Author: Stephan Bodian
Date: 2010-12-07T05:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Body; Mind & Spirit; Mindfulness & Meditation; Meditation
Description: Learn to meditate —the easy way!Meditation is the ideal way to relax your body, calm your mind, reduce stress, and enhance your overall health and well-being. Whether you're new to meditation, a seasoned practitioner coming back for a refresher course, or someone looking for ways to change and improve your meditation practice, this guide has you covered.Open the book and find:Effective meditation techniquesThe importance of breath and ways to focus on your breathingAdvice on when and where to meditateDifferent ways of sitting for meditation
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Meditation For Dummies®, Mini Edition

Table of Contents

Introduction

Icons Used in This Book

Where To Go from Here

Chapter 1: Getting in the Meditation Frame of Mind

Surveying Meditation Techniques and Destinations

Developing and Directing Your Awareness

Building concentration

Opening to receptive awareness

Using contemplation for greater insight

Cultivating positive, healing states of mind

Making Meditation Your Own

Other Journeys That Masquerade as Meditation

Chapter 2: Striving for a Relaxed Body and Calm Mind

Paying Closer Attention to Yourself

Using Your Imagination to Relax Your Body

Going for Deep Relaxation

Developing Awareness of the Here and Now

Focusing on your breath

Expanding to sensations

Welcoming whatever arises

Chapter 3: Picking the Best Time and Place for Your Meditation

Dressing for Comfort, Not Fashion

When to Meditate

First thing in the morning

Before bed

Right after work

Lunch hours and coffee breaks

During predictable downtimes

How Long to Meditate

Five minutes

10 to 15 minutes

20 minutes to an hour

What to Eat and Drink before You Meditate — and What to Avoid

Where to Meditate

Why it’s best to stay put

How to pick the right spot

Set up an altar

Chapter 4: Meditating by Sitting Still

Mastering the Subtle Art of Sitting Still

Sit Up Straight! A How-To Guide

Situating yourself from the waist down

Straightening your spine

What to Do with Your Eyes, Mouth, and Hands

Preparing Your Body for Sitting

Cat pose with variations

Cobra pose

Locust pose

Lunge pose

Butterfly pose

Cradle stretch

Meditation For Dummies®, Mini Edition

by Stephan Bodian

Meditation For Dummies®, Mini Edition

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Copyright © 2010 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana

Published simultaneously in Canada

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Introduction

Everyone seems to want to know how to meditate these days. From Baby Boomers to Generation-Xers, anxious teens to aging retirees, harried housewives to hurried executives, more and more people are seeking solutions for the stressful, time-urgent, overstimulated lives they lead.

Whether you’re seeking greater focus to get your job done more efficiently, less stress and more peace of mind, or a deeper appreciation of the beauty and richness of life, the simple practice of sitting down and turning your attention inward can do wonders for your body and your mind.

Simple though it may be, meditation also has tremendous subtlety and depth, if you’re interested in pursuing it further. It’s a lot like painting — you can buy your materials, take a few lessons, and have fun applying paint to paper. Or you can sign up for classes, specialize in a particular medium in art school, and make painting a central part of your life. In meditation, as in art, you can keep it simple — just get up every day and sit quietly for five or ten minutes — or you can explore the subtleties to your heart’s content. It all depends on your needs, your intentions, and your level of interest and passion.

Icons Used in This Book

Throughout this book, I use icons in the margins to draw your attention to particular kinds of information.

When you see this icon, prepare to stop what you’re doing, take a few deep breaths, and start meditating.

If I haven’t said it before, I should have — it’s important information that bears repeating.

This wise guy shows you where to look for musings of a more philosophical nature.

If you want your meditations to be easier and more effective, follow this tidbit of insider advice.

Where To Go from Here

You have your minibook copy of Meditation For Dummies — now what? This minibook is a reference, so if you need information on relaxing your body and mind, head to Chapter 2. Or if you’re interested in finding out about how to meditate simply by sitting still, go straight to Chapter 4. Or you may feel the urge to start with Chapter 1 and read the chapters in order . . . you rebel. If you want even more advice on meditation, from opening your heart to getting past roadblocks to incorporating meditation into your everyday life, check out the full-size version of the latest edition of Meditation For Dummies — simply head to your local bookseller or go to www.dummies.com!

Chapter 1

Getting in the Meditation Frame of Mind

In This Chapter

Understanding what makes meditation

Working on concentration, receptive awareness, contemplation, and cultivation

Watching out for meditation imposters

The great thing about meditation is that it’s actually quite simple. Just sit down, be quiet, turn your attention inward, and focus your mind. That’s all there is to it, really.

You can consider the practice of meditation to be a journey of sorts — and the book you hold in your hands to be a travel guide. This chapter provides an overview of your trip, offers some alternative routes to your destination, explains the basic skills you need to know to get you there — and points to some detours that may advertise the same benefits but that don’t really deliver.

Surveying Meditation Techniques and Destinations

No doubt you picked up this book because you’re searching for something more in life — more peace of mind, more energy, more well-being, more meaning, more happiness, more joy. You’ve heard about meditation, and you wonder what it has to offer.

Here are a few of the many meditation techniques that have been developed over the centuries and that continue to be used:

Repetition of a meaningful word or phrase, known as a mantra

Mindful awareness of the present moment

Following or counting your breath

Paying attention to the flow of sensations in your body

Cultivation of lovingkindness, compassion, forgiveness, and other healing emotions

Concentration on a geometric shape or other simple visual object

Visualization of a peaceful place or a healing energy or entity

Reading and reflecting upon inspirational or sacred writings

Gazing at a picture of a holy being or saint

Contemplation of nature

Chanting praises to the Divine

You may have no interest in lofty states and experiences like enlightenment or union. Perhaps you bought this book simply because you want to reduce your stress or enhance your healing process or deal with your emotions.

Well, the truth is, you’re going to follow the same path no matter how high up the mountain you want to go. The basic instructions remain the same, but you get to choose your destination. Among the most popular stopping places and promontories en route to the summit are the following:

Stronger focus and concentration

Reduced tension, anxiety, and stress

Clearer thinking and less emotional turmoil

Lower blood pressure and cholesterol

Support in kicking addictions and other self-defeating behaviors

Greater creativity and enhanced performance in work and play

Increased self-understanding and self-acceptance

More joy, love, and spontaneity

Greater intimacy with friends and family members

Deeper sense of meaning and purpose

Glimpses of a spiritual dimension of being

You’re not going to give up all your doing and striving instantaneously and just be, even when you meditate. That’s something you work up to slowly by practicing your meditation and gradually focusing and simplifying until you’re doing less and less while you meditate — and being more and more. The following are a few of the stages you may pass through on the path to just being:

Getting used to sitting still

Developing the ability to turn your attention inward

Struggling to focus your attention

Being distracted again and again

Becoming more focused

Feeling more relaxed as you meditate

Noticing fleeting moments when your mind settles down

Experiencing brief glimpses of stillness and peace

Keep it simple

The point of meditation is not to discover some cool techniques to occupy your leisure hours; it’s to make the simple but momentous shift from doing to being. Don’t make the mistake of turning your meditation practice into another urgent item on your list of things to do. Use it, instead, as a welcome oasis from doing, an opportunity to be without strategy or agenda. In other words, keep it simple. Play with a few of the techniques mentioned in this chapter at first to decide which one feels right for you; then stick with the one you’ve chosen. It really doesn’t matter which method you use — they all end up depositing you in the here and now.

Developing and Directing Your Awareness

If, as the old saying goes, a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, then the journey of meditation begins with the cultivation of awareness, or attention. In fact, awareness is the mental muscle that carries you along and sustains you on your journey, not only at the start but every step of the way. No matter which path or technique you choose, the secret of meditation lies in developing, focusing, and directing your awareness.

