Meditation .. finding your centre

Welcome to Quiet Mind Meditation's 'Just Start' series .. a gentle journey into meditation where I look forward to sharing my experiences/insights/tips and passion for meditation.

I have been meditating for more than 20 years!  I started one day at school with a free class provided by one of the mum's (who was also a psychologist) .. and it was just one of those 'ah-ha' moments for me.  You can find out a little more about me (Sarah) and Quiet Mind Meditation here.

One of the most common questions I get as a meditation teacher is .. what is meditation, and why meditate? 

So when introducing meditation to a new class, I often whip out my daughters old snowdome.  

As I shake the snowdome the fairy princess becomes lost behind a cloud of white fairy dust .. and then I allow the snowdome to sit on the table for a few minutes, so that the dust settles and the liquid becomes still and clear .. and finally the fairy princess is unveiled.

This is a great visual image of what our busy mind can be like.. full of thoughts, noise and unprocessed stimuli, all of which cloud the mind.  

Meditation is an ancient practice that guides us to a place of deep relaxation (mind and body) .. and as the noise settles .. we find a place of clarity and stillness within us.

STAND IN THE CENTRE

The word MEDITATION literally comes from two Latin words … medio which means CENTRE and sto meaning TO STAND … and so in meditation we learn to STOP and STAND in our centre.  Like being in ‘the eye of a tornado’, at the very centre there is absolute peace and calmness.  

Meditation gives us a rare opportunity to step away from the busyness and noise, and rest in an inner place of stillness which is actually there all the time, but hidden behind all the fairy dust, the chatter and internal dialogue.

When we first try meditation it can be hard to understand this concept of stillness being already within us.  We close our eyes and often find a stream of chaotic and badly behaved random thoughts overtake us.  

But with practice we will begin to notice these small ‘gaps’ that exist between the continuous stream of thoughts, momentary gaps that appear between the noise and the silence.  As we become more aware of our thoughts, we realise they occur against this background of stillness, of empty space .. and in time, we understand that we can direct our attention from observing thoughts to observing the space within which they arrive.

As we stand in the centre the space between sounds, thoughts and experiences opens up, and the noise of the world is left behind.  Many people intuitively know this centre exists but cannot recall how they found it or when they were last there .. it often feels like coming home.

So the secret of meditation is really amazingly simple. 

We simply give our mind something to do, this is our meditation technique or anchor which might be a word, an image, our breath or a sound .. and we rest there.  The body softens, the mind calms and our awareness becomes alert and awake (as opposed to dreaming or sleeping where we are unaware of our mind and what it is doing).

Meditation is simply stopping and turning our attention inward 

This is meditation : connecting with the deep sense of peace and certainty within us regardless of the craziness of the world around us.  It's a beautiful place to rest.