There are many reasons
why people meditate: some may meditate for body-mind relaxation, while others
may meditate for spiritual connection. No matter what, meditation is all
about awareness—mindfulness of what is happening around you, such
as your breathing, your bodily sensations, and, most importantly, your
thoughts. Without this acute awareness or mindfulness, there is no relaxation
of the mind and the body, not to mention the spiritual connection to a Higher
Being. Meditation is all about re-focusing the mind on what is important and
discarding what is irrelevant or insignificant. In other words, meditation
helps you not only prioritize but also change perspectives regarding
events in your life.
Meditation has its
practical application in everyday life; meditation holds the key to the art of
living well.
How does meditation
apply to your everyday life? How can you bring all attributes and benefits of
meditation to your day-to-day world?
Meditation is finding
the quiet or stillness between sounds and thoughts and experiences. It is this
underlying quietness—so quiet that you can almost hear it—that
forms a link between you and your sensations and thoughts. The goals of
meditation are: awareness of your adaptation to cope with the mundane world,
such as dealing with attitudes and behaviors, as well as pain and stress;
knowing yourself better, such as the reasons for your anger; self enlightenment
or divine illumination, such as the purpose of your existence. Meditation is
essentially a mental training of acute awareness or mindfulness of breathing,
physical sensations, and mental thoughts, and the perception of timelessness—focusing
on only the present moment or what is “real” at the present moment.
Now, how do you apply
meditation to your day-to-day world?
By training your
awareness only to remain present in whatever activity you are undertaking in
real life, you will find yourself right in the center of that activity you are
engaging in. In this way, you will be doing your very best, and meanwhile
getting the greatest satisfaction from doing so.
To illustrate, say, you
are doing a mundane everyday chore, such as washing the dishes or taking out
the trash—something you may not like to do, but you are doing it anyway
because you have to. If you have had training in meditation, you will know how
to keep uninvited thoughts to a minimum while you are doing the dishes or
taking out the trash, and thus enabling you to be in the center of what you are
experiencing as well as to do it without distraction. A mind trained in
meditation leads to a state of stillness that can be maintained no matter what
you are doing, or what is happening around you. That is the power of
meditation.
The principles of
meditation can be applied to the non-meditating part of your everyday life,
such as walking.
As you begin walking,
let go of the outside world.
Focus on your breathing:
listen to the relaxed sound of your breathing in and breathing out.
Make your walk slow and
purposeful.
As you are walking,
observe each step that you are making. Notice all the physical sensation of
your feet, as well as the way your arms are swinging back and forth, brushing
against your body.
If unwanted thoughts
come, re-focus your awareness on your breathing and physical sensations.
Likewise, you can
turn any everyday activity into meditative nature in order
to enhance your awareness and clarity of mind, which can be
life-transforming in the following ways:
Your senses come to
life.
You see how things
change from moment to moment, so you have a better understanding of what is
important and what is “real” in your life.
You find it easier to
let go of things you found difficult to let go in the past.
These are the sublime benefits
of meditation. You can turn meditation, which is a mindful, in-the-moment
mental exercise, into everyday activity, and it can be applied to all aspects
of your life. Let meditation transform your life for the better.
Stephen Lau
Copyright© by Stephen Lau
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