The Buddhist Brain

Have you contemplated learning how to meditate or are you new to the practice of meditation?

The reasons why you meditate or begin to meditate may vary. You may want to relieve stress, achieve more relaxation, the increased ability to focus, or you may seek a closer connection with yourself, the world and other worlds. You may be seeking enlightenment, a transcended state of insight, peace and love.

You may have seen the 2010 film Eat Pray Love. Unfortunately most of us don’t have the luxury to endlessly travel the world without a job and be on a permanent vacation to find ourselves. That movie was great for bringing values of enlightenment into our cultural lens. It brought to our conscious awareness how expansive meditation can be to our being, but we cannot base our own meditation practice on Julia Roberts’ idyllic fantasy. Unrealistic expectations aside, adding meditation to your life may seem overwhelming at first for many others reasons. You may think that you are too busy. You don’t know what to expect. You don’t know how to meditate. You don’t know what type of meditation to participate in or if it will align or conflict with your values and beliefs.

As a meditation instructor, I have heard all of these factors (excuses) continuously over the last four years while teaching classes. These are the most common reasons that have been relayed to me of why people do not meditate. However, I believe the biggest reason is fear, specifically fear of the unknown.

It still blows my mind how many people have misconceptions about meditation such as not having time for it, needing substances to induce a trance-like state, that meditation is for hippies, or even that it commits you to a certain religion. All of these are myths!

*You Don’t Have Time to Meditate* (Most Common Excuse)

It is hard to imagine that sitting still is going to help you while you are thinking about the hundred things you should be doing. In all actuality, you may have a hundred things to do but at some point you are going to make time to sit down and flake off with a bag of potato chips and Netflix, but you won’t make time to meditate and learn a practice that you can incorporate beneficially for the rest of your life.

You may think that you don’t have time do anything else other than your current responsibilities. With a little time management and awareness of how you are using your time, you will discover at least fifteen minutes per day that you could devote to meditation. You can literally expand the space-time continuum with meditation, helping to make more enriched moments for yourself. Meditation will change your perception of reality, which will improve how your mind and body handle stressful situations. Not making meditation a priority is not making yourself a priority.

*You don’t know what to expect or how to meditate*

Instead of mindlessly scrolling and trolling on Facebook and thinking you are helping yourself to relax, take those minutes and find a quiet place to sit or lay down. Close your eyes and focus on feeling your breath and feeling gratitude for being alive. Congrats, you have just meditated and helped yourself through the process of active relaxation.

*You don’t know if it will align or conflict with your values and beliefs*

Just because you participate in a meditation that has roots in a certain religion does not mean that you have to become a member of that religion or that it conflicts with your values and beliefs. Meditation is a beautiful practice that seeks to identify common aspects and ideals of life that are shared between all religions and cultures. Some of the prevalent meditation themes or teachings include the infinite, the eternal, transcendence, existence, nature, mother earth, energy, discipline, empowerment, peace, awareness, requiescence, release, faith, love, and compassion. These are universal philosophies.

*You don’t know what type of meditation to participate in*

I will provide a list of the main types of meditation below that are prominently practiced all around the world. Read the descriptions, benefits and challenges of each type and see which ones speak to you. Often times if you take a meditation class or listen to a meditation CD, they will combine many of these traditions and techniques. Some types of meditation are more challenging than others. A preconceived notion is that meditation involves a trance-state or ingesting substances. These practices are not needed to enhance your spiritual development.

 Popular Types of Meditation

Guided Visualization or Guided Imagery Meditation

Country of Origin: United States

Associated religion: None; Psychology and Music Therapy were founding fields

Pros: Ultimate benefit for stress relief; Good mental and physical relaxation; Increases spatial intelligence (ability to visualize with mind’s eye); May promote creativity in life; Requires little effort, time and discipline; May promote bodily healing

Cons: Difficult to do without guidance or an instructor; May be challenging if you struggle with imagination

Guided visualization meditation is a technique that uses the imagination to envision relaxing images and scenes that elicit a peaceful response from the mind and body. It is often used in combination with music and/or touch to make it more effective. This is an easy technique for beginners as it requires little formal teaching or discipline.

