Let’s just focus on that statement for a moment. Let’s not sidetrack into a discussion of whether dolphins and chimps and butterflies and pebbles have awareness. I’m fine either way. That’s not the thing we’re looking at here. 

Just this: awareness is the only expression of Totality that reflects its own existence. 

And that can be simplified to this: awareness is Totality reflecting its own existence. 

That’s no headlong leap of logic. Awareness, by the definition I’m using here, is that which reflects its own existence. We could also use the word “consciousness”, but I prefer to save that word for the entire processes of the bodymind as it encounters itself and the world. Awareness, then, is that subsystem of consciousness which allows for the bodymind to experience its own existence. 

It does so by what can metaphorically be called an act of self-reflection. That’s just a description of the result. I won’t attempt, nor do I have either the knowledge or desire, to get into the neurophysiology of how that self-reflection occurs. We can leave that to the white coats. We here who play in the pastures of realization need only to understand what the black box does, not how it does it. 

So awareness is that which self-reflects; it reflects its own existence. 

Now try, just try, to remove awareness from Totality. You can’t even imagine Totality without awareness, since your act of imagining is an act of, at the heart of it, awareness. 

Awareness is an expression of Totality. It’s just as much a part of Totality as anything, everything and nothing else. As much as the pimple on your nose and the stars in the sky. After all, there’s nothing that exists (or non-exists) outside (or, for that matter, inside – since in the “big picture” there is no inside or outside) Totality. 

Totality is all there is. (And just to keep all you Zen-ists and Zeno-ists happy, isn’t.) 

And awareness is part of Totality. And awareness is also that which self-reflects. Put it together and you have: awareness is that part of Totality which self-reflects. 

Which, simply put, becomes: awareness is Totality self-reflecting. 

Put that in your noggin, and steep your heart in it too. 

Because if you do the following, you will eventually attain Clarity, which is the direct experience of Totality experiencing itself. 

Oh, I know (nodding to the advaitists), we can’t NOT be experiencing Totality experiencing itself. But you know, that experiencing gets clouded over in a tricky way. We can intellectually accept it and even spout it out a hundredfold to all our friends. But there’s something I’m calling Clarity here, the “direct experience” of it, that’s way more than the intellectual experience of it. 

If you’ve ever had that experience, you know it – and you also know it’s available to you again at any time. If you haven’t had it, then you may be telling yourself you have or you may be wondering if you have or you may be resenting all this talk about something which you doubt even exists. 

Trust me: it does exist and you’ll know it when you have it. Which is what we’re going to set out to do now. 

Woah-hoh! There we go: the advaitists are tying their underwear in knots muttering to themselves, “What’s this talk about doing? There’s nothing you can do! There are no practices that lead to Clarity! Blah blah blah blah blah.” 

Sorry folks, us yogis and practical realizationists will disagree. Look, it’s just a matter of “your mileage may vary”. That’s all it is. If no practice works for you, great! If practice works for you, great! 

Let’s just do or be whatever we feel we need to do or be to ripen into Clarity. Or don’t do anything and tell everyone else not to do anything, if that keeps your underwear knot-free. Whatever. It doesn’t matter. Let it be. 

Just let it be. And let everyone else be too. 

So, getting back to what us practical realizationists are going to attempt to do (while letting the advaitists wander off muttering to themselves and each other): 

1) Hold the notion in your mind as often as possible during the day of the fact that your awareness is Totality reflecting its own existence. Obviously this is just an intellectual understanding at this point. But with time and under the right conditions (which the other two practices should help to foster) that intellectual understanding can ripen into direct experience, into Clarity. 

2) Try to imagine as often as possible during the day what Totality really is (and isn’t). Start with the universe. Try to imagine the whole shebang of the universe, all those galaxies and collections of galaxies, out to the very boundary of it and then beyond. Then go small: divide in your mind the smallest thing you can imagine into something even smaller and down to the infinitesimal and all the way to zero and beyond. Place the largest beyond which you cannot think next to the smallest beyond which you cannot go. Hold it all together as one and then know that Totality is all of that and more. Know it’s the fount from which all that comes and the hole into which it all returns. Go infinite with your mind: absolute infinite and don’t stop there, just go, run, fly to it. Surrender to it. Totality is the supreme object of ideation, the one object holding within itself all others. It is the absolute fact of that without an other. Second to none. Know it, experience it, live it. 

3) Each time you sit in meditation, spend some time resting in pure awareness. Let yourself be aware of your own awareness. Be awareness and as little else as possible, experiencing it and it alone. Of course, other sensations will arise. No problem. As long as you return to being aware of awareness – allow awareness to directly self-reflect itself – you’re doing the practice. This will increase that muscle of awareness and its self-reflective capacity. 

