Existing in many forms in different cultures for centuries and has been practiced since ancient times, meditation focuses on achieving inner peace at its core. The purpose of meditation is to empty the mind and find inner peace. Because, while emptying your mind you also obtain deep awareness and relaxation. This is exactly the point where enlightenment flows from your soul towards your consciousness and you gain awareness or awakening about life.
What Is Meditation?
Meditation, which means “deep thinking”, is a type of mind cleansing method. For example, imagine your mind as a dusty window. If you clean the dust on the window, you will be able to see the realities of your life. Meditation is an act of connecting with a reality beyond the mind. In other words, it is an act of finding self by noticing the reality, not by interpreting it but only by observing it objectively.
Meditation aims to dive deep into thought and eliminate judging, accusations, worries, and any kind of emotions and ideas. The purpose is to guide the mind into thinking correctly.
For sure, there are some prerequisites to be met before practicing meditation:
- Take a warm shower before meditation and drink relaxing teas such as green tea.
- Wear comfortable clothes.
- Make sure to sit on a comfortable surface.
- Adjust the temperature and the lighting of the meditation environment to your comfort.
Now, let’s go over some meditation techniques.
What Are Meditation Techniques?
- Mindfulness Meditation
- Breathing Meditation
- Focusing on an Object and Nature Meditations
- Mandala Meditation
- Mantra Meditation
1. Mindfulness Meditation (Freeing the Mind)
One of the most commonly used meditation techniques is mindfulness meditation, which is simply freeing the mind. All you have to do here is to listen to your body mentally. Think of it like focusing on all of your muscles, and scanning your body from head to toe with your mind. Breathe naturally and let your mind turn into an empty space.
Thousands of thoughts may rush into your mind when you are breathing naturally. Let these thoughts come and flow through your mind like water. Just be aware of everything. This moment of awareness is referred to as mindfulness in meditation. So, what exactly is mindfulness? Well, mindfulness is a tool that is used in meditation to bring your mind to the cleansing point.
2. Breathing Meditation
In this technique, the first thing you need to do is to sit comfortably, close your eyes and focus on your breathing. Breathe in and out regularly. Keep going until your mind is empty. After a while, you will realize that your mind is not with you anymore, which brings you closer to inner peace and awareness.
3. Focusing on an Object and Nature Meditations
In this technique, you need to focus on and watch an object or an element of nature. For instance, after meeting all the prerequisites of meditation and take an object in your hand. Look at the structure, texture, color, smell, movement of the object. This can also be an element of nature such as the sea, river, or forest. Find a suitable subject and just focus on it.
As you keep focusing on the object, your thoughts will be abandoning you one by one. As long as you are in the state of mindfulness, your thoughts will pass beyond the object and with time, your mind will be cleansed.
4. Mandala Meditation
What we call mandalas, are the intertwined geometric shapes that you see commonly in coloring books for adults. These shapes are used by Hindus and Buddhists in their rituals and meditations. Many believe that mandalas hold the secrets of the universe.
Choose a simple mandala to start your meditation. After making sure all the prerequisites are met, look at the mandala and focus on the geometrical shapes that you see, ponder about them. Keep in mind to stay away from interpretation and judging while thinking about the mandala. Let your mind pass through the mandala and it will be cleansed.
5. Mantra (Sacred Words) Meditation
You can simply think of mantra meditation as the “verbal state of the object”. What you need to do here is to choose a meaningful, or even meaningless, word or a group of words and keep uttering it without ever thinking about it.
Mantra meditation will penetrate deep into your mind and make you positively conscious.
Whichever technique you decide to practice, it would not be wrong to say that “understanding meditation is to practice it”. It may look hard in the beginning, but as you keep meditating you will see that you will get closer and closer towards inner peace.