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Mindfulness and Lovingkindness Meditation

Culture of Origin: Tibet

Associated Religion: Tibetan Buddhism

Pros: Provides great awareness; Increases your ability to focus; Teaches discipline; Can become a peaceful way of life; Allows you to see the world with new eyes

Cons: Requires a lot of practice; May be uncomfortable if experienced in the traditional sitting posture; Difficult to maintain balance between the “mundane” and “supermundane.”

Mindfulness meditation, also known as Vipassana, is formally practiced in a group or a Sangha. This practice will teach you to focus on different levels of awareness. For example, the feeling of your breath, the sensation of your body touching the chair you are sitting on and the sounds of the birds singing outside. These levels of active recognition build deeper consciousness and will allow you to experience the world in a new and heightened way. It will also teach you how to acknowledge pain and discomfort in a more neutral perspective. Mindfulness also involves a practice known as lovingkindness, which will instruct you on how to better love and value yourself as well as others.

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Body Scan Meditation

Pros: Extremely effective for mental and physical relaxation; Good for the beginner; May promote bodily healing

Cons: Difficult to do without guidance or an instructor; May cause awareness of pain, discomfort or tension in the body that you were ignoring

Body Scan Meditation is a form of Mindfulness meditation that has been adopted as its own form in the West. It helps to expand mind/body awareness, release tension and quiet the mind. Body Scan meditation is particularly effective in relaxing the physical body and breath and increasing focus and concentration. It can be practiced on your own once you understand the technique.

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Zazen Meditation

Culture of Origin: Japan

Associated Religion: Zen Buddhism

Pros: Teaches mental and physical discipline, resilience and good posture; Increases your ability to focus

Cons: Uncomfortable, even painful; Can be too regimented; Not for the beginner meditator

Zazen meditation is the act of sitting in a straight posture for a long period of time. This requires practice and experience to do well because of its heightened discipline. It teaches you to acknowledge the discomfort that may arise and react with neutrality rather than restlessness.

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Kundalini Meditation

Culture of Origin: India

Associated Religion: Hinduism

Pros: Clears and balances the chakras (body’s energy centers); Can provide rapid life change; A moving and profound mystical experience

Cons: May be overwhelming if you are not completely ready for change and transcendent energy

Kundalini or “coiled” describes a dormant energy that rests at the base of your spine, waiting to be awakened. When this life force energy is unfurled, you may experience a tingling or electric feeling up your spine and a heightened sense of awareness of the world around you. You may be more sensitive and open to be influenced by others emotions. Kundalini meditation can help you cleanse and balance your chakra energy centers, clearing your channel from the earth to the divine, increasing your connection to all things.

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Transcendental Meditation

Country of Origin: India

Associated religion: Hinduism

Pros: Accesses pure consciousness; May achieve an absence of mental boundaries

Cons: Difficult to maintain focus on mantra; More involved than Mindfulness or Zazen; Not focused on your life, emotions or purpose; Begins to delve into trance-like states rather than self-development

Transcendental Meditation is a practice that originated in the 1960s. It involves silently repeating a mantra, which takes the mind out of problem-solving mode and allows it to reside in a state of free flow where it passively observes thoughts rather than actively thinks. The goal is to have an out of body or transcendental experience, rising above the boundaries of this reality.

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Qi Gong Meditation

Culture of Origin: China

Associated Religion: Taoism

Pros: Focuses on the Breath; Balances energetic meridians and life force energy; Can heal specific physical areas of pain and discomfort; Increases awareness

Cons: May involve movement; Doesn’t connect the circulation of life force energy with the emotions

Qi gong is a meditation of passive awareness, which teaches us how to let go. It allows the mind to empty of active thought and focus on the breath as well as specific areas in the body. It involves harnessing, strengthening and balancing the body’s life force energy and sending it to areas in the body that need healing. This practice describes life force energy in terms of moderation, flexibility and constant nurturing. Qi gong meditation has been prescribed by both Eastern and Western physicians and is popular in traditional Chinese Medicine.