If you do these three simple things, you will cultivate a mind ready for Clarity. Now, when Clarity will arrive is impossible to say. You may be standing in line at the Post Office when all of a sudden, whoops! there it is! Or you may be looking at some odd object – I don’t know, like a scrap of yellow cloth… whatever – and all of a sudden, whoops! whad’ya know! 

Give it time. Be patient. It won’t happen tomorrow or the next day. It may be next month. Next year. In five years (but I’ll bet sooner than that if you sincerely and earnestly do the three practices above). Just give it time. Don’t sweat it. Don’t wonder if Clarity happened or not (it didn’t – not if you’re wondering if it did). 

Everything’s cool. This is the way it’s supposed to be. Totality is ready. Ready when you are. And you will be.

This metaphor points to an important fact about relaxation versus concentration, namely that they are not one and the same thing. That may seem obvious, but some teachers make it seem as if meditation, relaxation and concentration are interchangeable. What’s important to remember is that meditation is at root a relaxation practice which can, if the practitioner so wishes it, set the stage for varying levels of deep concentration as well as other practices.

The degree of effort involved provides one way to distinguish between the different levels of concentration. We all concentrate throughout much of the day – reading email, having a discussion at work, listening to our partner tell a story, driving in traffic, even acts as simple as getting on and off a train require us to concentrate, even if only momentarily. 

However, there are times when we sense we must make a much greater effort to maintain our concentration. We find ourselves “fighting off” distractions in order to keep our attention focused and on topic. The distractions can come from outside – noises in the street, the flickering of a lightbulb – or from inside – memories, worries, and so forth. Ironically, the more we “fight” against distractions, the more they seem to pile up, with the very tension it requires to do the fighting becoming itself one more distraction.

It is true that sometimes the tension of a deadline or other necessity can help us to better concentrate. But this is a different kind of tension than that through which we try to force ourselves to concentrate. Rather, it constitutes a kind of external framework to which we, in effect, surrender – and the essence of surrender is relaxation.

It seems reasonable to suggest that what most helps concentration become effortless is interest in a topic. No doubt this is so. Unfortunately, much of the material we need to concentrate on can be uninteresting, even deadeningly so. Nevertheless, we’ve all had the experience of effortlessly concentrating on something we previously had thought so boring we’d collapse from the tedium of even considering doing it. Updating a database comes to mind. On Monday, each new page feels like a lead weight dragging us into a black pit of dreariness. But suddenly on Tuesday, one hundred screens of data entry later, we’re feeling refreshed. No doubt we’re glad to have the task over and done with, but still, during the hours while we were working, we felt a kind of interest, perhaps even joy, in the simple acts of doing the work. 

On one day, tedium, disinterest and lack of concentration. On the next day, interest and effortless concentration. 

So what made the difference?

The answer, once again, is relaxation. Quite simply, on the first day we were filled with tension while on the second day we were feeling relaxed. Approach any task, interesting or not, in a relaxed state of mind, and concentration more easily follows.

Which brings us to our next point: that the depth of the relaxation directly influences the effortlessness of the concentration. 

We might wish to neatly sum this up as a kind of Law of Concentration. like so:

The more relaxed you are, the more easily you can concentrate.

Unfortunately, things aren’t quite so simple, simply because relaxation isn’t the only element that’s involved in concentration. If that were the case, then we’d always be super concentrated during deep sleep. But we aren’t even conscious, so there’s no chance of concentrating our attention on anything. So obviously, consciousness and attention are necessary for us to be able to concentrate.

The tendency is that the more deeply we relax, the more likely we are to fall asleep, lose consciousness and, along with it, the ability to concentrate and pay attention. So what we need is to be able to maintain consciousness and our attentional faculties while relaxing as deeply as we can. While being a bit of a juggling act, this is not so difficult to manage.

By practicing these techniques together, you’ll learn how to evoke the super-important Relaxation Response, which scientists have found is so beneficial to our physical, emotional and mental well-being.

Also, this relaxation method provides a solid basis for meditation practice as it prepares your mind to start letting go of your “daily business” and settle into the more relaxed focus of meditation.

So let’s get on with it!

Technique #1: Setting Your Intention

It’s always a good idea whenever starting your relaxation or meditation practice to do what’s called “setting your intention”. This can be as simple as saying “Now I’m going to relax.” Or if you prefer, you can say a prayer, recite a poem, whatever – as long as it helps you set your intention to actually do the thing you are setting out to do.

Setting an intention raises one of your competing desires above all the rest – at least momentarily. It also adds a certain momentum which, if you can keep it going, will help you maintain your intention despite the constant yammering from all the other desires.

