A meditation on meditation
Because sitting like a yogi isn't the only option
Last week, a young musician asked me what meditation felt like to me, and it felt like there were no words to explain the feeling, or lack thereof. What I ended up describing it as was: laying on the ground, listening to a vinyl record. I’m not singing or repeating the songs in my head, only listening. There is no skipping tracks (you can with manual intervention, but with the risk of scratching the record if not carefully mastered) or repeating on loop a favourite song. I’m, in all awareness, laying on the ground and listening to a vinyl of my choosing. There are no thoughts coming into my mind, or if there are they are quickly phased out by re-directing my focus back to the music. I did vaguely try to explain that there are different types of meditation and that not everyone might be suited for the most famous one: sitting meditation. Cross-legged, lotus position, hands on your knees or thighs, maintaining a mudra (a symbolic hand position), looking like the quintessence of the word “yogi”. Meditation is focus brought to a new degree, maybe that would’ve been a more abstract explanation. However, to what degree can it be called meditation?
If you look at the 8 Limbs of Yoga found in The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, what we now call meditation can be almost any of the limbs:
It can be focusing on a flower, seeing its petals, and noticing the various textures it’s composed of. Bringing attention to the silkiness of the petals compared to the toughness of the stem. Being aware of the shifts in colour from the points to the pistil, and from there focusing on the stigmas at the center and their shapes. My attention is fully centered on the flower so that, if I were to close my eyes, I could redraw it behind my eyelids. Without carrying my attention to its beauty or herbalism magic, which, in this moment, are separated from the flower itself. Irrelevant in the present moment.
Meditation can be sitting somewhere, repeating a mantra over and over as the mind drifts in space. Not thinking, but peaceful, in the short respite we offer it. Or doing asana practice, as you would during a yoga class.
Sometimes it’s watching people as they rush their lives ahead, while I’m sitting on a park bench or leaning on a building. Witnessing it, almost as if I were an alien. Almost wondering what they are thinking about, what their worries might be, what music they are listening to, and sometimes why they aren’t listening to the birds instead. Where they might be rushing to, and what hobbies they have. So focused on what I am seeing that these thoughts occur only after I return to myself, to my own human day, when I feel like it.
A lot of the time, I meditate by focusing on my breath. As simple as that. Counting, noticing, seeing, feeling…the life force of our being (prana). The first thing we do as we are born, the last thing we do before we pass. breathe
What preconceived ideas did you have about meditation before you started practicing?
What is your favourite focus when you meditate?
Thank you for reading :)
