If you continue this simple practice every day, you will obtain some wonderful power. Much like the words spirituality or foreplay, the word meditation is a vague label for a broad concept most would prefer to avoid in casual conversation. Hearing these words at all can be off putting, and if asked directly, most of us would probably have trouble defining them. When used in conversation, words like these have some imperceptible power to derail your Built Ford Tough attention like a Czech Hedgehog. We might not know what these words mean exactly, but we know we don’t want our secretaries talking to us about them.
But why is meditation such a dirty word? Mention meditation to the ‘Average Joe’ and watch as he immediately stumbles into an internal dialectic hall of mirrors requiring a quick escape lest he sponge up any of the tainted conversational voodoo. Mention meditation to a coworker and see how long it takes them to go back to their cubicle and tell their friend in the adjacent box that that dude who drives the silver Honda CR-V is “into some weird shit.” Meditation is for people so bohemian and out of touch they think, “global warming,” means more hugs. But what is the hang up? To my understanding, meditating does not imply that you also bath with a collection of crystals you bought off a hippy named Cucumber at Bonaroo. In order to meditate you do not have to wear dirty yellow parachute pants with a beard down to your naval while reciting passages from the Bhagavad Gita. Meditating can be as simple as sitting down for a few minutes without thinking about how you want to stab your boss in the dick. I started meditating while I was in law school as an attempt to balance out what is an undeniably unpleasant three-year experience. At the time, I was dating a temperamental Korean girl named Moon who would constantly tell me that no relationship could ever make her happier than a piece of candy could. I was drinking so much coffee throughout the day that by 5:30 P.M. my daily lightning bolt headaches would make me feel like Nick Nolte on the morning after St. Patrick’s Day. Between the somewhat stressful graduate school requirements, a bad relationship and a physical addiction to brown liquid I was open to trying new low risk methods at improving my condition. A friend of mine gifted me a book called Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind: Informal talks on Zen meditation and practice by Shunryu Suzuki. He gifted me this book with the caveat, “Most of it doesn’t make any sense, so just be ready for that.” He was correct. To most logical people, “The slowest horse is the fastest horse and the fastest horse is the slowest horse,” is not useful equine research. A = not A. Ok. Symbolic Logic for Buddhists is probably not a very popular course for philosophy students. But I learned to enjoy the ridiculous poetry in the book even if my analytic mind found humor in the silly metaphors. I decided to begin using the book as a guide to start a consistent meditation practice. First thing in the morning, I would read one chapter in Suzuki’s book (they are extremely short chapters), let all the Zen horseshit wash over me without trying to make any sense of it, set a timer for 15 minutes and sit down to focus on my breathing. When I finally finished the book, I started over. I found that soon my headaches started to go away. I needed less coffee to obtain the same level of focus. I felt calmer throughout the day and during fights with Moon when she would hurl buckets of kimchi at me. My morning routines got clearer and more organized after having one activity already planned out. And altogether, I felt better and more awake. Feeling better is always the goal. Everyone can feel a little bit better, and meditation is such an easy way to do so. All you have to do is sit on the floor for 15 minutes and focus. There are no necessary accessories. No necessary chants or prayers. No necessary headdress. No necessary weirdness. Just sit down for a little bit. If you are interested in adding this simple action to your day, you could do what I did and start with Suzuki. Or there are a few different iPhone Apps like Headspace that offer guided meditations. I’ve used Headspace, and I like it because it essentially acts as a timer and also gives you a little bit more of a roadmap if you are too distracted. Too many of the world’s top performers meditate on a daily basis to deny its benefits. And once you incorporate it into your daily routine, you will be able to experience the benefits yourself. And once you do, you too can ostracize yourself from your coworkers at the company picnic by telling them you are into some weird shit.
1 Comment
KC
4/22/2016 06:26:07 am
This was great. Really informative and I actually LOL'ed at least 3 times. I might give meditation a whirl. Thanks for sharing!
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