by Connie Sue

Created on: November 02, 2010

Meditation is the art of listening as compared to prayer when you are asking for things or expressing gratitude. Meditation is a form of mindfulness, a state of wakefulness, not sleeping or hypnosis. The art of meditation has many healthy benefits, both physically and mentally. With the mental benefits is a balancing of energies, emotions, and thoughts. Self-meditation is the lack of guides, the use of soft, non-vocal music may be used, but it is not necessary. Self-meditation is the art of quieting the mind without extra help.

Meditation techniques may vary but the basics remain the same, following the breath. You sit, listening to your breathing, eventually you will hear your heart beat, may feel it through out your body. You are becoming aware of your physical self, where the tension is, the rhythm of your heart and your breath are noticable. The mind can become quiet, but chatter does occur, thoughts creep in about the day, the person who cut you off in traffic, the boss's criticism, or the work you have yet to complete. Self-meditation is a process where you learn how to quiet your chattering mind, learn to listen to the rhythm of your body.

With each breath you begin noticing that the tension leaves, the thoughts silence, your body is comfortable, and oddly you hear your heart beating. The next few breaths you may feel the throb in the pulse points at your wrist, in your neck, perhaps even your ankles. You notice the breath, how it feels entering through your nose, moving into your lungs as your stomach rises. At this point smokers may begin coughing, because you are not use to using the bottom half of your lungs.

A healthy benefit to self-meditation, the increase of oxygen as you learn to breath slowly, deeply, both on inhale and exhale. Your lungs will clear, eventually, especially if you quit smoking. Those who experience asthma symptoms will want to practice shallower breaths at first, then gradually build up to the deeper breaths. Thich Nhat Hanh wrote about breathing, the beginner should never breath like this for more than three breaths. In the mind repeating “I am breathing in one” on the inhale, “I am breathing out one,” on the exhale to the count of three will help to quiet the mind.

To learn self-meditation does not take special tools or guides. There are millions of tools available to help you reach a meditative state. But they do not work immediately, you still need to practice, perhaps becoming discouraged. The

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