Sunday 28 February 2016

Zen, Zen, Zen

By Evan Sanders


I'm here to challenge you...and trust me...I never said any of this was going to be easy. So here's my challenge to you.

I want you to take up meditation. And before you go, "Oh common really?!" I want you to hear me out.

Give me a minute to explain to you why this is so important in your life. Lend me your ears as they would say.

Nothing will be "gained" from taking on a meditation practice. Absolutely nothing. In fact, instead of calling it meditation, let's just call it a sitting practice.

Every single day, for at least 10 minutes a day (set a timer on your phone) sit on the floor with your legs crossed, close your eyes and focus only on your breath. I don't want you to get guided by tapes, sounds, or anything else. Just your breath.

Sit there. Quietly...and just...breathe.

Now let me explain what I'm really up to here.

Even though you aren't going to gain anything from meditation, you are going to get something completely different out of it entirely. You will actually experience something that many people don't get to experience at all. The "falling away" of things that are plaguing your life. All of the fear, doubt, and worry starts to drip out of you as you really take the time to slow down and focus on being in the present moment.

Naturally, thoughts and emotions are going to come into your mind and try to distract you. Let them do their thing and calmly come back to focusing on your breath. Come back to being in the present moment and leave everything else behind.

Mediation is about learning how to come back. That's all. It's about coming back over and over and over again no matter how many times your mind gets distracted. You keep coming back to the only moment you have, the present moment.

With any practice, you are going to be in and out of it. You might miss a couple days or a couple of weeks, but always make sure to come back to it. It's important to view the practices we engage in our lives as things that "nourish" us instead of things we "have to do." There's a huge difference there.

Always come back to your practices.




About the Author:



No comments:

Post a Comment