How to do meditation for beginners(step-by-step guide)

 

Overview

Meditation is a subtle, yet simple practice anyone can implement in their life. Mediation is to the mind, is what exercise is to the body. 

We train our mind through this simple practice called meditation

We have all heard about the positive aspects of meditation, we have seen monks sitting still for hours “meditating”. 

But we don’t usually realize how deep meditation has been integrated into our cultures. 

Meditation has been around for 5000 years now.

According to psychology today, evidence for meditation was found in the wall art located in the Indus valley dating approximately 5,000 to 3,500 BCE.

Vigyan Bhairav Tantra written from 1972-1973, explained 112 techniques of meditation.

There are also depictions of meditation on the Indian sculptures and Vedic texts which date back around 3000 years ago.

Hinduism and Buddhism referred to meditation as dhyana, Chapter 6 of India’s sacred book “bhagavad gita” depicted dhyana yoga (yoga of meditation).

Anyone who has ever meditated knows, Mediation or the process of meditating is often not easy as a beginner. Just as any skill, mastering meditation for beginners will also take time. 

All These historical pieces of evidence reveal the fact people have been meditating for over 5000 years, and if we wish we can also learn how to meditate

A beginner may encounter several questions while on the journey to start mediation,

Where to begin? How to start? Which style to choose? How should it feel? What are the basics? All valid and normal questions

Luckily in this article, we will answer all the questions about mediation from a beginner’s perspective. 

Let’s dive right in.

The Experience of Meditation

The experience of meditation has nothing to do with the method, there is no right or a wrong way, the method can vary from person to person. 

When we hear the word meditation, we often try to associate the word to the images of monks and sadhus sitting still for hours.

We often think their way of doing meditation may be the right way and we need to learn their techniques to meditate effectively.

But the core aspect of the Experience of meditation is to access a state of consciousness different from the states our brain normally operates.

Defined by our brain waves, our brain is normally used to 3 states of consciousness,

1. Waking State
2. Sleeping State
3. Dreaming State

Meditation is the process of accessing a verifiable 4th state of consciousness. where our body, mind, and nervous system are subjected to deep relaxation.

This 4th state of consciousness is what creates the experience of meditation.

Understanding this is crucial since as a beginner, we don’t usually know what to expect during mediation.

Why do we need Meditation?

1.) Connecting With Source

Mediation is not a secret key to happiness, It can’t solve all your problems nor it can’t make your life easier.

But meditation can definitely show you how to access the bliss within you, 

The main reason for most of our emotional problems/instability is the fact that we tend to give external circumstances/situations way too much control over our life. We give out the power to make us happy, sad, or angry to someone else.

Meditating regularly can connect you with the source. When you become connected to the inner source, you access the bliss within you.

The concept that yourself is separate from this universe is just an idea, 

it is just like calling a group of stars constellations like it was a separate group of stars, 

But in reality, there is no difference, it is just an idea created in our mind, similarly, the separation between yourself and the universe is just an idea.

Mediation is the way we come to feel this inseparability.

This sense of connectedness creates self-control over your own emotions, and every situation becomes a little more manageable when you have the proper emotional intelligence.

2.) Stress Relaxation Response

Stress and anxiety are responses our body produces to adapt to certain situations. Accumulation of stress in our cellular memory creates bigger problems such as insomnia, going gray at an earlier age, diabetes, and more.

Stress creates a spiral of anxiety, stress itself induces sleeping disorders, the less you sleep, the less productive you are at work, the less productive you are at work, the more stressed you are, and the cycle goes on.

Mediation when done correctly holds the ability to get rid of the effects of stress you accumulated over the years. 

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Meditation can help you give a different perspective over those situations which may habitually create stress for you, 

For example, when your boss is yelling at you, you can either choose to feel bad over the situation or you can choose to acknowledge the negative emotion you have and then do something about the situation to change the outcome.

change the outcome.

Mediating regularly could possibly help you see these kinds of options laid out, so that you can use your time efficiently rather than wasting it surrendering to your emotions

Apart from all these, meditation produces many other positive effects on your body 

Bodily benefits of meditation

• Lowers blood pressure
• Improved blood circulation
• Lower heart rate
• Less stress and anxiety
• Increased sense of well being
• Deeper relaxation
• Healthy blood cortisol levels
• Inner balance

People who incorporated daily meditation practice into their routine had a significant sense of wellbeing in their day to day life, they were able to perform at the level they knew they were capable of.

Researchers are now exploring the long-term benefits of meditation on the brain and body among regulator meditators.

It is clear that meditation has a huge impact on our daily life, so how do we go about starting the practice?

Meditation for Beginners: Requirements

Before getting started, we will discuss some essential requirements every beginner should know to meditate effectively,

Meditation is simple to learn and involves some pretty straightforward techniques. 