Technique #2: Relax the Exhalation

Try this little trick: breathing through the nose, take a normal breath in, just a little on the deep side. As you breath in, really concentrate on noticing the specific muscles you are using to pull the breath in. Focus on the muscles that are creating the space inside you into which the inhalation can flow.

Now, on the exhalation, suddenly relax those very same muscles. Really just let them go. The breath will come out fast and will likely even make a “whooshing” sound as exits out your nose. That’s fine. Don’t worry about that. Do maintain your focus on those muscles which you just relaxed. You’ll likely notice a wonderful sense of relaxation spread throughout your abdomen and chest cavity.

Do this three or four times, each time being sure to concentrate on the sensations of relaxation that come from quickly relaxing the muscles of inhalation.

Technique #3: A Wave of Relaxation

With the third technique, imagine the sensations of a warm wave of relaxation gathering at the top of your head with the inhalation. Then, with the exhalation it moves down over your head and neck to your chest, relaxing all the muscles along the way. Then, with your next inhalation, it stops and gathers itself again. And again, with the exhalation, it moves down your torso until you begin your next inhalation, at which point it gathers again. 

And so it continues, gathering with the inhalation, moving and relaxing with the exhalation, until it reaches your feet, having relaxed everything along the way.

Technique #4: Peaceful Relaxing Piece by Piece

After setting your intention, doing the relaxed deep breathing and enjoying a nice wave of relaxation, go through each part of your body and relax each one in turn. The places to touch upon are:

Put It All Together

And that’s the practice. Enough explanation for now. Give it a try and enjoy the deep relaxation you’ll experience!

You can do this practice sitting up or lying down. If you are able to do it lying down without falling asleep, it will serve very well as a deep relaxation exercise. Done sitting up it serves more as a kind of calming concentration exercise.

There are a number of options in regards to what you do at each point and how much time you spend there. In regards to what you do at each point, you have the choice of either

– silently counting the point
– imagining a small blue star (blue because it is the most calming color)
– noting the sensation at each point
– doing all of the above – or any combination thereof

So, if you choose to count the points, you start at the first point which is at the center of the forehead and you say silently to yourself, “One.” You then move to the next point at the center of the neck and count, “Two,” and so forth until you reach the 61st point. On the other hand, if you choose to imagine a blue star, you simply focus your attention on the point and imagine a blue star occupying that point and so on with each point, without counting or doing anything else.

In regards to how much time to spend, you can either time the movement of your attention with your breath, so that with each inhalation you move to the next point and with each exhalation you focus your attention there. (Exhalation is inherently more relaxing than inhalation, so it’s best to use the exhalation for the time spent at the point which you are relaxing.) Alternatively, you can completely ignore the breath and just move according to a set amount of time at a pace which you find relaxing, usually with between 2 to 5 seconds spent at each point.

Each time you focus your attention on a point, whether you are counting it, imaging the star or feeling the sensation at that point, try to feel the point and the area that surrounds it melting into a deep relaxation. If it already feels relaxed, just imagine it relaxing even more.

Expect to spend a number of sessions at the beginning just learning the proper progression of the points. Once you have them memorized and they follow effortlessly one after the other, you will begin to be able to experience the deep relaxation possible with this exercise. Alternatively, you can have someone read to you the points out loud.

The points to focus on are as follows (download the chart):

The distinguishing difference is the degree to which you remain cognizant of your actual physical environment as opposed to a dream environment. In lucid dreaming, we are only (or mainly) cognizant of the dream environment, and have little or no cognizance of our actual environment. Sounds or events in our actual environment may become translated into very different dream material and we will feel our bodies “moving” just as in normal dreaming. During lucid sleeping, on the other hand, we remain fully cognizant of our physical environment and of the actual content of sounds and other events, and likewise maintain a correct sense of the position of our bodies.

Hence, so-called “out of body” experiences are instances of lucid dreaming, even though we may have a sense of the room in which we are sleeping. Nevertheless, the sense of our body as moving in space is dream material, likely initiated by the activity of the proprioceptive sensory organs influencing the subconscious mind. What “out of body” experiences nicely demonstrate is the fluid nature of the boundary between lucid sleeping and lucid dreaming, existing as they do at a point somewhere midway between the two.

On a final note, neither state is necessarily “deeper” than the other. That said, lucid sleeping can potentially be far deeper, given the kind of brain waves predominantly generated, than lucid dreaming. During any kind of dreaming, we are effectively blocked from the deepest states of relaxation by the generation of dream material, which occurs within a specific range of brain wave frequencies which are relatively high in comparison to those of deep sleep. While engaging in lucid sleep, on the other hand, we can consciously relax ourselves beyond that dreaming range of frequencies into the slowest range of deep sleep frequencies.