In meditation, you can use awareness in different ways. To begin with, you can increase your powers of awareness by developing concentration on a particular object.

Then, when you’ve stabilized your concentration, you can, through the practice of receptive awareness, expand your awareness to illuminate the full range of your experience.

Next, you can concentrate even further in order to cultivate positive emotions and mind-states. Or you can use awareness to investigate your inner experience and contemplate the nature of existence itself.

Concentration, receptive awareness, cultivation, and contemplation constitute the major uses of awareness throughout the world’s great meditative traditions.

Building concentration

To do just about anything well, you need to focus your awareness. The most creative and productive people in every profession — for example, great athletes, performers, businessmen, scientists, artists, and writers — have the ability to block out distractions and completely immerse themselves in their work.

When you meditate, you calm your mind by making it one-pointed rather than scattered and distracted.

Many spiritual traditions teach their students concentration as the primary meditation practice. Just keep focusing your mind on the mantra, symbol, or visualization, they advise, and eventually you’ll attain what’s called absorption, or samadhi.

In absorption, the sense of being a separate “me” disappears, and only the object of your attention remains. Followed to its natural conclusion, the practice of concentration can lead to an experience of union with the object of your meditation.

Opening to receptive awareness

The great sages of China say that all things comprise the constant interplay of yin and yang — the feminine and masculine forces of the universe. Well, if concentration is the yang of meditation (focused, powerful, penetrating), then receptive awareness is the yin (open, expansive, welcoming).

Where concentration disciplines, stabilizes, and grounds the mind, receptive awareness loosens and extends the mind’s boundaries and creates more interior space, enabling you to familiarize yourself with the mind’s contents. Where concentration blocks extra stimuli as distractions to the focus at hand, receptive awareness embraces and assimilates every experience that presents itself.

Most meditations involve the interplay of concentration and receptive awareness, although some more-advanced techniques teach the practice of receptive awareness alone. Just be open and aware and welcome whatever arises, they teach, and ultimately you’ll be “taken by truth.” Followed to its conclusion, receptive awareness guides you in shifting your identity from your thoughts, emotions, and the stories your mind tells you to your true identity, which is being itself.

Of course, if you don’t know how to work with attention, these instructions are impossible to follow. That’s why most traditions prescribe practicing concentration first. By quieting and grounding the mind (enough so that it can open without being swept away by a deluge of irrelevant feelings and thoughts), concentration provides a solid foundation on which the practice of meditation can flourish.

Using contemplation for greater insight

Although concentration and receptive awareness provide enormous benefits, ultimately it’s insight and understanding — of how the mind works, how you perpetuate your own suffering, how attached you are to the outcome of events, and how uncontrollable and fleeting these events are — that offer freedom from suffering. And in your everyday life, it’s creative thinking — free from the usual limited, repetitive patterns of thought — that offers solutions to problems. That’s why contemplation is the third key component that transforms meditation from a calming, relaxing exercise to a vehicle for freedom and creative expression.

After you’ve developed your concentration and expanded your awareness, you eventually find that you have access to a more penetrating insight into the nature of your experience. You can use this faculty to explore your inner terrain and gradually understand and undermine your mind’s tendency to cause you suffering and stress. If you’re a spiritual seeker, you can use this faculty to inquire into the nature of the self or to reflect upon the mystery of God and creation. And if you’re a person with more practical concerns, you may ponder the next step in your career or relationship or contemplate some seemingly irresolvable problem in your life.

Cultivating positive, healing states of mind

Some meditations aim to open the heart and develop certain life-affirming qualities like compassion, lovingkindness, equanimity, joy, or forgiveness. On a more practical level, you can use meditation to cultivate a proactive, healthy immune system or to develop poise and precision in a particular sport. For example, you can visualize killer T cells attacking your cancer or imagine yourself executing a dive without a single mistake. These are the kinds of meditations I’ve chosen to call cultivation.

Where contemplation aims to investigate, inquire, and ultimately see deeply into the nature of things, cultivation can help you transform your inner life by directing the concentration you develop to strengthen positive, healthy mind-states and withdraw energy from those that are more reactive and self-defeating.

Making Meditation Your Own

Developing and directing your awareness may be the foundation of effective meditation, but like any good foundation, it’s only the beginning. The next step is to build your house brick by brick, meditation session by meditation session, discovering what works for you and what doesn’t, until your practice is grounded and stable.

When you begin to develop and direct your awareness in meditation, you’re faced with the challenge of putting all the pieces together into an integrated practice that’s uniquely suited to your needs. You may cherish the peace and relaxation you experience when you simply sit quietly without any effort or focus, not even the effort to be aware. Or you may have a specific purpose for meditating, such as healing an illness or resolving a disturbing psychological issue, and only feel drawn to approaches that help you meet your goals.

The key is to experiment with different forms of meditation and trust your intuition to tell you which ones are best suited for you at this particular point on your journey. Inevitably, yin and yang tend to balance each other out; that is, you may start out with intense concentration and end up with more relaxed, receptive awareness; or you may begin in a more receptive mode and gradually discover the virtues of focus.

Of course, if you intend to maintain your practice from week to week and month to month, which is the only way to reap the benefits of meditation, you’ll probably need to draw on some of those time-honored qualities that every sustained enterprise requires: motivation, discipline, and commitment.

Other Journeys That Masquerade as Meditation

Of course, every activity can become a meditation if you do it with awareness or concentration. For example, you can wash the dishes or drive the car or talk on the phone meditatively.

But certain activities become confused with meditation in the popular imagination even though they may have a totally different intent. Some people claim that simply reading the newspaper or watching their favorite sitcom qualifies as meditation — well, who am I to judge?

Here are some ersatz meditations that certainly have their place in the repertory of leisure pursuits but don’t generally offer the benefits of meditation:

Thinking: Although higher-order contemplation or inquiry plays a part in some meditation techniques, it bears little resemblance to the often tortured, conflicted process that usually passes for thinking. Besides, thinking tires you out, whereas meditation refreshes you and perks you up.

Daydreaming: Daydreaming and fantasy offer their own unique pleasures and rewards, including occasional problem-solving and a momentary escape from difficult or tedious circumstances. But rather than leaving you feeling more spacious and more connected with being, as meditation does, daydreaming often embroils you more actively in the drama of your life.

Repeating affirmations: This common new-age practice — a contemporary version of what used to be called positive thinking — purports to provide an antidote to your negative beliefs by replacing them with positive alternatives. Generally, however, the negativity is so deeply rooted that the affirmations merely skim the surface like froth on the ocean and never really penetrate to the depths, where your core beliefs reside.

Praying: Ordinary or petitionary prayer, which calls on God for help or asks for something, can be performed meditatively but has little in common with meditation as I describe it in this chapter.

Sleeping: Refreshing though it may be, sleep isn’t meditation — unless you happen to be an expert yogi who meditates in your sleep. Research shows that the brain waves generated during sleep are significantly different from those generated during meditation.

Becoming aware of your awareness

Most of the time, you probably don’t pay much attention to your awareness. Yet the truth is, it’s crucial to everything you do. When you watch TV, study for an exam, cook a meal, drive your car, listen to music, or talk with a friend, you’re being aware, or paying attention. Before you begin to meditate in a formal way, you may find it helpful to explore your own awareness.

First, notice what it’s like to be aware. Are there times in your life when you’re not aware of anything? Now, complete this thought: “I am aware of. . . .” Do this again and again and notice where your awareness takes you.

Do you tend to be more aware of internal or external sensations? Do you pay more attention to thoughts and fantasies than to your moment-to-moment sensory experiences? Notice whether a preoccupation with mental activity diminishes your awareness of what’s happening right here and now.