1.  Be clear on your Purpose

One thing you can’t expect on your first meditation experience is to have the full benefits of your first sitting itself.

When you first close your eyes and try to meditate you should expect your mind to start wandering, get easily distracted, and produce a series of unnecessary thoughts.

You can’t master a skill overnight and the art of meditation is no exception from this rule.

Get clear on your motivation to meditate, ask yourself “Why am I trying to meditate”, maybe you want to take control of your emotions, maybe you want to become less reactive and more responsive to life. 

Maybe you want to improve your current relationship with the people you care about, or maybe you are someone looking to become more focused and productive in your professional life.

If you are solely relying on the willpower to meditate just for the sake of meditation, you will eventually wear your willpower out and you will experience several blocks along your meditation journey. 

Get clear on what your motivation is, nobody cares if you are good at meditation or not, It is not a competitive skill, what matters is the outcome you produce through your daily ritual. 

2. Embrace delayed gratification

Enjoy the process, your first meditation sessions will be a crossover from awareness to wandering. 

When you sit with your eyes closed, your mind will start wandering, creating funny thoughts and ideas, the moment you realize that you are having wandering thoughts, you come back to awareness. 

You will experience these two processes in a loop when you are beginning your meditation journey. 

Just because you’ve decided to sit and meditate, doesn’t mean you will suddenly experience the joy and fulfillment from meditation.

Your mind has been used to being busy

Wandering thoughts, self-talk, emotions, and the list goes on, you will require time to tame your mind, you can’t expect to tame a wild animal overnight, the same goes here.

Approach your first sessions of “meditation for beginners” with an open mind. 

Similar to what Japanese refers to as, “emptying your cup”, before you learn anything, create a beginner’s mind, empty every preconception you had about meditation, and just surrender to the awareness and wander loop. 

3.  There is no end goal or destination

When you are listening to music, you enjoy the journey of that music, you are not looking forward to reaching the end of music, 

Similarly, when you are dancing, you enjoy the process of dancing not the end or destination of that dance.

Meditation is somewhat similar to this analogy.

There is no destination when you meditate. You don’t arrive at a place, all the results you are craving or expecting through meditation are already present within you, you are only using meditation as a way to access this inner power.

4. Commitment and Consistency

Meditation is a journey of a lifetime, it is not a race. Start with the Commitment for a lifetime and continue with consistency. 

Honor the process, take it session by session, day by day, believe that you will improve, gradually. 

Appreciate that this is a skill that requires commitment, consistency, and practice. Your commitment will get rewarded as you move through the process. 

After all, there is no goal or destination to reach, it’s just you experiencing your own life in the present moment.

Meditation for Beginners: Step by Step Guide

Before we begin,  it’s good to familiarize yourself with how the mind works and what to expect of it when you sit down to meditate, here is a free guided meditation for you to practice.

" To play the free guided meditation navigate to the original article and jump to the section ' Meditation for Beginners: Step by Step Guide' since blogger doesn't support audio players directly on the article." 

• Step- 1: Proper  Place, Proper Time 

Your first and foremost step will be to commit to constant practice, choose a proper place and a proper time to meditate every day, 

Ideally, it is recommended to meditate just after you wake up and just before you go to sleep. Since your brain waves at this particular time of the day are ideal to meditate.

According to Entrepreneur.com, scientists have found a correlation between the frequency of brain waves and the body’s state.

When you are first awake, your brain operates at around 10.5 cycles per second. The range from 8 to 13 Hz, or cycles per second, is the alpha stage.

It’s been called the gateway to the subconscious mind.

But choose flexibly, don’t let the strict timing become an excuse for you to not meditate, It’s okay to change your timing once a bit.

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Remember we are not doing this to prove anything to anyone, we are doing this for our own sake, After all the whole purpose of meditation is to do it for sheer pleasure, not for the routine itself.

• Step 2: Choose a position

There are no rules here to follow blindly, you can meditate sitting, laying, indoor, outdoor, on a cushion, or a chair, or anything you may find comfortable.

Experiment with different positions and try to find which one works best for you,

The position should be comfortable for you to sit for at least 10 minutes, and also the position should not be too comfortable for you to fall asleep easily.

For beginners, sitting upright in a chair is recommended as it is easier for them while they familiarize themselves with the practice. 

Sit on a chair with back straight, neck relaxed, chin slightly tucked in. Rest your hands loosely on your lap or knees.

We have seen monks or master meditators sitting in a particular position to meditate

This particular position is called padmasana. Padmasana keeps your spine erect and lets your root chakra touch the ground. 

It is a proven ancient yoga pose to increase concentration and to ease menstrual discomfort and sciatica.

While the concept of Padmasana may seem simple, it is considered an intermediate to advanced pose and may not be comfortable for beginners,

But if you can, at least try to learn the pose and experiment whether it is working for you. 

