learn to meditate

I think that if you hold to the literal meaning of this entry (“learn to meditate”), that I have actually done this. I mean, I’ve read quite a few books on the subject, and the mindfulness meditation that I’m studying right now is both so complex and so simple that I will either never have completed this, or that I’ve already completed it. I know the basics. I’ve learned what I have to do. So now I just have to do it. So learning is over. Practicing needs to begin.

Well, it took about A YEAR LONGER THAN IT SHOULD HAVE but let’s not get into that. I finally finished the library book on meditation and I have a list of potential kinds of meditation I might try out. I need to re-read those sections, get a little more information on the beliefs associated with each one, and see what’s available in my town. But I’m at least making progress for once!

For the curious, the potential kinds of meditation I’m considering are:

• Zen (will need to read more about it & see what the spiritual side entails)
• Tai Chi (I’ve done it once and didn’t really get behind it, but I’m in a different place now)
• Body Scan (sounded like the kind of exercises I used to do in drama)
• Drumming (the biggest concern with this is that I’d need a drum, and potentially a different place)
• Visualization (completely non-religious and most self-explanatory)

I have been (barely) working my way through the same damn meditation book, taking it out of the library every few weeks and getting through a couple of chapters before I have to return it. Figuring out this meditation thing is…not going well. But I really need to learn a way to defrag my mind. Or at least quiet it down a little bit. So my goal is now threefold:
1. Finish the book by the time it’s due.
2. Make a list of 3-5 techniques/schools of thought that would work for me.
3. See which of those are available in Edmonton.

It’s a modest goal. But one I can hopefully tackle.

I hadn’t done much towards this goal in over a year, so last month I decided to take a couple of books out of the library for research. So far I like Meditation: The Complete Guide, which breaks down meditation into different schools of thought and/or spiritual disciplines, with different techniques in each discipline. I’m certainly not going to feel comfortable with every technique, but it’s good to get a basic handle on things and find out where I might be more and less comfortable, to know where to go – and where not to go – after this first step. I should probably finish the book in the next few days, if I’m diligent, and then I can move forward into finding something to actively practice.

This is kind of a spur-of-the-moment goal. I think I would like to learn meditation, but a decidedly secular kind. I would rather use it to reflect and decompress than to understand the spiritual connectedness of all matter: that kind of approach would turn me right off. So I’m not sure whether taking a course, reading a book, or some third option would be the best plan. But it’s something I’m going to be looking into, at least.