Learning to meditate

Burning Incense by kevinpoh on Flickr 

I am often heard saying ‘there are many roads up the mountain’ and part of our life journey is to find and travel our own unique road.  

Same with meditation.

A 2012 study published online in Explore: The Journal of Science and Healing highlighted the importance of ensuring that new meditators select methods with which they are most comfortable, rather than those that are most popular or what ‘everyone else is doing’.

When you select a meditation practice that YOU are most comfortable with, you are likely to increase your chance of sticking with it, says Adam Burke, the author of the study and a professor of health education at San Francisco State University.

Burke’s study compared four popular meditation methods — Mantra, Mindfulness, Zen and Qigong Visualization — to see if new meditation practitioners favored one over the others. The study’s 247 participants were taught each method and asked to practice at home and, at the end of the study, evaluate which they preferred.

The two simpler methods, Mantra and Mindfulness, were preferred by 31 percent of study participants, with about 22 percent preferring Zen and 14.8 percent preferring Qigong.

This study shows the value of providing new practitioners with a simple, accessible method of meditation, and emphasizes that no one technique is best for everyone.

EXPLORING MEDITATION 

I spent many years wandering through various schools of meditation, learning from different teachers, exploring different methods .. and when I came to sharing my passion for meditation with others I knew that I wanted to share some of those 'flavours’ .. so that participants could the best fit for them.

Ultimately meditation practice is not going to be effective for you, unless you like doing it – and you do it!

EXPLORING MEDITATION

6week course at Black Rock venue

6.30-8pm

Starts Wednesday 21st April

4 week course at Brighton venue

6.30-8.30pm

Starts Monday 5th May