Meditation for Dummies
This weeks book is one I’ve had on my shelf for a while, I even started it once before but got distracted by life so never finished it. Then when I was on my happiness crusade back in August, I remembered I had it, making this weeks book of the week Meditation for Dummies by Stephan Bodian.
If you’re not familiar with the “for Dummies” series of books, the publishing company that produces them takes a single topic, hands it to an expert, and says break it down for morons…or dummies, if you prefer. And one would not think you could make a 300 odd page book out of a topic like meditation, but damn if he didn’t pull it off. There really is quite a lot to learn about the topic.
As one might expect, he does go quite a bit into the history of meditation, it’s interaction with various world religions, I mean everyone knows the Buddha meditated, but of course it has ties to Christianity, and Judaism as well, and I think in Mind Hacking Happiness Sean Webb even found ties to Islam and Meditation. But whereas Webb mentioned the importance of meditation to achieving happiness, Bodian provides different types of meditation to help you achieve that path.
So this was really important, because not everyone is the same…obviously. Some people have no problem sitting down, counting their breath, and their on the path to sweet Nirvana. But other people need options. Meditation is about concentration. It’s focused concentration. Believe it or not, America is more used to this concept then we might realize, because we hear it all the time. Visualize yourself doing X…whatever X may be for you. See your house that you want to buy in your mind, Focus on it, visualize, really see your house. That is a form of meditation. But it’s actually not as focused as allowing your mind to think…nothing. It’s the concentration on something less materialistic, like your breath, or a mantra, that really opens up your mind to the benefits of meditation. And some of the benefits are truly outstanding.
Resting heart rate decreases, blood pressure decreases, you experience more alpha brain waves which improves communication and coordination, advanced meditators can experience Theta brain waves, which reportedly leaves the meditator feeling spacious. Theta brainwaves, according to Wikipedia, underlie various aspects of cognition and behavior, including learning, memory, and spatial navigation. Habitual meditators experience reduction in cortisol and cholesterol, can improve metabolism, which is not to say meditation is the new diet, just that your body becomes more efficient at consuming oxygen. Habitual meditators live longer than non-meditators and also experience less fear of the end of life. Meditators experience less medical emergencies requiring hospitalization, but to be fair, this could be about any of the above benefits. If you’re less likely to trip over your own feet resulting in a broken nose, then meditation has helped you to avoid a hospital stay, as much as helped reduce your risk of heart attack and stroke. Finally, habitual meditators experience an increase in gray matter. It can actually make your brain bigger. Does not necessarily mean you’ll be smarter, but you might as a natural consequence become smarter as meditating tends to open one up to new experiences.
And of course, the only way to get good at anything, is to just do it. So I found his most basic instructions, which are to sit comfortably, sit up straight, and concentrate on your breathing. To really pull in your concentration, count your breaths. Count 1 on your inhalation, 2 on your exhalation. Basically odd number on in, even number on out. Start by counting ten breaths in this fashion. Alternatively, pick a mantra, but it should be something short and sweet. Like God is Love. One word on inhalation, one word on exhalation.
He has recommendations on eyes open, closed, or half mast. Generally, this is a personal preference, but for beginners, he recommends half mast. I found these first couple of days, that I closed my eyes entirely, but that’s largely because my office is not quite set up for meditation. I’m working on it. I had to buy a new meditation pillow. One of the ones I had my cats have turned into a bed, including a lovely pile of cat puke. So that one is now designated cat bed. The other one my dogs chewed on, spilling the buckram filling everywhere. So while I wait for the new pillow to arrive, I’ve been sitting in my office chair, with a bolster under my butt so that my knees are lower than my hips. This helps with spine alignment.
He does include a whole chapter on how to sit, what to wear, when to meditate, how to handle distractions, how long to meditate. The how to sit was very useful because while I have no problem sitting on a meditation pillow on the floor, if your mobility is compromised, it’s good to know the floor is not the only option. The importance here is, if you’re sitting in a chair, don’t collapse back in the chair. Sit kind of on the edge with your spine as straight as you can make it. Which is a caveat I throw in due to my own scoliosis. I can only make my spine about 70% straight.
He includes instructions on sitting, standing, lying down, and walking meditations. The walking meditation is sort of a bridge between your meditation practice and your everyday life, so you can bring meditation out of your practice space and into everyday life. Which is useful in becoming less reactive when unexpected incidents occur.
The best time to meditate is really when you have time for it. For some people that’s right when they wake up in the morning. That is not me, I am barely able to stumble to the kitchen and pour that cup of ambition, so meditating first thing is not for me. Before bed is working so far. I started with five minutes and found that was easy so I upped it to 6. You’d be surprised what a difference a minute makes. I’ll stick at 6 minutes until it’s no longer a challenge, then move to 7. I set the timer on my phone, close my eyes, and focus on breathing for 6 minutes. And feel my brain growing. I will say this for immediate benefits, when I finished, I was able to complete my next section of reading without break. Like nothing distracted me. So that was pretty awesome.
Throughout the book he includes different meditations you can use, most of which are included in audio files at the dummies.com website, and a cheat sheet for how to prepare for meditation. He does recommend you pick one meditation to start with, and the basic breathing one is where I started. But I’m going to keep the individual meditations flagged when I remove my tabbies, for easy reference, so that when I’m ready to expand my horizons more, or if I feel I need a specific meditation, I know where I can go. I did, for the record, check the links he mentioned in his book, they are all still good.
While a lot of the information in this book was repetitive, that was by design. If you’ve ever read a for Dummies book before, you know that they can be read cover to cover, or you can read individual sections out of order, and the information contained there in will still make sense, so I was ok with that. When I hit a repeat patch, I just skimmed it to make sure there wasn’t anything new, then moved on. Overall I quite liked this book, it had good background information, went into more detail on the health benefits, and I took the opportunity of reading it to add meditation to my own life, which I’ve been meaning to do since August.