Next, pay attention to whether your awareness tends to focus on a particular object or sensation or tends to be more expansive and inclusive. You may find that your awareness resembles a spotlight that flows from object to object. Notice how your awareness flows without trying to change it.

Does your awareness shift quickly from one thing to another, or does it move more slowly, making contact with each object before moving on? Experiment with speeding up and slowing down the flow of awareness, and notice how that feels.

You may discover that your awareness is drawn again and again to certain kinds of objects and events, but not to others. Where does your awareness repeatedly wander? Which experiences does it seem to selectively avoid?

Now, experiment with gently directing your awareness from one focus to another. When you pay attention to sounds, you may notice that you momentarily forget about your hands or the discomfort in your back or knees. Try to focus on one object of attention for as long as you can. How long can you remain undistracted before your mind skips to the next thing?

Chapter 2

Striving for a Relaxed Body and Calm Mind

In This Chapter

Visualizing ways to relax your body

Tuning in, slowing down, and exploring your breath

Zooming in on your self-awareness

If you’re looking for simple, concise meditation instructions, you’ve come to the right chapter. You can muse forever about meditation’s benefits or the nature of the mind, but there’s nothing quite like attempting to practice meditation to show you how stubborn and wild the mind can actually be.

The practice of meditation involves gently returning your mind again and again to a simple focus of attention. In this chapter, you discover mindfulness techniques for balancing relaxation and alertness, and you have an opportunity to find out how to meditate on your breath — one of the most popular forms of meditation throughout the world’s spiritual traditions. You also find out how to extend your meditation to include the full range of sensory experiences (that is, feeling, smelling, hearing, and seeing).

Paying Closer Attention to Yourself

As the old saying goes, a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. In the case of meditation, this simple but essential step involves turning your mind away from its usual preoccupation with external events — or, just as often, with the story it tells you about external events — and toward your inner sensate experience.

If you’re like most people, you’re so caught up with what’s happening around you — the look in other people’s eyes, the voices of family and co-workers, the latest news on the radio, the messages appearing on your computer screen — that you forget to pay attention to what’s happening in your own mind, body, and heart. In fact, popular culture has been designed to seduce you into searching outside yourself for happiness and satisfaction. In such a confusing and compelling world, even the most rudimentary gesture of self-awareness can seem like a challenge of monumental proportions.

Take a few minutes right now to turn your mind around and pay attention to what you’re sensing and feeling. Notice how much resistance you have to shifting your awareness from your external focus to your simple sensate experience. Notice how busily your mind flits from thought to thought and image to image, weaving a story with you as the central character.

Because these habitual patterns are so deeply rooted, doing something as seemingly innocuous as returning your attention again and again to a basic internal focus like your breath can take tremendous courage and patience. You may be afraid of what you’ll discover if you venture into essentially unknown terrain — or afraid of what you’ll miss if you turn inward even for a few moments. But this shift from outer to inner is precisely the simple but radical gesture that meditation requires.

Using Your Imagination to Relax Your Body

As the emerging field of mind-body medicine reminds us — and yogis and sages have been telling us for millennia — your body, your mind, and your heart form one seamless and inseparable whole.

When your thoughts keep leaping from worry to worry, your body responds by tightening and tensing, especially in certain key places like the throat, the heart, the solar plexus, and the belly. When the discomfort gets intense enough, you register it as an emotion — fear, perhaps, or anger or sadness.

Because it connects you with your direct experience — and ultimately with a realm of pure being beyond the mind — meditation naturally relaxes your body while it focuses your mind. As a beginner, though, you may not experience this natural relaxation for days or even weeks. So it can be helpful to practice one of the techniques in the following list before you meditate, especially if you tend to be noticeably tense. (If you’re one of those rare people who are generally so relaxed that you tend to drift off to sleep at the slightest provocation, you may want to skip this exercise.)

Shower of relaxation: Imagine taking a warm shower. As the water cascades across your body and down your legs, it carries with it all discomfort and distress, leaving you refreshed and invigorated.

Honey treatment: Imagine a mound of warm honey perched on the crown of your head. As it melts, it runs down your face and head and neck, covering your shoulders and chest and arms, and gradually enveloping your whole body down to your toes. Feel the sensuous wave of warm liquid draining away all tension and stress and leaving you thoroughly relaxed and renewed.

Peaceful place: Imagine a safe, protected, peaceful place — perhaps a forest, a meadow, or a sandy beach. Experience the place fully with all your senses. Notice how calm and relaxed you feel here; now allow that feeling to permeate every cell of your body.

Body scan: Beginning with the crown of your head, scan your body from top to bottom. When you come to an area of tension or discomfort, gently allow it to open and soften; then move on.

Relaxation response: Choose a word or brief phrase that has deep spiritual or personal significance for you. Now close your eyes and repeat this sound softly, again and again.

If you’ve never deliberately relaxed your body before, start with the meditation in the next section “Going for Deep Relaxation.” Because the meditation takes at least 15 minutes to complete, you probably won’t do it each time you meditate, but it does show you how to relax your body part by part. By the way, deep relaxation is a great antidote for insomnia — just practice it in bed and then drift off to sleep!

Going for Deep Relaxation

Here’s a meditation you can do any time you have 15 or 20 minutes to spare and want to shed some of the tension you’ve accumulated in your busy life. It’s also a great way to prepare for the other meditations in this book because it leaves you feeling relaxed, refreshed, and in touch with yourself.

1. Find a comfortable place to lie down, like on a bed or on the floor. Take off your shoes, loosen your belt and other tight clothing, and stretch out on your back with your arms resting at your sides, legs slightly apart.

2. Sense your body as a whole, including the places where it contacts the surface of the bed or floor.

3. Close your eyes and bring your awareness to your feet. Wiggle your toes, flex your feet, and then let go of all tension as much as you can, allowing your feet to melt into the floor.

4. Shift your awareness to your lower legs, thighs, and hips. Imagine them becoming heavy and relaxed and melting into the floor.

If the image of melting doesn’t appeal to you, you might try dissolving, sinking, or disappearing.

5. Bring your awareness to your lower abdomen. Imagine all tension draining away, your breath deepening, and your belly opening and softening.

6. Bring your awareness to your upper abdomen, chest, neck, and throat, feeling the areas opening and softening.

7. Bring your awareness to your shoulders, upper arms, lower arms, and hands. Imagine them becoming heavy and relaxed and melting into the floor.

8. Bring your awareness to your head and face. Feel the tension melting away from your face, across your head and into the floor.

9. Scan your body from head to toe, searching for any remaining areas of tension or discomfort.

If you find any, just imagine them relaxing completely.

10. Experience your body as one field of relaxation, without parts or edges.

11. Continue to rest in this way for five or ten minutes more; then very slowly begin to wiggle your fingers and toes, stretch your arms and legs, open your eyes, and gradually come up to a sitting position.

Check in with yourself and notice how you feel. Do you feel more relaxed? Does your body feel lighter or more expanded? Does the world appear different in any way? Now gently get up and go about your day.

Developing Awareness of the Here and Now

This chapter highlights an approach to meditation known as mindfulness, which is moment-to-moment awareness of your experience as it unfolds. Mindfulness combines concentration (highly focused awareness) and a more receptive awareness that simply welcomes whatever arises.

Ultimately, the goal of mindfulness meditation is to develop the capacity to be fully present for whatever is occurring right here and now. When you’ve stabilized your concentration by focusing on your breath, you can expand your awareness to include the full range of bodily sensations, and eventually you can just welcome whatever presents itself in your field of experience.

Though supremely simple, this advanced technique can take years of patient practice to master, but you may have glimpses of a more expanded awareness after only a few weeks of regular meditation.

