I was at a party over the weekend. During our idle chatter, someone asked me why I meditate and what is the purpose. They continued if that brings 10 minutes of peace in one’s day. I thought it’s been a while since we looked at why we are getting together every Tuesday so it would be nice to look at that again. Surely, we want to find that peace within us on a daily basis for however long that we can find it. But the purpose of practice is never the practice.
What do I mean by that? Let’s say you decide to climb Mount Kilimanjaro. Now unless you are used to climbing fourteeners, climbing Mount Kilimanjaro is no small feat. Especially, on the last day. The first few days it is relatively easy but on the last day, you are supposed to start climbing around 9 or 10 pm. You will reach the peak just around dawn. You take a few pictures and then continue with the descent for about four hours or so before getting to a camp. This is not an easy day for anybody. You will be essentially on your feet for 10 hours or so. In this case, you will start conditioning your body before you head out to Tanzania. You begin a daily exercise routine and probably weekly climbing practice. The purpose of this conditioning is not to get good at conditioning but to prepare yourself for the climb on Mount Kilimanjaro.
Our daily meditation practice is supposed to condition us for our daily worldly activities. For example, let’s say you buy a 10,000-piece Lego puzzle. That’s a lot of pieces and would take you a few days to complete for sure. Now you begin to organize your pieces in different piles first. Then you begin to build the puzzle. You spend say 30 minutes doing this. If you spend the next 23 ½ hours breaking what you have already built and mixing all the pieces you had separated what is the result? The next day, you will have a bigger challenge on your hand.
So when we meditate, we are trying to find that peace within us for sure. The bigger purpose however is to make sure that we carry that with us throughout the rest of our day. We want to be centered no matter what life throws at us. That is the real purpose of our meditation. Getting grounded within ourselves. If during our meditation practice say you had a rough time concentrating on a particular day. But after meditation is complete, you can be kind and loving towards everyone you come across. That is a successful mediation session. On the other hand, if you had a peaceful meditation where you came close to enlightenment but after the meditation session you have difficulty showing compassion towards anyone, that was an unsuccessful meditation session.
And of course, there are actual health benefits of meditation that we have discussed before. They include reduced stress, lower anxiety, improved self-awareness, and so on. In a nutshell, meditation leads to a peaceful mind. It puts us in a relaxed state of being both physically and mentally.
Before we begin our meditation I just want to remind everyone about the 10 x 10 practice we have discussed in the past. Try to take 10 deep breaths approx. 10 times every day. Each breath comes from your diaphragm. Put your hand on your stomach. As you breathe, your stomach should expand. So take a deep inhalation. You will feel your stomach expand. When you exhale, you deflate your stomach – they say to try to reach your spinal cord with your stomach.
Even if you are in the middle of a project, just stop and take 10 deep breaths. You can do this every hour – the easiest way to do this is to put an alarm on your phone so you have a reminder. When you take these breaths, be sure to focus on the sensation of your breath in your nostrils. I believe this will help you calm down in the middle of the day and will bring you can to your center if you are having a difficult day.