At its most basic level, meditation is the clearing of the mind of all thoughts entirely. It can be difficult at first to sustain a quiet mind. A good way to do this is to sit in a comfortable position on a couch or sofa and pick an object to focus your attention on. Many recommend an apple as a good starting point. The idea is to clear the mind of any awareness of anything other than the apple. This sounds very simple but it takes some practice. As soon as your mind wanders to other thoughts (which will happen quick at first), you immediately pull your mind back to the thought of the apple. Your ability to focus so single-mindedly will improve with time.  It requires the same type of commitment to developing a muscle through exercise. In fact, your brain is just another organ, like a muscle. It needs exercise like everything else. See how long you can sustain this single-minded state. Five minutes is a reasonable goal for early on, but the real benefits of meditation come with at least half an hour every day.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 12th, 2009 at 9:35 am and is filed under Emotional Health, Health. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Comments and pings are closed.