Focusing on your breath

The mundane, repetitive, seemingly inconsequential activity of attending to your breath can eventually lead to all the glamorous benefits meditation promises to provide, including reduced stress, enhanced perform-ance, increased appreciation and enjoyment of life, deeper connection with your essential being — even advanced meditative states, such as unconditional love or transformative insights into the nature of existence.

Paying attention to the coming and going of your breath slows your mind to match the speed and rhythms of your body. You breathe an average of 12 to 16 times per minute. And the sensations are far subtler than anything you’ll see or hear on TV — more like the sights and sounds of nature, which is, after all, where you and your body came from.

As a preliminary to the practice of following your breath, you may want to spend a few weeks or months just counting your breaths. It’s a great way to build concentration, and it provides a pre-established structure that constantly reminds you when you’re wandering off.

Counting your breaths

Begin by finding a comfortable sitting position that you can hold for 10 or 15 minutes. Then take a few deep breaths and exhale slowly. Without trying to control your breath in any way, allow it to find its own natural depth and rhythm. Always breathe through your nose unless you can’t for some reason.

Now begin counting each inhalation and exhalation until you reach ten; then return to one. In other words, inhale and count “one,” exhale and count “two,” inhale again and count “three,” and so on up to ten. If you lose track, return to one and start again.

When you get the knack of counting each in-breath and out-breath — say, after a month or two of regular practice — you can shift to counting only the exhalations. If your mind starts wandering on the inhalations, though, just go back to the first method until you feel ready to move on again. Eventually, you may want to simplify the practice even further by simply noting “in” on the inhalation and “out” on the exhalation.

Minding your body instead of your breath

Some people seem to find it virtually impossible to count or follow their breaths. Instead, they find it helpful to focus on their body as a whole when they meditate. You can begin by drawing your awareness slowly down through your body from your head to your feet; then switch to holding your whole body in your awareness at once. When your mind wanders off, just come back to your body. Or you can use the Zen approach of focusing on a particular part of the body, like the lower back or lower abdomen. When you find a focus that works for you, however, stick with it. The point is to develop your mindfulness, not to meander through your body in search of a place to meditate.

Following your breaths

Begin by sitting and breathing exactly as you did for counting your breaths. When you feel settled, allow your attention to focus either on the sensation of your breath coming and going through your nostrils or on the rising and falling of your belly as you breathe.

When you realize that your mind has wandered off and you’re engrossed in planning or thinking or daydreaming, gently but firmly bring it back to your breath.

At the end of your exhalation (and before you inhale again), there’s often a gap or a pause when your breath is no longer perceptible. At this point, allow your attention to rest on a predetermined touchpoint, such as your navel or your hands, before returning to your breath when it resumes.

Expanding to sensations

As soon as you’ve developed a certain ease in following your breath, you can expand your awareness as you meditate to include the full range of sensations both inside and outside your body — feeling, smelling, hearing, and seeing. Imagine that your awareness is like the zoom lens on a camera. Until now, you’ve been focused exclusively on your breath; now you can back away slightly to include the field of sensations that surrounds your breath.

If you find it difficult to expand your awareness all at once, you can begin by exploring a sensation when it calls attention to itself. For example, you’re following your breath when a pain in your back cries out for your attention. Instead of staying focused on your breath as you would have done before, you can turn your attention to the pain and explore it fully until it no longer predominates in your field of experience. Then come back to your breath until you’re once again called away.

Welcoming whatever arises

When you become accustomed to including sensations in your meditation, you can open your awareness gates wide and welcome any and every experience — even thoughts and emotions — without judgment or discrimination. Just like sensations, thoughts and feelings come and go in your awareness like clouds in the sky without pulling you off center.

Chapter 3

Picking the Best Time and Place for Your Meditation

In This Chapter

Getting comfortable

Finding meditation times to fit your busy schedule

Creating a meditation niche that supports your practice

Over the years, I’ve learned that the physical environment surrounding your meditation — where, when, and how long you sit; what you wear; what kind of energy you invest — can have a powerful impact on the quality of your meditation. Trying to count your breaths in a busy airport or a noisy office can be an enjoyable challenge, of course, but you’ll go deeper faster in a quiet place that’s specifically devoted to meditation.

You may fantasize about going off to an ashram or some other spiritual community where everything is conveniently taken care of and all you have to do is meditate, eat, and sleep. Such places do exist, of course, and you may be lucky enough to find one. But if the circumstances of your life don’t allow for time away, you may just have to carve the time and space for meditation out of the raw material of your busy life.

In this chapter, you get some guidelines for determining when and how long to sit and what to eat or avoid before meditation. You also find out how to choose just the right spot for your meditation.

Dressing for Comfort, Not Fashion

This one may seem like a no-brainer, but you’d be surprised how many people show up for meditation wearing designer jeans and skin-tight tops, which makes it virtually impossible for them to cross their legs or breathe. The key to comfortable sitting is this: Keep clothing loose and roomy, and avoid constricting your breathing or your circulation in any way. Sweat clothes generally make great sitting gear.

Because body temperature and blood pressure tend to drop during meditation, you may get chillier than usual. So be sure to have a sweater or blanket nearby to use as a wrap.

When to Meditate

If you’re incredibly busy, pencil in formal periods of meditation whenever you can find the time. But if you have the luxury of choosing or would like to meditate as often as you can, this section fills you in on some of the best times to sit.

Ultimately, every moment and every activity can provide an opportunity to be mindful.

Meditating with music

When you’re moving too fast to sit and be mindful, you can use certain kinds of music to help you tune in to a slower, steadier, less jarring rhythm before you begin meditating. The music you choose depends on your taste — one person’s “aaahh” is another one’s “ouch.” Some people relax to classical or jazz, while others seem to need the intense sounds of heavy metal or the staccato rhythms of rap for their bodies to settle down.

By all means, use a favorite CD to soothe your savage beast at the end of a long and stressful day — preferably something that joins you where you are and then gradually lulls you into a quieter space. When you’re breathing a little easier, you can head for your meditation corner.

Or you can make listening to music a meditation in itself. Begin by being mindful of the music the way you’d be mindful of your breathing. Instead of thinking or daydreaming, listen with full attention to the sounds as they unfold in your awareness. When your mind wanders off, return to the music. At times, you may even lose yourself in the sound so that you, as the listener, disappear and only the listening remains. Such moments of deep meditation offer glimpses of your essential being that can’t be understood by the mind, but they have a powerful effect nevertheless.

First thing in the morning

Traditionally, the hour or two right after you wake up — preferably around sunrise — is considered the best time to meditate. Your mind and body are refreshed and energized by deep sleep, and you haven’t yet started to obsess about your usual worries and concerns. As a result, you may find it easier to focus and stay present.

By meditating first thing, you also set the tone for the rest of the day and can extend whatever peace of mind you generate to your other activities.

Before bed

If you’re groggy when you get up or have to shift into high gear the moment your feet hit the floor, try meditating in the evening before bed. It’s a great way to prepare for sleep because it allows your mind to settle down and shift naturally and with ease from waking to slumber. In fact, meditators who sit at bedtime often report that their sleep is more restful and they need less of it.

Of course, the downside is that you may feel as though you’re too tired or stressed out to meditate at the end of the day, and you may wind up taking a hot bath or watching TV instead. But when you get into the habit, you’ll find that evening meditations are an excellent option with some distinct advantages of their own when it comes to calming your mind and transitioning you into restful sleep.

Right after work

Although not as reliable as mornings or bedtimes because it’s often usurped by errands, early dinners, or family emergencies, the transition time between work and home can be a fitting moment to take a few deep breaths and let your body and mind settle — instead of reaching for the paper or flipping on the tube.

Lunch hours and coffee breaks

If you have an office of your own and a time set aside for lunch or coffee (I know, it’s a big if because more and more people eat on the fly these days), plan on bringing your food or scoring your java in advance and spending the rest of the time meditating. You may even set aside a special meditation space in your office — including an altar, if you’re so inclined.

