Meditation is a method to become familiar with inner peace. The peace is there, within us, waiting to be found; the way we find it is through consistently turning away from distractions and focusing inwards through regular meditation. Even spending 10 minutes every day just focusing on our breath can work … as long as we actually do it. What, every day? The same thing again and again?
We get bored easily. You have now read about 100 words of this post: is part of your mind already off thinking about doing something else? I’m thinking about what picture will go with this post… and now I’m thinking I’m a bit peckish… The reason our mind wanders away from our object of mindfulness is because we get captivated by something new and exciting to fill our thoughts with. For the same reason, we find it hard to sit down and do some meditation every day – ‘I’ve done that loads of times before.’
So how do we prevent ourselves from getting bored with the repetitive nature of our meditation practice? We need to be convinced that what we are holding in our heart is a real source of happiness. Whatever the object of our mindfulness is, check with ourselves ‘what good results will come from maintaining my mindfulness of this?’
We never forget our birthday, because when we were a child it became etched into our heart as it was associated with good things like presents and cake. If we consider our object of meditation to be special and precious, then we will never want to be separated from it, and will not become bored with holding on and revisiting it again and again. It will be like our birthday every day of the year!
If we practise patiently in this way, gradually our distracting thoughts will subside and we shall experience a sense of inner peace and relaxation. Our mind will feel lucid and spacious and we shall feel refreshed. When the sea is rough, sediment is churned up and the water becomes murky, but when the wind dies down the mud gradually settles and the water becomes clear. In a similar way, when the otherwise incessant flow of our distracting thoughts is calmed through concentrating on the breath, our mind becomes unusually lucid and clear. We should stay with this state of mental calm for a while.
Even though breathing meditation is only a preliminary stage of meditation, it can be quite powerful. We can see from this practice that it is possible to experience inner peace and contentment just by controlling the mind, without having to depend at all upon external conditions. When the turbulence of distracting thoughts subsides and our mind becomes still, a deep happiness and contentment naturally arises from within. This feeling of contentment and well-being helps us to cope with the busyness and difficulties of daily life. So much of the stress and tension we normally experience comes from our mind, and many of the problems we experience, including ill health, are caused or aggravated by this stress. Just by doing breathing meditation for ten or fifteen minutes each day, we shall be able to reduce this stress. We shall experience a calm, spacious feeling in the mind, and many of our usual problems will fall away. Difficult situations will become easier to deal with, we shall naturally feel warm and well disposed towards other people, and our relationships with others will gradually improve.