Useful life ideas from my meditation experiences.

As the universe presents a “stay at home” situation, I decided to make the best use of that time by developing a habit of morning meditation. It has been 3 days and so far I have been successful in following my commitment. I wake up around 6:00 AM and meditate for a few minutes.

Why?

I often read about spiritual teachings of various kinds and theoretically I understand many things, but if there is one conclusion I derive, it is this:

“All the words read and understood are useless without a practice.”

They are great motivators, but motivation is of no use unless you are taking concrete steps. Without taking actions, you are not moving an inch forward towards anything.

So I try to take action and this post is about a few important points I extract from these 3 days of experience.

Experience

I start meditation with only one goal: I close my eyes and observe my thoughts as they come and stop them right there, before they drag me into a chain of thoughts.

With that, I am fine with letting my attention drift on either the sounds around, my breathing, or my blank mind. As soon as the thoughts come, I want to burn them down with my attention.

• By committing to observe my thoughts and control them, I was able to do it for a longer time than I thought was possible for me. It was a constant fight between the rushing thoughts and my sharp attention.
• The thoughts try to come every few seconds, I watch them as a wave rising from the sea. And as soon as I see them, the wave is broken and the attention comes back to the present moment again.
• When I hear the surrounding sounds of birds, I could feel the soundwaves in my mind. I chose to focus on one pattern of sound which had 3 tones. I could feel their waves within my mind. I couldn’t see them, but I could feel them as three different patterns of waves for 3 different sounds. It was so involving a task, I enjoyed it very much!
• When I start, I would set a time limit of 10 minutes, but after getting involved into the task, the time was of no concern. I was enjoying it very much. So I would let it happen a little longer.

Learnings

So here are few ideas I want to offer you which you can use for your own work and life:)

• Any task done with a proper commitment has a focused and disciplined energy, which makes you put more effort and brings much better results than you expect. The best form of commitment is writing it down. Written thoughts have a deeper influence on the mind than thoughts in the air.

• When you are experiencing the present, you are not thinking. At that time, you absorb things in very different ways. For example, you can experience sounds in form of feelings and patterns that might be useful in creating something else.

When you read or study something, you are absorbing with the conscious mind. But when you are in the present, that is the only time you absorb through experience.

The birds created a beautiful patterns of sound and I could easily imagine someone taking those patterns to create music.

• The present moment seems to have a quality of a wave. The thoughts seem to come and go in waves, and so does the sounds. If time is the ocean of present moment, then everything else is just a wave which comes and goes.

Our entire life seems to be a series of present moment – an ocean, but we are almost always caught up into waves like thoughts and emotions!

• Attention turned back on mind itself is a very involving and satisfying task! You really feel great when you are able to see your own thoughts. 🙂 You have a feeling that if today I can see them, with long practice and commitment I will be able to control them too!

• Setting a time gives your mind a sense that this should be completed within a definite amount of minutes or hours. But you shouldn’t let your own time limits affect your flow of work. It might take longer to complete it. What is important that you enjoy it.

But setting a time limit is important. You need that sense of completion so that your mind can start focusing on other things. Even after you break that limit, there will be a sense of completion which you would not get otherwise.

Conclusion

“The trouble is, you think you have time.”

Buddha’s little instruction book by Jack Kornfield

It is crazy we never think about it and by default believe that we have plenty of time. But time is very limited. Use it wisely. It is most relevant in these times when you have to stay at home.

Take action! Take action now!

I hope this post gave you valuable ideas from my experiences. If you liked this post, you might find these interesting:

My reflections On the Nature of Mind

The illusion of time.

Mindfulness: Ideas and practices to increase your awareness of life.

Concentration: The treasure hidden deep within you!