During predictable downtimes

If you’re like many parents, you may spend hours each week shuttling your kids from one activity or playdate to another — and sitting in the car or running errands while you wait for them to finish. Instead of picking up a magazine or listening to the news, try meditating. (You can take the same approach to waiting for your doctor or dentist to call you in from the waiting area.) It may not be the best environment and your posture may not be ideal, but it’s a stretch of precious idle time. Use it wisely.

How Long to Meditate

You may prefer your meditation short and quick or long and slow. If you can’t schedule a half-hour, then meditate for a few minutes. Sitting for five or ten minutes every day is much better than sitting for an hour once a week — though you may want to do both.

Digital alarm watches are an accurate and inexpensive way to time your meditations precisely without watching the clock. Also, you may want to signal the beginning and end of your meditation with the sound of a small bell, as is done in many traditional cultures.

Five minutes

If you’re a beginner, a few minutes can seem like an eternity, so start off small and increase the length of your sittings as your interest and enjoyment dictate. You may find that by the time you settle your body and start to focus on your breath, your time is up. If the session seems too short, you can always sit a little longer next time. As your practice develops, you’ll find that even five minutes can be immeasurably refreshing.

10 to 15 minutes

If you’re like most people, you need several minutes at the start of meditation to get settled, a few more minutes to become engaged in the process, and several minutes at the end to reorient, which means that 10 or 15 minutes leaves you a little in the middle to deepen your concentration or expand your awareness. Still it’s a good start, and you can work up to longer sessions.

When you’ve made it this far, try leveling off at 15 minutes a day for several weeks, and watch your powers of concentration build.

20 minutes to an hour

The longer you sit, the more time you’ll have between preliminaries and endings to settle into a focused and relaxed state of mind. If you have the motivation and can carve out the time, by all means devote 20 minutes, 40 minutes, or an hour to meditation each day. You’ll notice the difference — and you’ll understand why most meditation teachers recommend sitting this long at a stretch. Perhaps it’s the human attention span — look at the proverbial 50-minute hour of psychotherapy or the optimal length for most TV shows.

Finding the beauty

Even in the most chaotic and unappealing situations, you can attune yourself to a quality or dimension of beauty, if you try. So, the next time you find yourself in an unpleasant place or circumstance — preferably not one with a strong emotional charge, because that might make this exercise too difficult — do the following:

1. Take a moment to look for the beauty.

You may notice a patch of green grass in the distance, or a bouquet of flowers on a table, or the laughter of a child, or an aesthetically pleasing piece of furniture. Or you may just notice a warm feeling in your belly or heart.

2. Take a deep breath, set aside your stress and discomfort, and enjoy the beauty.

Allow yourself to resonate with it for a few moments as you would with a favorite piece of music or a walk in the woods.

3. Shift your focus back to the situation at hand and notice whether your attitude has changed in any way.

Keeping your practice steady and regular is better than splurging one day and abstaining for the rest of the week.

What to Eat and Drink before You Meditate — and What to Avoid

Big meals can make you drowsy, especially when they’re high in carbohydrates, so eat lightly if at all before you sit. Or wait at least one hour after a major repast. You may even consider following the traditional Zen guideline to eat until you’re two-thirds full instead of bursting at the seams — in addition to aiding your meditation practice, it may not be bad for your waistline.

As for drinking (and smoking), here are a few suggestions: I do know seasoned meditators who like to down a cup of cappuccino before they sit, and at least one Zen master who made it a habit of meditating first thing in the morning after drinking too much sake the night before. But as a general rule, abstaining from mind-altering substances (for example, coffee, alcohol, tobacco, marijuana, and other recreational drugs) before meditating is best.

As your practice grows and you observe the benefits of being present and focused, rather than zoned out or drugged up, you may naturally diminish your intake. In fact, you may discover that meditation makes you more sensitive to your state of mind and provides a natural high that renders these substances unnecessary or obsolete. And if your primary motivation for meditating is to reduce stress or enhance your health, you may consider abstaining entirely from your substance of choice. Believe it or not, indulging only adds to the burden of stress you’re already experiencing.

Where to Meditate

Perhaps you’ve seen those Chinese paintings where a bearded sage in a flowing robe sits in deep contemplation at the base of some majestic peak with a waterfall thundering beside him. Maybe you’ve even had moments when you wished you could become that sage, disappear into the mountains, and meditate in silence and simplicity for the rest of your days. Alas, life doesn’t usually support actualizing such fantasies nowadays!

You can follow a few simple guidelines for carving out a special place for the practice of meditation. You’ll find that the space you set aside will enrich your life in ways you can’t imagine.

Why it’s best to stay put

Just as it helps to have a regular time to meditate, there are some definite advantages to sitting in the same location day after day, instead of moving from place to place. These include

Fewer distractions: As a beginner, you already have plenty of distractions to contend with, both inner and outer. Why add all the nuances of a constantly shifting external environment?

Good vibes: The more often you sit there, the more you infuse your spot and its environs with the energy of your efforts — your good vibes, if you will. Whenever you return, your meditation is buoyed and supported by the energy you’ve invested, just as you feel especially comfortable and relaxed in your favorite chair.

Peaceful memories: When you’ve picked your spot, you start associating it with meditation, especially if you keep your altar or your sitting gear there. And if your meditation involves spiritual aspirations, your spot becomes a sacred site where your deepest insights and reflections take place.

How to pick the right spot

If you share a small apartment with a partner or friend, or if your family has usurped every square foot of usable space at your house, by all means choose the only vacant corner and make it your own. If you have more leeway, here are a few guidelines for picking your spot:

Off the beaten track: You know the heavily trafficked highways in your house, so be sure to avoid them. And if you don’t want someone inadvertently barging in on you just when you’re starting to settle, tell your housemates when you’re going off to meditate.

Away from work: If you work at home or have a desk devoted to personal business, keep it out of sight — and mind — when you’re meditating. And if possible, remember to turn off your phone; there’s nothing quite as distracting to your mind as wondering who’s trying to reach you now!

Relatively quiet: Especially if you live in the city, you probably won’t be able to eliminate the usual background noises — the drone of traffic, the shouts and laughter of kids on the street, the hum of the refrigerator. But you should, if at all possible, avoid audible conversations, especially among people you know, and the sounds of TV, radio, popular music, and other familiar distractions. These are the kinds of recognizable noises that can pull your mind away from its appointed task, especially when you’re just starting out.

Not too dark or too light: Sitting in a bright, sunny spot may be too energizing and distracting, just as sitting in the dark can put you to sleep. Be sure to modulate the lighting with your attention level in mind. If you’re sleepy, open the blinds or turn on an extra light; if you’re wired, tone down the illumination accordingly.

Fresh air: Because we’re talking breath here, it’s great to have a supply of fresh air where you meditate. Avoid musty basements and windowless closets; besides being bad for your health, they tend to lower your energy (along with your oxygen level) and lull you to sleep.

Close to nature: If you don’t have a tree or a garden outside the window near where you meditate, you may want to have a plant, a vase full of flowers, or a few stones nearby. Not that you’ll be gazing at them while you sit, but natural objects radiate a certain special energy of their own that lends support to your practice.

Set up an altar

For the purposes of this book, I use altar to refer to a collection of objects with special meaning and resonance for you that you assemble in one place and use to inspire your meditations. If you’re a Christian, for example, your altar may include a crucifix or a picture of Jesus; if you’re a Jew, you may have a holy book or a Star of David; or, if you’re a Buddhist, you may choose to contemplate a statue of Buddha or a photo of your teacher. And if you have no particular religious inclinations, you may be quite content with a few stones, a candle, and a potted plant.

