Meditation for Dummies

by Stephan Bodian
John Wiley & Sons 2006
384 pages

Focus
Leadership & Management

Take-Aways
Meditation is focusing your attention on a single thing for an extended time.

Strategy
Sales & Marketing

You pay attention to the process of your consciousness, rather than just the content.

Finance
Human Resources
IT, Production & Logistics
Career Development
Small Business

Physically, meditation ghts heart disease, stress and aging.

Psychologically, meditation makes you calmer, happier and more creative.
Spiritually, meditation makes you empathetic, and can put you in touch with the divine.

Economics & Politics

Industries

Meditation requires discipline. Make a long-term commitment.

Intercultural Management
Concepts & Trends

Incorporate meditation into your daily life.

Every spiritual tradition has its own meditative practices.
Everyone who meditates runs into obstacles; use them to improve your practice.
No matter what your personality type or goals, you can nd a meditation practice
that works for you.

Rating (10 is best)

Overall

Applicability

Innovation

Style

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Relevance
What You Will Learn
In this Abstract, you will learn: 1) What meditation is; 2) How you can benet
from meditation; 3) How to meditate; and 4) What some meditation practices and
traditions are.
Recommendation
Given the array of complex and confusing advice out there on meditation, Stephan
Bodians clarity and reassuring tone are welcome. Many meditation texts are partisan
and seek to advance one school or method of meditation over another. In contrast,
Bodian is scrupulously fair and inclusive: He introduces multiple perspectives and
approaches, all the while sharing his own experience. Offered in combination with
an audio CD that guides listeners through 12 different types of meditation, this is an
extremely approachable introduction to meditation. getAbstract recommends it to both
meditation novices and advanced practitioners, all of whom will be able to dip into
it for useful suggestions and information. If you like the user-friendly Dummies
format, youll nd the sidebars, graphics, headers and short segments handy. If you
seek only serenity, the pages might be a little too busy for your meditative frame of
mind. So, absorb the information, close the book and close your eyes, which youre
going to do anyway. Now, ommmm.

Abstract
The great thing
about meditation
is that its actually
quite simple. Just
sit down, be quiet,
turn your attention
inward and focus
your mind.

Meditation is
simply the practice
of focusing
your attention
on a particular
objectlike a
word or phrase, a
candle ame or
geometrical gure,
or the coming
and going of
your breath.

Why Meditate?
Meditation is not an esoteric practice. Its really pretty simple. When you meditate, you
focus your attention on one thing, such as your breathing, or a word or phrase called a
mantra. You do it regularly and, ideally, for the long term. Thats what makes meditation
a practice or discipline. The longer you do it, the more you experience its benets: calm,
peace, well-being, wholeness, clarity and compassion. Meditation can change the quality
of your life experience by helping you to connect with yourself and others, and aligning
you with deep spiritual realities.
Meditation has spiritual roots: Monks, mystics and shamans have meditated throughout
history. However, even if you dont belong to any particular spiritual tradition, you can
still meditate. You can focus on any number of things and have any number of goals. You
can seek spiritual awakening and contemplate the nature of the divine, or you can seek
better health and visualize T-cells attacking an infection. Both are meditation, because
both involve training your attention and building your ability to concentrate.
Life has always been difcult and stressful, and the ability to stay calm in the midst
of chaos is precious. Postmodern society, with its fast pace and multiple demands on
your attention, is more splintered than ever. Anxiety, disconnection and alienation are
common, driving many people to substance abuse or escape into entertainment or rigid,
fundamentalist mindsets.
Meditation has well-documented physiological benets. It reduces heart and breathing
rates, as well as blood pressure and cholesterol. You can use it to manage pain and
recover from stress. People who meditate on an ongoing basis live longer and suffer
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fewer effects of aging. Psychologically, meditation can make you more creative, happier
and more empathetic. Some people use it as a supplement to psychotherapy.
You may have
a difcult time
accepting the basic
spiritual truth that
you and I have
only limited control
over the events
in our lives.

The daily practice

of meditation for
just a few months
actually makes
people happier, as
measured not just
by their subjective
reports, but also
by brain-mapping
technology.

How you
live affects how
you meditate,
and how you
meditate affects
how you live.

When you turn

your attention
inward, the rst
thing youre likely
to encounter is
the ceaseless
chattering of
your mind.

