Amateur Meditator in Beginner Meditation

A few months ago a therapist suggested I try meditating. It was a video chat and she had me listen a voice with music telling me how to meditate. I told her it was so wrong. Surprised her. The voice and music were are distraction. I did not tell her I had read numerous books on meditation but had never had the patience to actually DO it. The basics are very simple. It’s breathing. Being present in the moment. It’s about writing books about how to do it in many different ways with sounds and sights and making a lot of money off of people…yeah just joking here. Cynically.

I took the basics and went with it. Breathing. I started with 10 minutes and felt great frustration due to all the distracting voices in my mind. But that is the point of it in part: To teach yourself to gently let go of those voices thoughts and memories that rise up and intrude. At times it’s like once I sit, clear the snot and cough a bit and make sure I CAN breathe, the mind noise goes, “Oh hey! He’s gonna try to go empty! LET’S HAVE A LOUD PARTY!”

It has been a bit, daunting.

I have kept at it. I found encouragement in finding the smallest shortest moments of emptiness. Of silence without the mental noise. It has become like exercise. You feel like a wimp doing something but you go back to it and challenge yourself with it. A session may be disappointing even irritating due to the noise that can arise inside. Other times like today, an almost joyful feeling because going about my normal life doing such things as shopping, I felt the calm of it in me. Those moments when I DID feel the calm and created silence. I encourage myself by reminding myself of something I noticed: When we exhale, pause and listen any time, there IS that silence we can want to create inside us. It’s an amazing miracle in life to me. That discovery of what has been with all of us since our first breath. Exhale, pause and feel it then go back to normal breathing. Suddenly a world hidden to me is THERE at the end. I suppose one analogy could be that the last breath we exhale in life leads us to peace. As an atheist I believe it opens a door to nothingness and not being. But as we live and do breathe over and over, it’s a wonderful simplest of secrets revealed at the end of what we do so many times a day. Exhale now, pause and listen to the nothing. Very cool. A vacation of a half second.

I have heard people talk about visionary experiences but I am not seeking that. I want to feel peace, centeredness and focused. To not have my own mind be the worst noisy neighbor to me.

All that I do is sit in a simple padded chair in my living room facing a big TV. Feet flat back straight. Hands-on knees. We all have our way. Comfortable. Touch a timer to start and then close my eyes and breathe in and out. Most of the time I say, “In/out” then I mix it up with a possible affirmation of “I am (in) Peace (out)”. Anything positive yet humble. Focusing on my breath NOW.

I realized recently that the greatest experience I have had with temptation has not been with drugs or alcohol or food. It is the voices, the intrusions the memories that come in to my now breathing and try to pull me away from it. It happens and I have to laugh and go ahhhh you got tricked by your mind! Then I gently focus myself strongly on simply breathing. It is amazing how NON boring breathing can be. It can be so challenging, as well to ONLY do that.

I wrote the above part earlier. It is best to meditate at a regular time but I have not been good at that. I set a timer for 40 minutes at dusk tonight. I sat and felt and heard my breath and the sounds of my neighbors outside. Listen, let go. Hear, let go. I heard my 2 birds chewing some bark off a branch to clean their beaks and acknowledged that that was happening. Near what was probably the last 10 or so minutes, Max flew onto my head. Slid a bit then got a grip. I kept breathing with eyes closed, offered her my arm and tucked her under my chin. Another challenge. I think we both enjoyed that.