Question:
Hey Adam, do you meditate? If so how do you do it? I feel like every time I meditate I feel worse...any suggestions? Thanks.
Response:
Yes, it will feel worse at first, this is quite normal. It is as if the mind-energy, the thoughts, do not want to be quietened, so they fight and fight, calling for more attention to go into them.
A lot of it is about attention. Attention is energy. Whatever you give attention to, becomes bigger, and often becomes bigger than it really is. So from early we are just trained to mostly pay attention to what we think, what pops up in our head, and all the attention is going there, making its seem as if thoughts are all that there is.
Meditation is usually about redirecting attention out of continuous, useless thinking, and letting it rest back in its source, the wholeness of being.
So, to start, it is not about controlling your mind, trying to quieten your mind or trying to get rid of thoughts. All of this still gives a great deal of attention to thoughts, which makes them seem bigger than they are. If you begin with the attitude that the mind can do as it wishes, whatever it wants, that it does not have to be quiet or still, then straight away there is less resistance and attention going to that area.
Then begin to feel. We are so used to thinking, we forget about feeling. Feel something in the body. The breath is a good place to start. Just feel how it feels to breathe, feel how it is happening by itself, without your control. Gradually you can just feel what it is like to have a body, feel a body part, such as your legs or arms, from the inside. Feel the life within it, the intelligence within it, however faint or strong it may feel.
At first the mind will rebel, but let it rebel. If attention gets dragged into thinking, then just take that as part of the moment, it has already gone and passed, and feel the body from within again.
It can be a strange thing to explain how to “feel the body from within”. It is just like if someone says “I can’t feel my legs” - can you feel your legs? Can you feel what it is like that they are there? Gradually and gradually it will become easier, thoughts will seem much less significant, and a wider space will be opening up, or being unveiled within you.
Eventually it becomes that there is no longer a distinction between “you” and what is being felt as the presence within the body. There is a oneness.
During this time the mind may throw up tricks, and often a belief is that you need continuos thinking to hold your life together. But the intelligence that lives beneath thought, than can be felt as the simple sense of presence or existence, is far more intelligent than the small conditioned mind, and it can influence the world much more positively, much more easily.
If any of this is done with the intention of feeling differently, of striving to reach a different state or experience, then it will feel like a big struggle. Let your present experience be exactly as it is, and feel the breathing, or feel the inside of the body, the inner energy field of the body. Just feel, without commentating on what is felt.
Hopefully that can help you, let me know how you get on,
Adam
Comments for How To Meditate
(from previous website)
Feb 25, 2016
THankyou NEW
by: sarah
Thank you Adam this helps alot :)