Taming the Monkey-Mind

Your mind jumps all over the place. You think about one thing, then another. Thats
not a problem thats specic to you. Buddhists refer to the human mind as a monkey
because of the way it leaps from thing to thing.
Meditation helps you tame the monkey and develop mindfulness, or the awareness of
the here and now. Start by letting go of expectations: Accept whatever happens. Relax.
In many traditions, meditators focus on their breath. Sit still, and count each inhalation
and exhalation. When you get to 10, start over. If you get lost, start from the top. When
your mind wanders as it inevitably will gently bring it back. Dont let yourself stay
distracted; return to the breath. Meditation changes the way you think in several ways:
Content to process Instead of becoming engaged with your fears or anxieties,
you watch them move in and out of your mind.
Outer to inner Usually external stimuli capture your attention. As you meditate,
you turn your focus inward.
Secondhand to direct Instead of reliving the past, fantasizing about the
future or interpreting the events around you, meditation helps you experience the
present moment.
Doing to being Dont act on what you see; let the experience ll you.

Preparing to Meditate
Develop a regular routine to prepare for meditation. Many traditional meditation postures
require sitting with a straight (although not rigid) spine, which can be uncomfortable at
rst. Stretch your back by doing yoga poses such as kneeling on all fours and arching
up and down like a cat. Stretch your hips with lunge poses. How you sit is up to you: in
an old-fashioned wooden chair that will help you stay upright, or on the oor kneeling
or cross-legged. Supporting your buttocks with small cushions (called zafus in Japanese)
sometimes helps.
Dont eat or drink anything, such as alcohol, that might distract you. Wear loose,
comfortable clothes and pick a quiet spot with few distractions. You might even make
this spot a sacred space by dedicating it to meditation and setting up an altar. Especially
when you rst start meditating, preparation may take a while, so set aside 20 minutes to
an hour. However, meditating for a short time each day is better than doing a lot one day
and none for the rest of the week. Meditation requires discipline. Make a commitment to
meditate daily and for the long term.
To keep yourself on the path, lay a strong foundation. Review your motivation: Do you
want to be a better person? Accept yourself more fully? Help others? Even as you review
why you are meditating, give up any claim to know what youll encounter along the way.
Rather than clinging to a preconceived notion of what meditation should be, embrace
your beginners mind. Stay open to whatever comes. Notice everything that happens
without judging or clinging to it. Everything in life changes and passes away.

Challenges Along the Way

Some inner states can be disturbing. Negative emotions such as rage and fear can seem
endless or overwhelming. Dont worry; they have their limits. Identify and examine
these emotions, and notice what they do to your body. Treat them as you would any series
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When you sit

up straight like
a mountain or a
tree, your body acts
as a link between
heaven and earth
and, by analogy,
connects your
physical, embodied
existence with the
sacred or spiritual
dimension of
being.

Self-discipline
isthe capacity
to do something
again and again.
But I nd it
helpful to break
self-discipline down
into three parts:
commitment,
consistency and
self-restraint.

of internal events. Welcome them, then let them pass which they will. The same is true
for intensely positive emotions. They are more pleasant, but your challenge will be to let
them go and not cling to them.
Some emotional states may become patterns or what meditation teacher Jack Korneld
calls insistent visitors. They arise from unresolved experiences. Take these steps to
interrupt emotional habits:
Catalog them Identify the top ten tunes that replay in your awareness.
Look deeper Notice where your body feels tense. Follow the emotions to see
whats underneath. For example, on the surface you feel fear, but underneath that
you feel hurt.
Experience the feelings This isnt the same as acknowledging them. Feelings often
recur and demand attention because you never really felt them in the rst place.
Notice resistance What you resist, persists. When you allow the expression of
the feelings, they may pass.
Look for wisdom Maybe the patterns have something to teach you.
Face your demon Unearth the memory, feeling or belief that holds the
pattern together. If the experience is traumatic, you may need to do this with a
psychotherapist.
Imagine replacing the negative pattern with a positive one This is a kind of
short cut. Set aside the pattern and instead imagine wholeness and completeness.
Habitual patterns are difcult to break, and following these steps may take time. However,
the more experience you gain in breaking patterns, the more quickly you will see them
forming and the more easily you will be able to intervene.
Other obstacles to meditation include restlessness, boredom or sleepiness. Observing
without judging is difcult and you may become very hard on yourself. Conversely, you
may feel proud of your choice to meditate and the wonderful thoughts youre having.
Think of these kinds of experiences as roadside attractions on your meditation journey.
They are interesting, but they arent the goal and you dont have to stay with them.
Some experiences such as deep and abiding bliss or a sense of energy gathering in your
body are not roadside attractions but rather highway markers that your practice is getting
somewhere and transforming you.

