What is meditation? What benefits? How to meditate?

For us Westerners, the word meditation is very quickly associated with a Buddhist monk sitting in a lotus position, contemplating the valley, sitting on a rock at the top of a hill.

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But to demystify the subject a little, did you know that you could meditate while walking, taking a bath or even in the bathroom? You do not need to do 4 years of gym so you can sit in the lotus position before you start meditating!

In this article we will answer the questions:

• What does it mean to “meditate”?
• What’s the point? What benefits can I get from it?
• How to meditate? How exactly does it work?

Hum .. Good questions indeed (at the same time it is me who poses …) and well we will try to answer in a SIMPLE way. Gentlemen the advanced Buddhas, this article is not for you 🙂

What does it mean to “meditate”?

Simply, one could define meditation as a gym of the mind. In the same way that we can develop our muscles through sport, we can train our mind through meditation and therefore develop many qualities.

Meditation: What’s the point? What are its benefits?

Many studies have shown that one can develop considerably certain qualities such as concentration, attention, altruism but also and above all emotional balance and inner peace. Translation: Less stress, less anxiety and more well-being, serenity, joy and … love 🙂

And no need to meditate 4 hours a day on a rock; 10 minutes a day can suffice.

10 qualities that you will develop by meditating 10 minutes a day:

• Decrease in stress by 30 to 40% after one month
• Greater inner peace
• Serenity … finally!
• Attention and concentration
• Emotional balance
• Altruism (helping others)
• Significant decrease in anxiety and anxiety
• Strengthening the immune system (I stopped getting sick when I had the flu six times a year)
• Increase of 20 to 30% of the antibodies
• Increased well-being in general

Is it worth it to be interested?

All this for 10 minutes a day, and I do not even tell you the benefits you would have by spending 1 hour per day. That’s what I did and in 1 month, more anxiety attacks, and a very great serenity.

How to meditate? How exactly does it work?

We can therefore define meditation as a gym of the mind. You can imagine that sometimes  the mess the disorder in our mind, that we do not really control our thoughts (by thought I mean here idea, emotion, rancor, regret, emotion …). In addition, not only do not control them but they quickly became negative! Meditation allows us to educate our minds.

Which position to adopt?

The best, as you may know, is to adopt the famous lotus position, cross-legged with your feet on your thighs. Only very few of us are flexible enough to adopt this position. Most of us will simply prefer to sit cross-legged. If like me you are not flexible at all, you can also sit on a chair with your back straight, feet flat. Another possibility is to lie down, the danger here being to fall asleep. What is important is to be in a position where you can relax and completely relax your muscles.

So how to meditate?

The basis of meditation is to focus on an object and stay focused so that our attention does not leave this object. In this way, other thoughts will no longer have access to our mind because we will not pay attention to them. You will realize by trying that it is not so easy. It’s like learning a sport, you’re not good the first time.

Try : take your own breathing as a meditation object: for 1 minute, focus on your breathing. Try to think only of the incoming air, outgoing, re-entering … from your mouth, and your belly inflating, deflating, inflating … Do this and see how long you have a thought ( other than breathing) that happens.

Here the object of meditation was your breathing, but it might as well be an external object like the flame of a candle, or a mental image like a tree, a lake, or anything that inspires you. You can do it with your eyes open or your eyes closed. What is important is to focus on something.

In fact, ALL can be an object of meditation . A smell, the feeling of feet on the floor, a music, the taste of something you eat, a tree … my favorite being a point on the ceiling. What matters is your concentration and the attention you give to your meditation object.

And when you have a thought that appears, the goal is not to resist this thought but to let it pass like a bird through the sky. You let the thought pass and you return to your meditation object, gently. This is the let go .

To start well in meditation, and know how to meditate daily, here are some books that I can recommend. First of all, there is the excellent book by Matthieu Ricard: The art of meditation . I also recommend that of Christophe André called Mediter day after day . Finally, I recommend a little book that I particularly love: The serenity of the moment  of Thich Naht Hanh. I also made a summary in another article: see the chronicle of The serenity of the moment

And if you read me so far, I recommend it warmly, practice!

10 minutes waking up, in front of a red light, eating, walking, before sleeping … meditate! I guarantee you it can only be positive . I was distressed, depressed and anxious, I am no longer, largely thanks to meditation. You do not imagine how it changed my life!