Padmasana can work wonders for your meditation practice, it can improve your overall body posture, improve blood circulation, and will give a nice stretch for your ankles and knees.

Padmasana is derived from the Sanskrit words padma (meaning Lotus) and asana (meaning seat or throne), this position is one of Buddhism’s most recognized motifs.

You might have noticed that every sculpture of Buddha may be depicted either sitting on a lotus pose or holding a lotus in hand.

You are free to choose whatever position you find comfortable to meditate as a beginner, but anyone who is looking to incorporate meditation as a long term habit must know about the importance and significance of padmasana.

• Step 3: Initiate using body scan

The body scan is a meditative practice that employs mindful scanning of your bodily sensations to feel the tension, pain, or just any ordinary sensations throughout the body. 

We use body scanning as a method to access mindfulness to initiate our meditation.

After selecting your favorite position, whatever it may be, get comfortable and relaxed as much as you can in that position. 

If you are sitting, sit straight up, reduce the slouching and keep your spine straight but not stiff.

Try and surround yourself with silence or less distracting noises ( noises from beach waves, birds chirping, waterfall, a clock ticking are said to be less distracting noises ).

Since this is a meditation for beginners, also set a timer for 10 minutes or less. When you are meditating as a beginner 10 minutes can feel like an eternity,

Being in the position you are, gently close your eyes and observe the vivid blackness that surrounds your eyes, appreciate the black color and observe it. 

Breathe slowly but deep, Inhale the breath into the stomach (belly breathing) and out through your nose,  Notice the sensation of your breath filling and leaving your lungs as you inhale and exhale.

Now, start bringing awareness from the breath to any part of the body you like to begin scanning – toe, hands, top of the head, or any part you like. Focus on that spot as you breathe slowly.

Slowly scan for any tension or discomfort on that particular spot you chose. From there progress to other spots in your body one by one. 

Every time you scan a spot, release all the tension you accumulated over that spot and relax a little bit more.

Acknowledge the sensations and emotions you are experiencing while doing this. You may feel frustrated or angry, acknowledge those emotions, and don’t judge yourself for coming up with these emotions. 

You are trying to tame your mind, these emotions are part of the process, acknowledge and just let them go.

• Step 4: Accessing Mindfulness

Mindfulness is the process of being in the eternal now. When we focus our awareness on the present moment, we are said to be in a mindfulness state.

We initiated our meditation using body scanning since it is one of the easy methods to access mindfulness as a beginner.

Now we go into a little bit of advanced mindfulness accessing technique that you can practice as a beginner, you will get a better grip on this technique with time. Don’t rush to see instant results.

Here, we will use our 5 senses to access the energy within the present moment. We will start with Pranayama.

Place your right hand on your nose, where your ring finger and thumb can cover your nose.

Open your ring finger and inhale slowly through the nostril covering the other one with the thumb. Feel the sensation of cool air entering into your nostrils and filling up your lungs.

Now exhale through the other nostril by opening your thumb and keeping the other one closed with your ring finger. This is one mindful breath.

Alternate between these fingers as you inhale and exhale. While doing this focus your attention on the center of your forehead between your eyebrows, just simply focus as your mind will present you with a train of thoughts.

Acknowledge them and continue to focus on the center of the forehead( Hindu god Shiva carried his 3rd eye in this space, said to have significance because of the position of the pineal gland).

Repeat this process until you believe you are relaxed( or do it for at least 3 minutes)

Relax your body as you are doing this breathing exercise. Imagine your shoulders going down, your hands feeling light, and your weight increasing. 

• Step 5: Experiencing mindfulness through 5 senses

Now that you have created a headspace by concentrating on the body and your breath, pause and observe the mind. Observe the mind without judging yourself, without talking to yourself. How does it feel?.

Now for the next step, we focus on the very things that create our present reality, Our 5 senses. We focus on these senses as a gateway to the meditative state.

• Hearing 
• Sight
• Smell
• Taste
• Touch

After you have relaxed with step 4, focus on the sounds around you. Hear what you are hearing without judging or naming any of the sounds, allow the sounds to play with your eardrums.

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You don’t have to worry about the meaning of the sounds your brain will automatically take care of that. 

Just simply hear the very buzz of life ringing in your ears, again thoughts will come, please don’t resist them, allow the thoughts to flow freely.

Then with an effortless transition, direct your focus towards the mind’s eye, see whatever you are seeing with your eyes closed. Even if it is pitch black, focus on observing that blackness.

Again with an effortless transition, direct your focus onto your smell, pickup whatever scent you are experiencing at that moment. 

There is no need to label a scent good or bad, but if you want you can use an incense stick just before the practice.

From experiencing the bliss through your olfactory senses, turn your attention to your tongue, observe the taste that you currently hold in your mouth. 

