The awakening of our higher abilities through meditation implies preliminaries because it follows a path by degrees. We are not talking here of a spiritual path, but of a progressive training of body and mind aimed at achieving what meditation allows the practitioner.
The progression of the meditative path
An essential condition for learning to meditate is to be relaxed or better to relax . Once we have entered this state, we then turn to attention, or the acquisition of that ability to intentionally direct our mental attention towards something.
From this attention comes concentration, that is the firmness of attention on an established subject or object which, maintained for long periods, results in true meditative activity. The last step to move is that of the so-called mental emptiness, represented by clearing the mind of every thought and image of habitual experience to make room for intuitions coming from other levels of experience.
Here we focus on meditation foreplay, especially on posture, relaxation and attention. Preliminaries. The ability to relax is not really something for everyone, especially in the modern West with its frenetic pace of life and endless sensory stimuli. Relaxing requires great effort and considerable effort.
It is important to start by assuming a correct meditation posture: among the most suitable there is the classic lotus position (sitting cross-legged) or the kneeling position. Those who find it annoying to take these positions can also sit on a chair, with their feet firmly on the floor and their backs straight.
The position of the back is very important in order to allow the free flow of vital energy. As far as the place where we choose to meditate is concerned, let us be careful so that it is a place that is as free as possible of visual and auditory stimuli. It is advisable to have soft lighting and very little noise, so we disconnect electrical appliances that can interrupt the exercise, such as the telephone and the intercom.
The clothing will be comfortable and not synthetic. Put away your shoes, glasses, watch and jewelry.
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The basic technique for entering a state of relaxation consists in directing one's attention to the different parts of one's body in succession, relaxing the muscles one by one until the whole body is relaxed. Several schools are used to starting this eyed exercise. We relax the eyelid muscles until the eyes tend to close spontaneously. We then move to the forehead, relaxing the muscles, and continue with the cheeks and the mouth.
Once the whole face is relaxed, we move to the neck and shoulders, trying to release the accumulated tensions. From the shoulders we pass to the arms, preferably one at a time, up to the fingertips of the hand. There is no need to hurry to complete this phase. It is important to feel the relaxation of each district of our body. The progressive relaxation exercise will therefore continue on the trunk, the abdomen ending with the legs and the pied i.
To focus the attention
Once we have entered a state of body relaxation, we can begin the specific exercise of our attention. To facilitate this phase, Zen meditation is useful, which focuses on breathing, especially on the flow and rhythm of this. We focus on the freshness of the inhaled air and the warmth of the warm air exhaled slowly with the nostrils. The rhythm of breathing will progressively slow down, becoming ever deeper and more regular. Here different images and thoughts of everyday life will appear in our mind. It is normal for it to happen. It is important not to give up and stay calm. Become aware of what is happening and bring attention to the breath.
It is only a question of exercise : over time you will learn to acquire the ability to easily dispel the onset of thoughts and mental images during meditation. This exercise on attention has a variable duration, even if it is right to say that it is more effective if practiced for a long time. The minimum duration should however be around 20 minutes, between relaxation and attention, at least for the first time. With experience, chances are it will only take a few minutes.