Although an altar is not essential to meditation, it can be a creative and constantly evolving expression of your inner life — a reflection of your deepest aspirations, values, and beliefs. Gazing at your altar before you sit can evoke your connection to a spiritual dimension of being — or it can merely remind you of why you’re here: to develop concentration, relax, open your heart, and heal your body. Here are some of the main ingredients that appear on many altars; feel free to improvise and add or subtract as you see fit:

Bells

Candles

Flowers

Incense

Natural objects

Pictures (of nature or inspirational figures)

Sacred texts

Statues (of inspirational figures)

As with your meditation, it’s best to keep your altar simple at first. Use a small, low table or cabinet (if you meditate on the floor) covered with a special piece of cloth. If you want, you can enrich and expand it over time, or you may prefer to keep a stash of objects and rotate them as the spirit moves you. For example, you can adapt your altar to the seasons, with flowers in spring, seashells in summer, dried leaves in autumn, and pine boughs in winter.

One cautionary note about pictures: You may want to devote your altar to mentors, teachers, and other figures whose presence fills you with unadulterated inspiration — and consign to your desk or bureau those loved ones for whom your feelings may be more complex, like children, parents, spouses, and friends.

Walking meditation

Between periods of formal sitting, meditators throughout the world have long practiced walking with mindful awareness. Besides breaking the monotony of uninterrupted sitting, it’s a great meditation in its own right — and a wonderful way to practice extending the mindfulness you learn on your cushion or chair into the ordinary world of movement and activity.

In some Zen monasteries, walking meditation more closely resembles a kind of restrained, conscious running. In parts of Southeast Asia, the movement may be almost imperceptibly slow. Here’s a more moderate approach that you can practice not only between periods of sitting meditation, but also anytime you want to slow down a little and pay attention as you walk. If the weather allows, by all means walk outside. Or you can just walk back and forth in your house.

1. Begin by walking at your usual pace, following your in-breath and out-breath as you walk.

2. Coordinate your breathing with your steps.

For example, you can take three steps for each inhalation and three steps for each exhalation, which, as you may notice, is considerably slower than most people walk. If you want to change the speed of your walking, just change the number of steps per breath. But maintain the same pace each time you walk. (If your inhalations and exhalations are different lengths, adapt your walking accordingly.)

3. In addition to your breathing, be aware of your feet and legs as you lift and move them.

Notice the contact of your feet with the ground or floor. Gaze ahead of you, with your eyes lowered at a 45-degree angle. Be relaxed, easy, and comfortable as you walk.

4. Enjoy your steady, mindful walking for as long as you want.

If your attention wanders or you start to hurry, gently bring your attention back to your walking.

Chapter 4

Meditating by Sitting Still

In This Chapter

Enjoying the benefits of sitting still

Picking up some time-honored tricks for sitting up straight

Preparing to sit with six great stretches

Perhaps you know a few meditation techniques, but you haven’t really begun to practice them because you can’t sit still for more than a few minutes, let alone 5, 10, or even 15. Maybe your back or your knees start hurting and you worry you may be doing yourself irreparable harm. Or your body starts itching in the oddest places and you can’t resist the urge to scratch. Or every sound reaches your ears magnified a thousand times and you start imagining leaky faucets or burglars behind every door.

The simple act of sitting still is guaranteed to flush out every ounce of restlessness you never knew you had. And, yes, meditation works best when you can keep your body relatively motionless and your back relatively straight. So what to do?

In this chapter, you explore the topography of meditation and find out what sitting still has to teach you. You discover some great techniques for straightening your spine without hurting your back. And you have an opportunity to practice some dynamite yoga poses for lengthening and relaxing the muscles most involved in sitting — so you can sit still longer and enjoy it more!

Mastering the Subtle Art of Sitting Still

Sitting in a certain posture and keeping your body relatively still mirrors back to you every impulse and distraction. You get to see how fidgety your body can be — and how hyperactive your mind can be, which is actually the source of your body’s restlessness. For every plan or intention running through your mind, there’s a corresponding impulse in your muscles and skin. But you’ll never notice all this activity unless you sit still.

The funny thing is, you can sit in the same position for hours without noticing it when you’re happily engrossed in some favorite activity, like watching a movie or surfing the Net or working on a hobby. But try to do something you find boring or unpleasant — especially an activity as strange and unfamiliar as turning your attention back on yourself and following your own breath or paying attention to your own sensations — and suddenly every minute can seem like an hour, every ache can seem like an ailment of life-threatening proportions, and every item on your to-do list can take on irresistible urgency.

Keeping still also gives you a tremendous edge when you’re working on developing your concentration. The fewer physical distractions you have, the easier it becomes to follow your breath, practice your mantra — or whatever your meditation happens to be.

These sitting instructions aren’t intended to turn your body into a stone. The point is to set your intention to sit still and notice what happens. The Buddha liked to use the metaphor of a lute: If the strings are too loose, you can’t play it, and if they’re too tight, they’ll break! If you’re too rigid with yourself, you’ll just end up miserable. But if you keep shifting your body this way and that, you’ll never get your mind concentrated and quiet enough to reap the benefits of meditation.

Sit Up Straight! A How-To Guide

If you examine the meditation poses depicted in the world’s great spiritual traditions, you’ll find that they all have one thing in common: the unshakable stability of a mountain or tree. Look at the kneeling pharaohs in the Egyptian pyramids, for example, or the cross-legged Buddhas in Indian caves or Japanese temples. They sit on a broad base that appears to be deeply rooted in the earth, and they have a grounded presence that says, “I can’t be budged. I’m here to stay.”

When you sit up straight like a mountain or a tree, your body acts as a link between heaven and earth, connecting your physical, embodied existence with the sacred or spiritual dimension of being.

If you find all this spiritual stuff too esoteric or airy-fairy, you might consider that sitting up straight confers some practical benefits as well. By aligning the spine and opening the channels that run through the center of the body, upright sitting encourages unimpeded circulation of energy, which, in turn, contributes to wakefulness on all levels — physical, mental, and spiritual.

Besides, it’s a lot easier to sit still for extended periods of time when your vertebrae are stacked like a pile of bricks, one on top of the other. Otherwise, over time, gravity has this irritating habit of pulling your body down toward the ground and, in the process, causing the aches and pains so typical of a body at war with the forces of nature. So in the long run the most comfortable way to sit is straight, which puts you in harmony with nature.

Situating yourself from the waist down

Just as a tree needs to put down deep roots so it won’t fall over as it grows, you need to find a comfortable position for the lower half of your body that you can sustain for 5, 10, or 15 minutes — or even longer, if you want. After several millennia of experimentation, the great meditators have come up with a handful of traditional postures that seem to work especially well. Different though they may appear from the outside, these postures have one thing in common: The pelvis tilts slightly forward, accentuating the natural curvature of the lower back.

The following poses are arranged more or less in order from the easiest to the hardest to do, although ease all depends on your body and degree of flexibility.

Sitting in a chair

The trick to meditating in a chair is positioning your buttocks somewhat higher than your knees, which tilts your pelvis forward and helps keep your back straight.

Old-fashioned wooden kitchen chairs work better than the upholstered kind. Experiment with a small cushion or foam wedge under your buttocks in order to achieve the proper posture.

Kneeling (with or without a bench)

Kneeling can be, well, hard on your knees, unless you have proper support. Try placing a cushion under your buttocks and between your feet. Otherwise, your bottom and other tender parts may fall asleep.

Easy position

Simply sit on your cushion with your legs crossed in front of you, tailor-fashion. (Believe it or not, tailors once sat this way!) Your knees don’t have to touch the floor, but do keep your back as straight as you can.

