Tell me about meditation

[Mariano]

What's it? How to do it? Why?

[Speesh]

Meditation is a catch-all term that lumps together many practices that aim towards many different subjective goals. The general aim is to try to still the incessant linguistic mind and sense of self to allow the "real" sense of physical being to shine through. In its most traditional sense meditation begins with the breath. Focusing on the natural breath intently and letting thoughts pass through your head like clouds. Be careful not to suppress the thoughts, meditation is about acknowledging the thought and letting it pass through the mind naturally. And it is definitely NOT about trancing out, as many believe at first. Its about awareness. Most meditations are done in sessions that can last anywhere between 5 minutes and an hour, or longer. Some meditate even longer, but many people claim that overdoing it is counter-productive. When it comes to goals, the traditional one is "enlightenment", which is to eliminate all that personal conditioning and reactive self, or "ego", and overcoming the linguistic mind. To see the world as it is and not your own limited interpretation of it. Though not everyone is interested in something so esoteric. Once you get good at meditation you can enter a state of intense relaxation and calmness which is really helpful for dealing with stress and anxiety. It'll even carry over somewhat outside of the sessions. Plus it feels really good. At any rate there's a lot of free instruction available online if you're interested. http://www.mro.org/zmm/teachings/meditation.php got me started out, provides an easy initiation. I personally don't pay much attention to the postures, sitting upright in a chair keeps me alert enough. This is a Zen meditation though. There's many other types that span across many different traditions that you can research. The wiki article is a good place to start (though there's a ton of information to wade through).

[Rocky90]

Dear Mariano, meditation is a practice to contact the divine within oneself through stillness. It is usually done by entering a trance state at will. You simply fool your brain by sending it the sleep signal, just like you would when you try to fall asleep, except in meditation you keep your mind awake. So in effect your brain waves slow down all the way towards sleep but you are still awake. Benefits: -explore subtleties of one's mind and resolve inner conflicts -more general relaxation, less bodily and mental tension, trance feels very, very comfortable -increasing conscious control, patience, discipline and such and basically too much to list here peace