Short guides or so would probably do.

Thanks.

Answer 1

My preference would be to call meditation relaxation – conscious relaxation, chosen relaxation. These are words that are more universally understood, more comfortable. Constantly working toward the goal of discovering my own ability to reach a state of serenity, I have learned to meditate.

Meditating is actually easier than you might imagine. Most of us have dabbled in meditation by participating in conscious relaxation. Maybe during an exercise class or to manage pain at the dentist or anxiety before a test. We start by paying attention to our breathing. The practical effort to focus completely on our breathing takes our minds away from the "mind clutter" that constantly tries to invade our mind and eliminate feelings that will lead to a time of calm. With repeated effort the goal of clearing your mind – to think of nothing, does occur and the process of meditation takes on its own energy. The result is, and I guarantee this, peace, serenity, calmness, eventually opening yourself to new insights.

Answer 2

The whole aim of meditation is,
1. to calm your mind, and
2. to focus the mind on one thing.

The mind of a normal person is like an uncontrolled monkey jumping from one thought to another. To process all these thoughts a lot of body energy is used. Thus if your mind cease to process thoughts you will be saving a lot of body energy which can be used to cure a lot of ailments in your body. That is why a person who continues to meditate regularly even gets a nice body complexion.

Anapana or concentration on the breath is the best form of meditation.

If you sit down and close your eyes you will notice that your mind is jumping from one thought to another. Even though you want to concentrate on your breath you will find other thoughts also coming in between.

In learning to meditate you must first learn to calm your mind. You do this by following every thought that comes into you mind. You must be like a Manager of a Hotel who stands at the entrance and observes the customers coming in. Without getting attached to the thoughts try to observe them. You will find that a thought comes in and that it goes nowhere and another thought follows it - try following that too - with same results. This way you will find that your thoughts gradually subside. Do not try to force out your thoughts.

Of course do not expect results in one or two days. Practise it for at least 40 minutes every day for at least 2 months you find that you have 'killed' your train of thoughts. I have practised for 1 1/2 years and still vagrant thoughts come in.

Thereafter start concentrating on your breath. Notice the breath coming in and going out. You should not concentrate only on the tip of your nose. Notice the breath coming in and thereafter your lungs getting filled and then gradually exhaling the breath.

After you finish that for the day start to think of a person or several persons whom you hate most. Having those people in mind start to think in a compassionate manner "may he be healthy, may he be happy, may he go up in life, may he live long". Keep on doing this for about 10 minutes a day for a few months you will find that you do not get angry even when you have to get angry.

You should be able to get some guidance from the following sites,

1. http://www.dhamma.org/vipassan.htm/
2. http://www.meditationexpert.com/ and click on the free articles on yoga meditation - it includes articles on all types of meditations including Christian and Muslim meditation.

Answer 3

To start in sort of meditation you need to go to a sort of meditation teacher.

But the sort of meditation is harder than the plain meditation. and it costs more...

But you can do it free if you just close your eyes and block out all external distractions. (Like vegge out man)
and then let what ever your mind wants to do happen.

Like dreaming when you are awake.

:o)

Answer 4

Wayne Dyer's CD "Getting in the Gap" is the best place to start. There's a book that comes with it, but you can just play the CD.

Answer 5

I recommend TM (Transcendental Meditation) it's not cheap but you get good instruction. What you want is results and you only need to give it 12 months to get real results.

Answer 6

They have dvd's on how to do this. Maybe even take a class someplace.

Answer 7

Please see the website