You can stabilize the position by placing cushions under your knees, and gradually decrease the height of the cushions as your hips become more flexible. When your knees touch the ground, you may be ready for Burmese or lotus position (see the following sections for these positions).

Easy position isn’t recommended for extended periods of sitting because it’s not very stable and doesn’t support a straight spine.

Burmese position

The Burmese position involves placing both calves and feet on the floor one in front of the other. Though less stable than the lotus series, it’s much easier to negotiate, especially for beginners.

With all the cross-legged poses, first bend your leg at the knee, in line with your thigh, before rotating your thigh to the side. Otherwise, you risk injuring your knee, which is built to flex in only one direction, unlike the ball-and-socket joint of the hip, which can rotate through a full range of motion.

Quarter lotus

The quarter lotus is exactly like half lotus, which I explain in the next section, except that your foot rests on the calf of your opposite leg rather than on the thigh.

Half lotus

The half lotus is easier to execute than the famous full lotus and is nearly as stable. With your buttocks on a cushion, place one foot on the opposite thigh and the other foot on the floor beneath the opposite thigh. Be sure that both knees touch the floor and your spine doesn’t tilt to one side.

To distribute the pressure on your back and legs, remember to alternate legs from sitting to sitting, if you can. In other words, left leg on the thigh and right leg on the floor one time, and then left leg on the floor and right leg on the thigh the next time.

Full lotus

The full lotus is considered the Everest of sitting positions. With your buttocks on a cushion, cross your left foot over your right thigh and your right foot over your left thigh. As with its more asymmetrical sibling, half lotus, it’s best to alternate legs in full lotus in order to distribute the pressure evenly.

Don’t attempt full lotus unless you happen to be particularly flexible — and even then I suggest that you prepare for it by doing some of the stretches described later in this chapter, in the section “Preparing Your Body for Sitting.”

Straightening your spine

When you’re settled into a comfortable sitting position with your pelvis tilted slightly forward, you can turn your attention to straightening your back. Of course, straight is a misnomer when used to refer to the spine because a healthy spine actually has several distinct curves: one at the lumbar region or lower back, another at the thoracic area or midback, and a third at the neck or cervical spine.

Unfortunately, these natural curves are often exaggerated by the demands of computer workstations and other sedentary environments, and you get into the habit of sitting hunched over, with your shoulders rounded, your upper back collapsed, and your neck and head craned forward like a turkey vulture — the way I’m sitting right now!

You may not be able to reverse sitting habits like these in a few sessions of meditation, but you can experiment with extending your spine — a more accurate term than straightening — and slowly but surely softening those curves back to their natural, graceful arches. You may find yourself carrying these new sitting habits into your other activities so that in time you’re gently correcting your posture while driving your car or sitting at your desk, for example.

Try one or all three of the following visualizations to help you discover what a straight or extended spine feels like. The important thing is how your body feels from the inside. You want to feel centered, stable, grounded, and aligned with the force of gravity.

Suspending your head from a string: Imagine that your entire body is suspended in the air from a string attached to the crown of your head. As you feel the string pulling your head up into the air, notice how your spine naturally lengthens, your pelvis tilts forward, your chin tucks, and the back of your neck flattens slightly.

Stacking your vertebrae one on top of another: Imagine your vertebrae as bricks that you’re stacking one on top of the other, beginning with the first at the base of the spine. Feel your spine growing up toward the sky brick by brick, like a skyscraper.

Sitting like a mountain or tree: Imagine your body as a mountain or tree with a broad base that extends deep into the earth and a trunk or peak that reaches toward the sky.

What to Do with Your Eyes, Mouth, and Hands

When I started meditating back in the ’60s, I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what to do with my eyes. They kept crossing and shifting uncontrollably from focused to unfocused, and although I’d never worried about what to do with my eyes before, I became obsessed with doing the “right” thing with them. Eventually, I just forgot about them, and they never bothered me again.

To save you similar confusion about your eyes and other salient body parts, I offer the following guidelines:

Eyes: Initially, you need to decide whether you want to sit with your eyes closed, wide open, or half open. Then you can just forget about your eyes and let them do what they do. Each option has its pros and cons.

• Closed: Keeping your eyes closed draws your attention away from external distractions and helps you focus on your inner experience. Unfortunately, it also encourages daydreaming and thinking.

• Wide open: Keeping your eyes wide open is actually the most difficult position because it expands your awareness to include the full range of outer as well as inner experiences. The good news is that this position makes it easier for you to rise from a sitting position and extend your meditation to your everyday, eyes-open activities. The bad news is that if you haven’t developed enough concentration, you can easily be distracted by anything that crosses your field of vision.

• Half open: I generally recommend that people sit with their eyes half open, Zen style, gazing with soft focus at a spot on the floor about 4 or 5 feet ahead (in other words, looking down at a 45-degree angle). If you’re feeling restless or distracted, you can close your eyes a little more (or completely); if you’re feeling sleepy or dull, you can open them wider. And if you find yourself staring, just relax your eyes and soften your focus.

Hands: You can put your hands pretty much anywhere they feel comfortable, as long as you keep them there for the entire sitting period. Seasoned meditators generally put their hands one of two places:

• In the lap: Try simply clasping your hands in your lap. Or you can attempt the more formal Zen mudra (hand position) in which your left palm is placed on top of your right about 4 or 5 inches below your navel, with your thumbs lightly touching near your navel, thereby forming an oval with your fingers.

• On the thighs: Simply rest your hands on your thighs, palms down. Or turn them up and, if you want, touch your index finger to the thumb of each hand, forming an oval in a traditional yoga mudra.

As with all the other options in this chapter, experiment with hand positions until you find the one that works best for you.

Mouth: Keep it gently closed (but not clenched) as you breathe through your nose, with your tongue lightly touching the roof of your mouth so it doesn’t wander all over the place as tongues are wont to do.

Dealing with discomfort while sitting

If you sit in the same position for an extended period of time, you’re going to experience some physical pain or discomfort, no matter how much stretching you do! An ache in your back here, some knee pain there, a twinge in your shoulder, pins and needles in your foot — the list of complaints is potentially endless. And the longer you sit, the more intense the discomfort may become — and the stronger the temptation to move or fidget to avoid it.

Instead of instantly shifting your position or struggling to ignore your discomfort, practice gently expanding your awareness to include your discomfort, while continuing to attend to your breath or other object of meditation. If the pain is strong, you can explore it directly with the same mindful, compassionate attention you bring to your breath.

Notice also how your mind responds to your discomfort. Does it fabricate some story about your discomfort: “I’m not sitting correctly. There must be something wrong with my back. Maybe I’m ruining my knees?” And does your mind intensify your discomfort by judging it as bad or undesirable, causing you to tense up around it?

By opening your awareness to your pain and how your mind responds to it, you can actually begin to soften and relax in relation to the pain — and you may notice that it diminishes accordingly. Because physical and emotional pain are unavoidable, sitting meditation provides a wonderful laboratory for experimenting with new ways of relating to suffering and discomfort in every area of your life — and ultimately moving beyond them.

You also have the option of moving (with awareness) when the pain or discomfort becomes too intense. Just play at your own edge between opening and resisting. And remember that certain kinds of pain may merit your immediate attention — especially shooting pain, pain that begins as soon as you start sitting, and sharp (rather than dull) pain in your knees. In such cases, you’re better off trying a different sitting position.

Preparing Your Body for Sitting

If you can sit in meditation for 10 or 15 minutes each day without discomfort, congratulations! You needn’t spend any additional time learning how to stretch and strengthen your body — unless, that is, you’re so inclined.

But if you’re like most people, sooner or later your body will start clamoring for your attention.

A few well-placed hatha yoga poses can do wonders for your body — and make sitting a whole lot more comfortable, too! (If you’re interested in finding out more about yoga, try Yoga For Dummies, by Georg Feuerstein and Larry Payne [Wiley].)

