Paperback
-
PICK UP IN STORECheck Availability at Nearby Stores
Available within 2 business hours
Related collections and offers
Overview
Meditation, Plain & Simple is a wise and helpful primer to the practice of meditation. Lynne Lauren not only explains why it is important to meditate, but also demonstrates how simple meditation is for the average person. It can be done anywhere by anyone, and you don't have to sit on the floor or stand on your head. In addition, she provides a brief overview of the different types of meditation along with more than 50 meditations and visualizations that can be used in different circumstances to reach particular goals.
This book is a lovely introduction for anyone who wishes to slow down, de-stress, and discover how rich life can be!
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781571747686 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Hampton Roads Publishing Company, Inc. |
| Publication date: | 07/01/2017 |
| Series: | Plain & Simple Series |
| Pages: | 160 |
| Sales rank: | 1,153,128 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.40(w) x 7.80(h) x 0.60(d) |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
Meditation
Plain & Simple
By Lynne Lauren
Hampton Roads Publishing Company, Inc.
Copyright © 2017 Lynne LaurenAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-57174-768-6
CHAPTER 1
What is Meditation?
Meditation is a practice that calms the mind and body in a natural way. Its aim is to quiet or still your mind, which in turn will lead to calm awareness, without the interference of thoughts.
You can practice meditation at your own pace in your own time. No matter how infrequently you meditate, it will still have a beneficial effect, and the more you practice the easier it becomes.
Although meditation is relaxing, it should not be mistaken for a method of relaxation, because you must relax first in order to meditate. You don't put yourself into a sleepy daydream or far away state of mind, and you do not simply make your mind a blank. Meditation is a discipline that clears your mind and controls your thoughts and emotions so that you can function as your true self. You are not in a hypnotic state, because you are fully aware of what is happening here and now. Normally in life we put a lot of energy into thinking up ways of doing things or of achieving things, but as we begin to practice meditation, we break free and do the opposite to how we usually operate. Our energy is focused not on doing but on being, on ourselves, and on getting back to our real selves or our true nature.
Meditation techniques can range from chants and gentle breathing exercises, emptying the mind, focusing on one topic (single-point meditation) one movement or one of the five senses, to deep contemplation. In the East meditation is a central part of various religions and has been practiced for over 5,000 years to promote tranquility, awareness, and wisdom. Some of the methods are incorporated in the following practices.
Buddhist Meditation
Buddhist meditation involves a variety of techniques, including breath control and focusing on your mind (being aware of your thoughts, actions, and the here and now). Another meditation technique centers on visualizations or putting pictures in your mind — in other words, "seeing" a place, person, or situation in your mind's eye. These techniques are designed to develop your mind, improve concentration, and provide insight, peace, and tranquility.
Taoist Meditation
Taoist meditation has no religious background but is a way of being that works through meditation. The body is regarded as a sacred, and it is used to charge the body's natural energy into a force known as chi. This energy is then circulated internally. When the chi is flowing in your body and in the environment, you feel balanced with your true self, calm, and energized. Once you find your chi, the chi can be focused toward improving yourself or toward attaining goals in life. It is believed that once you attain chi, you need to put very little effort into life because it falls into place easily.
Transcendental Meditation
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi founded Transcendental Meditation, a mantra-based form of meditation, in 1958. Mantras are words, phrases, or sentences that when repeated have a power and energy that can have a positive effect on the person who says them. Essentially, this practice involves sitting with closed eyes, twice a day, for fifteen or twenty minutes at a time, while mentally repeating a mantra. The long-term aims are to move beyond the first three major states of consciousness — waking, dreaming, and deep, dreamless sleep — into the fourth state, the state of transcendental consciousness. With this technique your body and mind can gain deep relief from both mental and physical stress.
Zen Meditation
Zen meditation is a form of Buddhist meditation that simply means, "seated meditation." A type of Zen meditation is Zazen, which means "just sitting." This form of practice is highly personal; it is designed so that you seek enlightenment by focusing on the question, "What is life?" It also includes other forms of meditation such as stilling the mind, which stops you from thinking about day-to-day problems for a while. This involves the use of koans, which are stories, questions, or statements that go beyond rational understanding and activates the intuition. For instance, if you clap with two hands, there is a sound, and from this understanding comes the very famous koan: "What is the sound of one hand clapping?"
Why Meditate?
Meditation can help you to focus, de-stress, lift a low mood, heal, let go, improve your intuition, and keep your life in balance. It's the only way of feeling permanently calm and tranquil that has been available to us up until now. Other ways of calming, such as drugs and alcohol, only produce temporary escape and relief.
