The Methodist Chapel probably will not have chairs as comfortable as the chair shown BUT it is an ideal to try to get in place at home. Most of your meditation will be done by yourself at home. A chair with arms is ideal to get fully relaxed in. Spend some time fidgeting and getting yourself feeling like you will be able to maintain the position you are in for 20-30 minutes. So, it is a good plan to shuffle and tune the way you sit right from the very beginning.
Next is concentrating on your breath. My preferred method is to breathe through my nose and notice that when you breathe in, the tip of your nose feels cold, and when you breathe out, it feels decidedly warm. Try three seconds in, three seconds hold, and three seconds out. Nothing is prescriptive; if you prefer two seconds or four seconds, then do that instead.
Just mentally scan your body. Do you feel tension in any muscle? Typically, I have tightness in my shoulders and rigidity in my arms. If you concentrate on trying to relax any areas of tension, then do that next. A good way is to continue with your focused breathing and tense and relax the muscle area concerned. As in physiotherapy, if you need to use your hands to tense muscles, then do that. Don’t rush any of this. Preparation is the key to success.
Music to tell you the 30 minutes is still in session.
Below is The Silent Version for experienced meditators.
What could possibly go wrong?
- Ma-Ra-Na-Tha gets muddled. You are not sure what syllable comes next. OR you get the syllables in the wrong order. Ra-Ma-Na-Tha is common for me. DO NOT PANIC. Simply gather your thoughts and restart saying our Mantra from the beginning anew. Ma-Ra.Na-Tha, Ma-Ra.Na-Tha, Ma-Ra.Na-Tha
- You fall asleep. Very Common. Meditation relaxes the mind and body so much that falling asleep is a natural thing to happen. If you feel yourself nodding then concentrate on your breathing. Make your breaths slower and deeper. The increased oxygen will wake you up. The aim with Meditation is to be more in the moment and not less. This is very important to understand. You must be aware of your being. Hence the straight back, the stillness of body, the relaxation of muscles. All that prep before you start is to make you more aware of your bodies condition.
- You cannot put your mind into “Quiet Mode”. Thoughts (usually minor worries) will not quit. That shopping list has to be done. Tell yourself that at this moment in time, nothing is more important than your meeting with God. Your top priority is therefore to concentrate on saying your mantra correctly and repeatedly
- You cannot get comfortable in your chair or you feel cold. During Meditation your Heart Rate drops, your breathing slows. The body can get cold at the extremities (hands, feet, fingers, toes.) Keep a blanket nearby and it you feel cold wrap up warm in your blanket.
- There is too much distraction in the room. You will never beat this one. If you really have no way of reducing the distraction then call it a day and try again when life is quieter.
- Your mind is in disbelief. “How can this possibly work? It is all too simple to be effective! Pointless.” This meditation will certainly test your faith. It will also test your courage. Have you the will to even try this? Faith gets stronger when you have been doing this meditation for a while. Your head will seem clearer. Problem solving will get better. You will feel less anxious. (When meditating only at first) BUT later most of the time.
- You will have a greater understanding of your own spirit which yearns, not for material things, but wants connection, love, goodness, charity, sharing, peace, to be more able to forgive and be forgiven, blessing and not curses for others, in short you want to be right with God.
- The Scary bit. There will be times where you are not in this world. You are not asleep and yet not awake. This is Sydney Bank’s “Home”. It is a space where you feel totally calm, safe and relaxed. You will NOT be used to this. It is an out-of-body experience where you have nowhere else that you would rather be. Perfect Stillness of both Mind & Body. 20 Minutes of Lost Time.
The last words. The most important thing to you during the time you spend in meditation is saying the mantra. The mantra is your number one priority. Every other thought is secondary. When you get distracted (and it is 100% certain that you will), then as soon as you realise your attention is not focused on saying the mantra, get back to this essential task. So, for example, the thought that you need some bread from the Co-op later on is neither here nor there compared with repeating Ma-Ra-Na-Tha. Once you get this right, your distractions will still occur, but your focus is where it should be as you return to the top priority task.
John Main insists we are not here to talk to God. We are here to listen to HIm. God is found in silence and stillness that we very rarely experience. Saying the mantra is the way to still the mind from its ever-creating thoughts. Meditation is also about the stillness of the body. When we are still in mind and body, we encounter God.
Just when I thought I had cracked it and was getting a bit blasé about the whole thing, I found a flaw. I had worked so much on setting the priority of saying the mantra to MIND’s number one spot that I had neglected the stillness. Sitting still, relaxed and comfortable, should be easy for us all, Like every other skill, it just requires repeated practice for you to get it right, shouldn’t it? There is a flaw. We take it for granted that we can just relax and sit still, without any movement, for 30 minutes, without any problem. Wrong. We have built within us a “Fight or flight” response that used to be for preventing tigers from having us for an easy lunch. Our muscles remain in tension, ready for a quick getaway or punch up. Talk to a Buddhist, and he will laugh and ask you if you know anything at all about Chakras. The energy centres within the human body. When children have a problem at school, they will often complain of a tummy ache. That tummy ache is real enough, but it is due to muscles that are tense within the tummy region of the body. There is a saying, “He is a pain in the neck!” Again, real muscles in the shoulder region are tense, where you just want to escape the guy involved in causing you stress. Relaxing these tight spots is very easy to do when you are aware that they are present in your body. The cure seems a bit airy-fairy, but I assure you, reader, that it works and that you will master this technique in just a few minutes. Close your eyes. You are going to do a “body scan”. Start at your feet. Lift your toes up and hold them there. Clench your toes like a bird gripping its perch. Let go and let the toes relax into their natural position. Work your way up your body and push your heels down into the floor, lift your heel up off the floor and then relax your feet back flat on the floor. Move every muscle in your body, finding ways to tense and untense the muscles that you have. You can stop when you get to your crown. Concentrate on the feeling you experience when relaxing the muscles you have been tensing/relaxing. After a while, you will get to know if you are fully relaxed or partially tensed. Just like any other skill, this one requires practice. Your first attempts will have strange results, but as you practice, repeat, practice, you will get better and better at doing this. Trust Me. So when you first sit down in your chair, place your feet flat on the ground. Get your spine as straight as you possibly can. Imagine your head is a marble sitting on top of a pin head. Sounds crazy, but I know this works. See how, with practice, you can look at a corner of a room without wavering at all, concentrating on one small spot. Now do your “Body Scan” and you will be able to sit quite still for 20-30 minutes with ease.
The conscious mind is the part of us that keeps us alert and safe. Always on the lookout for threats of danger. This Chapel, where we meet, is our safe place. There are no anticipated threats of danger to us. Meditation allows us to enter and spend time with our unconscious mind. Here lies true contemplation. A real place of peace. A being at one with the universe. Just observing anything that happens. Air movement, small temperature changes, light colour and intensity. Small changes that we ordinarily are not aware of. Safe, secure at home. Peace. A place where the mind can take a break from its constant activity. Resting. Creative, not recalling any past.
