Meditation for me

What qigong does for my body, meditation does for my mind.

Meditation calms the racing energy of my mind and gets it flowing in a single focussed stream. With regular practice of meditation I am able to get some control over the “monkey mind” that challenges us all, where the mind flits from thought to thought constantly, incessantly.  It has often been said meditation is the simplest and yet the most difficult thing to do.

After all, how hard can it be to simply sit and focus on your own breathing?

What it isn’t is going into some sort of hypnotic trance state, a very common misconception which I also had until I was introduced to meditation some years ago. If anything meditation is the complete opposite of a trance. I have never felt so completely focussed and aware of everything around me, so connected with my surroundings as I have in deep meditation. It is indeed all about concentration and attention. It is about being calm and just in the moment and letting all the chatter of your mind rest in the background.

I liken it to working with layers as you would in say, Photoshop. Your foreground layer is usually the mind chatter that is thinking about past events or what plans you have in the future and the background layer is what the senses are processing about things like sounds around you, your breathing, your movements, the temperature, the direction of the wind. In meditation we aim to swap these layers and push all the thinking to the background and bring our senses to the foreground, and be very comfortable in that space.

It is accessible by everyone and just 20 minutes practice every day will provide a myriad of benefits. Millions of people gain immense pleasure from this practice every day and have been doing so for thousands of years. If you would like more information or join up with one of our meditation groups please contact me.