Ever since I started meditating my life has been amazing. In all fairness, my life has been amazing ever since I met my wife. But meditation has helped me to enjoy and appreciate it. It has taught me things about myself that I didn’t know. It has given me a deeper respect for my religion and increased my creative powers. I was even able to get rid of the blood pressure medication. Seriously, someone call the Heart Association and tell them.
So naturally, when someone asks for my advice on, well…anything, I answer “You should meditate.”
Responses I get:
- “Yeah, I mean, like other than meditation what do you think I should do?” A perfectly valid answer. My friends are so sick of hearing about the glorious rainbow freedom that is meditation which will solve all our woes. Sometimes they just want to talk through a problem.
- “Sure, absolutely, I’ll look into that.” Good.
- “That’s great but- how do you do it?” This one is rare. But it happens.
For anyone interested in meditation, I’ll do my best to explain what’s worked for me. None of it is hard, but it’s not always easy if that makes sense. The only warning I’ll provide is that meditation sometimes dips a toe into spirituality, which can put some weird books on your shelf. Being a person of completely open mind, I found that progress in meditation led to a natural curiosity about other things that people who meditate swear by. Before you know it I’m reading up on chakras, energy healing, shamanism, you name it. I’m still trying to decide which drawer I’m going to hide it all in when my parents visit.
But you asked about meditation, didn’t you? Right. You don’t need any books to meditate. You just have to decide to fight the darkness. That’s it. The rest is tactics.