meditation-practice

Meditation should be on the same list as brushing your teeth, sleeping and eating. Meditation is an addition to your routine, not a final goal to accomplish. Once meditation is in your routine, then your mind will feel fuzzy if you don__ meditate, in the same way that your teeth feel fuzzy when you don__ brush.

Meditation is a state, often defined as deep dreamless sleep awake. But, in the same way that you cannot sleep on demand, you cannot meditate on demand__hat is, you can__ reach the state instantly in the same way that you can raise your right hand. The practices preceding meditation are relaxation, stillness and mental focus. Those are all things you can do. They are the preparation. Then, if you the circumstances are right, you can transition from the waking to the meditative state.

If people think they can __o_ meditation, then they become frustrated every time they don__ achieve the state. In the same way that making more of an effort to fall asleep__rying to force yourself to sleep__ften backfires, the meditative state becomes more elusive the more you try. On the other hand, if people understand that meditation is a state, then their only job is to create the right circumstances. They focus on what they can do__elax, sit still, concentrate__nd then sometimes the state comes, while sometimes it does not. Either one is fine.

In its purest form the term meditation means two things; (1) the state of meditation, which resembles deep dreamless sleep while awake, and, (2) the practices that lead to the state, usually a combination of relaxation and concentration techniques.

The overarching practice of letting go is also one of gaining resilience and insight.