Who you are and how your life flows begin with your mind. You create your world, and your mind is the workshop where it all begins. You choose who you want to be, who is in your life, and how you deal with them. You choose what work you do, where you live, how you look. You are the only person in control in your life, and others cannot really make you do anything unless you agree to let them. When you are truly happy, you do not think and your mind is calm. If you feel you aren't good enough, or that good things will never come to you, then they never will, because you will never allow them to. Fears and phobias, or ideas such as believing that you can't live without something, or that what you want is always going to be out of your reach, are the inventions of your own mind. In reality, there is little outside of you that is stopping you from living and being who you really want to be. Meditation is a way of working on the mind in an unfolding and gentle manner, allowing you to realize, understand, and undo whatever is restricting you or making you unhappy. It also allows you to get to know your real self and to make changes that can help you communicate and handle life more easily. It can help you deal with, and rise above, the pressures of everyday living.
Research into the effects of regular meditation has found a wide range of benefits both mental and physical. Immediately noticeable is a drop in anxiety and tension and the relief of physical problems caused by stress and anxiety, such as palpitations, high blood pressure, headaches, insomnia, and even stammering. Meditation increases calm feelings, optimistic views, and feelings of self-worth. Meditation has been found to be good for those with creative minds — writers, artists, and musicians — as it can spark fresh ideas, and bring new insight and inspiration. This is particularly the case with visualization meditations. Those who feel stuck in life can sweep away the blocks and renew their motivation, efficiency, and energy by using meditation. Emotions can be calmed, healed, and lifted, often by just simply following the Buddhist breathing exercises.
CHAPTER 2Preparing Yourself for Meditation
As you progress in your practice of meditation, you will find you can do many of the simple exercises in a few minutes, anywhere, and anytime. You will get better at distancing yourself from your surroundings and turning your focus inward. The more you can bring meditation into your daily life, the more positive results you will see, and the calmer you will feel.
Where to Meditate
If you plan to meditate often or as a regular part of your daily routine, you'll find it useful to choose a quiet space with few distractions, where you feel happy, and where you can sit comfortably. It is especially good for your progress if the space you allocate is only used for meditation, since the space will accumulate a good vibration and become associated with the benefits of meditation. Good places could include an area of your bedroom or a living room. Keeping the meditation area simple will help prevent distractions. Many people find their meditation space to be more calming if the wall or surroundings are pastel colors such as lilac, blue, greens, or neutral colors such as cream or white. In the summer, you may feel like using a corner of the garden or perhaps a summerhouse, sunroom, sun deck, or conservatory. This is especially good if you want to use natural subjects as your source of meditation.
You will need something comfortable to sit on. An ordinary comfortable chair is fine; you may also use a hard high-backed chair with a cushion if you need to support your back. If you want to meditate in true Eastern style, sit cross-legged on a cushion. Alternately, you can kneel and insert the cushion between your buttocks and your legs.
Your posture is important, especially when practicing Buddhist, Zen, and Taoist meditations because these are longer meditations and you will be sitting longer in one position. It is important to keep your back straight so that you stay comfortable. If you imagine there is an invisible thread pulling up the top of your head, straightening your back, this can be a comfortable posture to maintain while doing any seated meditation. Your clothing should be comfortable and nonrestricting. Should you prefer to use incense, it is a good idea to use a stick that will roughly last the length of your meditation.
Meditate at the time of day that suits you best — for instance, during the morning, if that is when your mind is fresh. Some people are not morning people, and they prefer the quiet of evening as their meditation time. If you regularly wake in the wee early hours and find you can't get back to sleep, this is also a good time to meditate as it can focus and calm you. By setting a regular time slot for meditation, you will soon find that you look forward to it as a change from the normal stresses and activities of your lifestyle.
Putting Visualization to Work
Many of the meditations in this book are quick and effective, and you can even do some of them as you go about your daily life, say, while commuting on a train or bus, or while waiting in line. Needless to say, never meditate while driving! If you are sitting and worrying about something, try a meditation; you may find that it helps to relieve your worry.
Many of the meditations in this book are based on the technique of visualization, that is, creating pictures or images in your mind. You will "see" the person or problem with your mind's eye, and then use further images or pictures to solve or heal a problem. You will use your imagination and direct your own inner movie.
Visualizing in meditation works effectively on three aspects of our being: our physical bodies, our emotions, and our spiritual or soul level. Your body will believe the images that your mind focuses on, and here's why: your mind uses the images that your physical eyes see to enable you to live, so it will accept images that your inner eye shows it, and then your mind will tell your body how to act. (It's important here to mention that blind people can also practice visualization; their inner eye "sees" what their other senses perceive.) Just as your mind can tell you how to sit in a chair by gauging it's shape and size, so can your mind work on the healing of an organ in your body if you can see it becoming healed. Believe, and your body will respond.
The emotions are linked to the creative side of the brain, so they respond to music, poetry, art, and images. If you picture a beautiful desert island scene, you will feel your emotions reacting. When developing your psychic or spiritual skills, your imagination will trigger your third eye, the center that controls your psychic senses. For instance, if you look back into your past and the things that influenced you in your early days, you often can recall experiences as feelings and as pictures. We all have childhood memories, usually in the form of images in the part of our mind that still connects us to our childhood or our inner child.