Enlightened
or not, you can
develop the ability
to open your
heart when you
choose to do so.
Meditation erodes
the experience of
separation that
causes the heart
to stay closed in
the rst place.

Integrating Meditation into Your Life

Meditation takes many forms. To develop a meditation practice that you can follow for a
long time, nd one that works for you and that ts your goals. For example, if you are dealing with a serious illness, start with a healing meditation. If your goal is self-acceptance,
try meditations that focus on compassion, lovingkindness or mindfulness.
No matter what method you choose, your goal is to experience calm, peace and focus not
only during the 20 minutes or so when youre meditating, but also throughout your life.
As the Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh said, Every breath we take, every
step we make, can be lled with peace, joy and serenity. We need only to be awake, alive
in the present moment.
During the day, if you lose focus, forget who you are or feel frazzled, return to your
breath. Its always with you. Use it to renew your awareness. Some traditions ring a bell
at intervals throughout the day, to remind practitioners that no matter what theyre doing,
they should be mindful. If you cant use an actual bell, adapt everyday occurrences
to remind you. When you stop at a red light, breathe consciously, and let go of your
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tension. In some traditions, such as Judaism, people say a blessing for common actions
such as waking or eating. When you face a dull or uninspiring task, approach it mindfully,
paying attention to every action and detail.
You cant
really tell how
a particular
meditation will
affect you until
you practice it
regularly for a
period of time.

If you meditate
regularly,
youre going to
have spiritual
experiences
guaranteed.

When you catch

a glimpse of the
sacred you can
practice seeing it
everywhere you
look, in everyone
and everything.

The History of Meditation

Every spiritual tradition practices some form of meditation. Cave paintings that are more
than 15,000 years old show shamans in meditative postures. The practices that most
people think of as meditation appeared in India more than 5,000 years ago, when priests
focused on the breath as a way of focusing on the divine. They also developed practices
such as yoga, which uses body postures to cultivate the spirit.
Buddhism sprang from this tradition and moved from India throughout much of Asia,
taking as many forms as there were local cultures. Some of these traditions included
elaborate rituals, while the Japanese tradition of Zen Buddhism is famous for its austerity.
It slices through avoidance with a brief command: Just sit! Zen uses koans, or riddles
such as What is the sound of one hand? that intentionally frustrate the rational mind to
force the awareness to leap to a new level of understanding for a solution.
Some scholars suggest that Indian teaching may have inuenced the West during Roman
times. However, the major Western religions of Christianity, Judaism and Islam all have
their own meditative traditions. The most common form of meditation in these traditions
is prayer. Jewish mystics use sacred phrases from scripture as mantras, and Su Muslims
practice a kind of ecstatic dance.

Meditation Techniques
To do a walking meditation, begin by walking normally. Then notice your breath,
paying attention to each inhalation and exhalation. Coordinate your steps with your
breath, for example, by taking three steps each time you inhale or exhale. Notice how
your legs and feet move and make contact with the ground.
Eating, which you do every day, can also become a meditation. Before you take a bite,
sit quietly and appreciate your food. Thank the people and world that produced it.
Follow the food to your mouth by slowing down each movement. Once the food is in
your mouth, notice how it tastes and feels. When your mind its away into judgment
and expectation, bring it back to the present. Instead of eating on autopilot, stay present
through the entire meal.
You can also meditate on particular spiritual qualities, such as lovingkindness. First, do
a basic meditation, such as breath counting, with your eyes closed and your body relaxed.
Let your memory range back to a time when you felt loved. Sit with this memory and
what it meant to you. Appreciate the person who loved you. Let the emotions accumulate
until you are lled with love. Some traditions nd it useful to underscore this abstract
emotion with words. Buddhists say, May I be happy. May I be peaceful. May I be free
from suffering. Extend your love to someone close to you. Dont rush. Move on to the next
person and the next, until youve experienced love for all your loved ones and friends.
Dont stop there. Let love spill out from you until it reaches everyone everywhere.

About the Author

Stephan Bodian has been practicing meditation for more than 30 years. A licensed
psychotherapist, Bodian was editor-in-chief of Yoga Journal for 10 years.
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