Maybe you can feel the after taste of dinner in your mouth, maybe it is the taste of that mint-flavored chewing gum that you ate earlier. Whatever is the taste you are now holding in your mouth, just observe it and your brain will take care of the naming.

Now bring your awareness towards your skin, if you are sitting under the fan feel the air swirling around your skin, if you are sitting outdoors, feel the wind touching your skin. 

Observe the feeling of your body exerting weight on the ground while sitting, see how your buttocks, legs, and hands feel.

After traversing through your 5 senses individually, focus on them altogether. 

Let your attention flow effortlessly through these 5 senses, you are not judging, you are not expecting anything, just being in the eternal now and enjoying the present moment.

• Step 6: Accessing Meditative State

Meditation is essentially accessing the 4th state of consciousness, and the gateway to access that consciousness is through your 5 senses. In this state, you will be one with the ever-present universe.

While you are focusing on your 5 senses combined, you will start to feel as if you are rotating, your whole headspace combined with that blackness starts to slowly swirl around you.

You were already relaxed and now your whole body starts to feel light, this is where you induce that deep relaxation for your nervous system. 

Now, being in that state, imagine anyone you truly love, it can be anyone you may feel intense gratitude and love towards, it can be your father, mother, boyfriend, best friend, or anyone you truly connect with.

“Love” is not just a word.  When we normally use the word love we often only chase the word “love” and the meaning that word implies. 

But if you think about it, Love is a feeling, it has nothing to do with a word in any language, and that feeling cannot be explained in words.

So choose someone you truly love, someone you have that feeling with. One way to filter this person out is to take a piece of paper and brainstorm. 

Imagine that you are hosting a party in heaven, the heaven’s party gate is highly secured by a bouncer angel that the entry is only allowed for the people that you truly love and loves you back. 

Now draw a line to divide the paper and write the names of the people you want to invite to the party on one side and the people you don’t want to invite on the other side. Now you have the names of the people that you truly love.

But remember, when doing this exercise please write the names honestly, you don’t have to dwell on the relationship with that person.

For example, some people may think, “ oh, he is my father,  so I should love him and invite him to the party”. No, please write the name honestly. Relationships don’t always equal love.

This is your meditation practice, your mind, your space. Please feel free to choose as honest as possible.

Imagine that person is sitting in front of you, smiling at you. You are now going to give as much love as you can to that person.

Feel the love for that person flowing from you. While he is smiling at you, visualize the love being a white light flowing from your source to that person,  creating a sense of gratitude and love for them for being in your life. 

As you are visualizing the love flowing from you, let the whole room get filled with your white light. Visualize the room you are sitting in getting saturated with your love.

The room gets so saturated, that your love begins to penetrate the walls of the room and starts to flow outside to other people that you know.

Now, forgive and love any faces that come to your mind at that time. Don’t judge anyone, don’t stop the flow of faces, try not to deliberately remember faces, just let the mind provide you with faces that it wishes and Love them unconditionally.

If there was an old beef between you and the face that came up while visualizing, forgive them, give your love and move on.

Enjoy this headspace of gratitude and love for the people you love, until your timer goes out. Then we will move onto the next step.

• Step 7: Coming back to the mindfulness

After you have experienced the intense gratitude and love, for life and for the people around you, It is now time to come back to the present moment.

Here also we will use our 5 senses for accessing the present moment. 

After the alarm, Gently guide your attention to the smell you are now experiencing. 

According to LiveScience, humans have up to 400 smell receptors and can smell over 1 trillion scents. The smell is the least used but powerful sense of all. 

Concentrating your attention on smell just after the meditative state lets you focus on your breath and olfactory senses simultaneously, from there you can repeat the process explained in step 5: Experiencing mindfulness to come in touch with the five senses.

After you have experienced the present moment through your 5 senses, gently open your eyes to see the beautiful world around you. 

Post- Meditation

Congratulations you have done your first meditation session, the first step into a lifelong habit that will definitely deliver to you. 

This article is for long-term meditators and for people who wish to learn the art of meditation.  

Please keep in mind,  It won’t be a 100% success every time you do this meditation, you will find your ups and downs throughout this journey. You will find what works for you and what doesn’t.

This meditation technique has been sculpted using years of experience.

You won’t find any fancy name for this technique in any books or internet. 

Staying mindful and connected to the universe within you after the meditation is also as important as accessing the meditative state.

You are not trying to achieve something through meditation, this is one skill where you don’t have to strive to accomplish a goal.

At the end of the meditation, it is important to assess the quality of your mind and try to carry it forward for the rest of the day. 

It is so easy to get distracted from the calm space you have created with meditation, so be aware and be conscious about the state of mind you are in, and always remember, within, you are always connected to nature.

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This Article First Appeared on the OneLIFE blog at https://hasonelife.com/how-to-do-meditation-for-beginners/