With these needs in mind, the following sections highlight six yoga poses (also known as asanas) to help prepare you for sitting. The first three help to stretch and strengthen your lower back; the second three work on opening your hips and making them more flexible.

Cat pose with variations

Watch how a cat stretches after a nap, and you’ll understand how this pose got its name. Not only does the pose stretch and strengthen your spine for sitting, but it’s also a great way to start your day.

Here’s how you practice the Cat:

1.
Begin on your hands and knees with your spine parallel to the floor and your arms and thighs perpendicular to the floor (like a four-legged animal).

2.
As you exhale, arch your spine upward slowly like a cat, beginning the stretch at your tailbone.

Feel your spine flexing vertebra by vertebra.

3. At the culmination of the stretch, tuck your chin slightly.

4.
As you inhale, flex your spine downward, beginning with your tailbone and lifting your head slightly at the end of the stretch.

5. Continue to breathe and stretch in this way for 10 to 15 breaths.

You can also do two variations of the preceding Cat pose, as follows:

Variation 1: From the four-legged position (Step 1), gently turn your head on an exhalation and look at your left hip, as you simultaneously move your hip toward your head. Inhale and come back to center and repeat to the other side. Continue for 10 to 15 breaths.

Variation 2: From the four-legged position (Step 1), move your hands slightly forward of perpendicular and draw broad circles with your hips, moving forward as you inhale and backward as you exhale. Continue for 10 to 15 breaths.

Cobra pose

Named for its resemblance to the graceful serpent, this asana provides a great backward stretch for your spine — and an antidote to any tendency to slouch forward.

To get the benefits of this stretch, do it this way:

1. Lie face down with your forehead on the floor.

2. Place your hands under your shoulders with your fingertips facing forward and the outside edge of your hands even with the edge of your shoulders.

3. Draw your elbows in so that your arms touch the sides of your torso.

4. Keep your feet together and press your legs and thighs into the floor.

5. Raise your chest slowly away from the floor, lifting and extending from your upper back, with your head and neck in alignment with your spine.

At first, you may find that your chest doesn’t rise very far, but don’t force yourself in any way. Your back will gradually become more flexible.

6. Keeping your shoulders relaxed, gently press your chest upward and forward, and open your abdomen while pressing your pubic bone into the floor.

7. Breathe deeply and smoothly, holding the pose for five to ten full breaths.

8. As you exhale, slowly unfold the pose, vertebra by vertebra, until you’re once again lying face down with your forehead on the floor.

9. Turn your head to one side and relax completely.

Locust pose

Also named for an animal, this asana recalls a grasshopper with its abdomen lifted into the air behind it. Because it stretches and strengthens the lower back, the Locust pose provides crucial support for the practice of sitting up straight, whether in meditation or any other sedentary activity.

Here are the steps you follow to practice this pose:

1. Lie face down with your chin on the floor and your arms at your sides, palms up.

2. Making a partial fist with both hands, move your arms under your body and position your hands under your pubic bone, thumbs lightly touching.

3. At this point, you can do either the half Locust or the full Locust, as follows:

• For half Locust: Contract your buttock muscles slightly and inhale. As you exhale, lift one leg completely into the air without bending your knee. Hold for five to ten breaths; then lower your leg and do the same with the other leg. Repeat three or four times on each side. When you’re done, turn your head to one side and relax.

• For full Locust: Contract your buttock muscles slightly and inhale. As you exhale, lift both legs completely into the air without bending your knees. Hold the pose for five to ten breaths, breathing deeply into your abdomen; then lower your legs, turn your head to one side, and relax.

Lunge pose

Billed as a back stretch, this asana also opens your hips and groin. If you have time for only a few poses, combine this one with the Cat pose and Butterfly pose (see the following section) for a mini routine.

Follow these steps and enjoy the stretch:

1. Begin on your hands and knees with your spine parallel to the floor and your arms and thighs perpendicular to the floor (like a four-legged animal).

2. Move your left knee forward and place your left lower leg on the floor with your heel close to your right groin.

3. Extend your right leg straight behind you with your knee facing downward.

4. Sink your pubic bone toward the floor while lifting your chest gently upward and forward with your weight on your arms and right leg.

Make sure that any torque in your bent leg occurs in the hip joint, not the knee. Feel the stretch in your lower back, in the hip joint of your bent leg, and in the groin, hip, and thigh of your straight leg.

5. Hold the stretch for five to ten breaths; then repeat on the other side.

Butterfly pose

Especially challenging for runners and other athletes, this pose stretches the inner thigh, groin, and hip. As its name suggests, it gradually opens your “wings” and helps your knees reach the floor in cross-legged poses.

Do the stretch like this:

1. Sit on the floor with your legs extended in front of you.

If you have difficulty keeping your back straight, place a small cushion under your buttocks so that your pelvis tilts forward slightly.

2. Bend your knees and bring the soles of your feet together with the outside edges of both feet on the floor.

3. Clasping your hands together, grasp both feet, draw your heels in toward your groin, and gently press your knees toward the floor while extending your spine.

Feel the stretch in your groin, thighs, hips, and lower back.

Resist the temptation to bounce or force your legs. If your knees stick up in the air, don’t worry. It’s more important to keep your back straight than to touch the floor with your knees.

4. Hold the stretch for five to ten breaths while breathing deeply into your abdomen.

5. As you exhale, release your feet, extend your legs in front of you, and relax.

Cradle stretch

As the name may suggest, you cradle your leg in your arms as you would a baby, stretching and opening your hips in the process.

Follow these instructions with the careful attention of a loving mother:

1. Sit on the floor with your legs extended in front of you.

2. Bend one knee, rotate your thigh to the side, and cradle your lower leg in your arms. Keeping your hands clasped, hold your knee in the crook of one elbow and your foot in the crook of the other.

3. Keeping your spine extended and your head erect, gently rock your leg horizontally from side to side, rotating at your hip.

4. Continue this rocking motion for five to ten breaths, breathing deeply and smoothly; then gently put your leg down the same way you picked it up and do the same stretch with the other leg.

Table of Contents

- Introduction
- Icons Used in This Book
- Where To Go from Here

- Chapter 1: Getting in the Meditation Frame of Mind

- Surveying Meditation Techniques and Destinations

- Developing and Directing Your Awareness
- Building concentration
- Opening to receptive awareness
- Using contemplation for greater insight

- Cultivating positive, healing states of mind

- Making Meditation Your Own

- Other Journeys That Masquerade as Meditation

- Chapter 2: Striving for a Relaxed Body and Calm Mind

- Paying Closer Attention to Yourself
- Using Your Imagination to Relax Your Body
- Going for Deep Relaxation
- Developing Awareness of the Here and Now
- Focusing on your breath
- Expanding to sensations
- Welcoming whatever arises

- Chapter 3: Picking the Best Time and Place for Your Meditation

- Dressing for Comfort, Not Fashion
- When to Meditate
- First thing in the morning
- Before bed
- Right after work
- Lunch hours and coffee breaks
- During predictable downtimes
- How Long to Meditate
- Five minutes
- 10 to 15 minutes
- 20 minutes to an hour

- What to Eat and Drink before You Meditate — and What to Avoid

- Where to Meditate
- Why it’s best to stay put
- How to pick the right spot
- Set up an altar
- Chapter 4: Meditating by Sitting Still
- Mastering the Subtle Art of Sitting Still
- Sit Up Straight! A How-To Guide
- Situating yourself from the waist down
- Straightening your spine
- What to Do with Your Eyes, Mouth, and Hands
- Preparing Your Body for Sitting
- Cat pose with variations
- Cobra pose
- Locust pose
- Lunge pose
- Butterfly pose
- Cradle stretch