Our minds have been shaped by our childhood memories, but when we are adults, our minds take in information from our eyes, as well as our other senses, and combined they create the window to the world around us. Our minds absorb all of this sensory stimulus, which then informs our visualizations, which in turn affects our bodies, emotions, and spirituality.
Preparatory Exercises
Many of the meditations in this book have short preparations or exercises to help you become calm and to focus your mind for the main meditation. These preparatory exercises are called the Key Meditations and you can use them whenever you feel it necessary to ground yourself or quiet your mind prior to beginning your main meditation.
Key Meditation One is good for calming your busy mind and focusing it properly, which is very helpful if you are the kind of person who tends to ruminate, or if you tend to run away with your thoughts. It will help still your mind. It is also a complete meditation in itself that you can use anywhere if you are stressed.
Key Meditation Two is a longer exercise that is used as a preparation for many psychic and spiritual meditations. It is good for clearing out any "heaviness" you may feel in your body, as heaviness is associated with darkness. Worry and upset can make us feel physically heavy. This meditation cleanses and relaxes your body and it also lifts your mood, allowing you to feel lighter and happier.
Key Meditation Three forms the framework that moves you toward deeper meditation and spiritual access. This meditation requires the use of your imagination, and this helps the development of your "third eye," which, in turn, helps improve your intuitive or psychic abilities. The third eye is also known as the brow chakra; it is located in the middle of the forehead between and a little above the eyes. This meditation will help you open this chakra to prepare you for any kind of psychic or spiritual activity.
Read through each meditation before following it. You may find it useful to record the instructions for the longer meditations, as this will allow you to relax and to get more out of them — until you have these meditations memorized, it can be awkward to keep referring back to this book for step-by-step instructions.
CHAPTER 3Key Meditations
With these simple visualizations as starting points you can follow any of the meditations in this book more effectively, as they will allow your focus to be sharper and make the outcome stronger.
Key Meditation One: "Grounding"
You can do the "Grounding" meditation either standing or sitting. It is good for calming and bringing your focus into the present moment, the here and now. It is good for stress if your thoughts are whirling, or if you have just come away from an upsetting occurrence and your mind will not clear.
1. Relax and lower or close your eyes.
2. Focus on the arches of your feet.
3. Visualize two roots, one from each foot, growing down into the ground.
4. Allow the roots to work their way down, deeper and deeper.
5. Let the roots branch out as they go.
6. Feel yourself becoming calmer the deeper you take your roots.
7. Visualize your roots working their way further downward.
8. The roots pass through different layers of soil, clay, and rock.
9. Continue in this way until your feet begin to feel heavy.
10. Then bring your focus back up to your feet.
11. Lift or open your eyes.
Note: If you feel that you are not grounded enough you can add this following second step before opening your eyes.
Second Step
1. Take your focus to the base of your spine.
2. Imagine a thick root growing from the base of your spine.
3. See the root growing down through the chair (if you are sitting), then through the floor, and down into the ground.
4. Watch the root burrowing deeper and deeper.
5. Imagine the roots branching out into the earth.
6. The roots continue down through layers of soil, rock, and clay.
7. Feel your back firmly anchored to the chair.
8. Now bring your focus up to the base of your spine.
9. Lift or open your eyes.
Key Meditation Two: "White Light"
The "White Light" meditation is a good preparation for any psychic of spiritual meditation and also is an instant mood lightener. If we keep worrying about something, we can store this negative energy in certain parts of our bodies. This can make our bodies feel heavy, and eventually it can make us ill. When we are happy, our bodies feel light. This meditation cleans old suppressed hurts, anxieties, and upsets.
1. Sit quietly, relax, and close your eyes.
2. Take a few deep breaths, keeping your eyes closed.
3. Take your focus to the top of your head.
4. Send up a thought asking for a shaft of white light to come down from the Universe.
5. Visualize the light entering the crown of your head.
6. The light flows down into the top of your head, filling your crown.
7. The light flows down into your forehead, eyes, and temples.
8. It flows into your cheekbones, ears, mouth, chin, and jawbone.
9. The light completely fills the back and the front of your head.
10. The light flows down the length of your neck.
11. The light flows along the tops of each shoulder.
12. It flows down into both arms right to your fingertips.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Meditation by Lynne Lauren. Copyright © 2017 Lynne Lauren. Excerpted by permission of Hampton Roads Publishing Company, Inc..
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Introduction iv
Part 1 About Meditation
1 What Is Meditation? 3
2 Preparing Yourself for Meditation 11
3 Key Meditations 19
Part 2 Healing Meditation
4 Clearing Negativity 29
5 Clearing Past Hurts 37
6 Change Your World 47
7 Healing Your Emotions 59
8 Color Healing 83
9 Nature Meditations 97
10 The Healing Room 113
Part 3 Spiritual Meditation
11 Psychic Development 123
12 Meditation for Spiritual Connection 137
13 Meditation and Religion 147