It is best to attempt this practice only after you have mastered 61 Points insofar as 61 Points is the easier of the two. It serves as a good way to learn how to navigate progressions of points through the body (there are nearly 150 points used in the following Lucid Sleeping exercise), and it also offers a stepping stone to the deeper relaxation you’ll experience with Lucid Sleeping. 

It will also likely be necessary to stop practicing 61 Points altogether once you begin with Lucid Sleeping. The format of the concentration points is quite different. If you try to alternate the practices, you can become confused as to the correct progression of the points, which in turn can make you tense and unable to relax. Nor do you want to have to concentrate on remembering which point follows which, as this too will affect your ability to relax. Each point should follow effortlessly and automatically one after the other, with no need to try to remember which one comes next.

Of course, the first few times you do the exercise, you will need to make an effort to remember the format, so don’t expect to have a deeply relaxing experience right away. Once you know the format by memory, the deep relaxation will follow.

The practice is best done lying down on your back. You can place your hands by your sides palms up or else palms down upon your hips/lower belly. It’s best to use either no pillow or at most one low pillow beneath your head as your neck should remain fairly flat. Basically, try to be as comfortable as possible so you won’t have to move for the duration of the practice.

The progression through the points is quite different from 61 Points, both in the specific points used as well as what you do with each point. First off, you don’t count or imagine anything at each point. You simply come briefly to rest and then move on to the next point. Secondly, the pace is considerably faster with roughly one second spent at each point. Don’t time the movement with the breath. If you like, you can “hear” a silent, slow mantra such as “om”, with each repetition lasting roughly 8 seconds, which is to say 8 points.

It seems odd that a faster pace can lead to deeper relaxation. The reason is because a steady, slow rhythm is set up which can be very relaxing indeed. But this can only happen once the progression of the points is well memorized and comes automatically. So again, expect to spend some time just learning the progression before you can experience the deeper levels of relaxation.

Here is the progression of the points:

Right thumb
Right index finger
Right middle finger
Right ring finger
Right little finger
Right palm
Back of right hand
Outside right wrist
Inside right wrist
Inside right lower arm
Outside right lower arm
Outside right elbow
Inside right elbow
Inside right upper arm
Outside right upper arm
Outside right shoulder
Right armpit
Right side mid chest
Right side abdomen
Right side iliac crest
Right side between iliac crest and hipbone
Right hipbone
Crease at right side of groin
Front of right thigh
Back of right thigh
Back of right knee
Front of right knee
Front of right lower leg (shin)
Back of right lower leg (calf)
Outside right ankle
Inside right ankle
Top of right ankle
Right heel
Bottom center of right foot
Top center of right foot
Right large toe
Right second toe
Right third toe
Right fourth toe
Right little toe
[Repeat same progression for left side]
[Now you proceed down the front of the body]
Base of the front of the neck
Simultaneously two points to each side
Center of upper chest
Simultaneously two points to each side
Center of mid chest
Simultaneously two points to each side
Center of lower chest
Simultaneously two points to each side
Center of upper abdomen
Simultaneously two points to each side
Center of mid abdomen
Simultaneously two points to each side
Navel
Simultaneously two points to each side
Center of lower abdomen
Simultaneously two points to each side
Upper pubis
Simultaneously two points to each side
Lower pubis
Simultaneously two points to each side
Perineum
Simultaneously two points to each side
Anus
Simultaneously two points to each side
Tailbone
Simultaneously two points to each side
Mid sacrum
Simultaneously two points to each side
Top sacrum
Simultaneously two points to each side
Lower back
Simultaneously two points to each side
Lower mid back
Simultaneously two points to each side
Upper mid back
Simultaneously two points to each side
Lower upper back
Simultaneously two points to each side
Mid upper back
Simultaneously two points to each side
Upper upper back
Simultaneously two points to each side
Lower back of neck
Simultaneously two points to each side
Middle back of neck
Simultaneously two points to each side
Upper back of neck
Simultaneously two points to each side
Lower back of head
Simultaneously two points to each side
Middle back of head
Simultaneously two points to each side
Upper back of head
Simultaneously two points to each side
Top of head
Down to center of head
Down to center of neck
Down to center of lower neck
Down to center of mid chest
Down to center of upper abdomen
Down to center of belly
Down to center of lower belly
Back to center of belly

At this point, rest your attention for a few moments at the center of your belly. Then imagine a plane that passes through the center of your belly dividing your upper body from your lower body. On the next exhalation, feel the plane pass down through your lower body to the soles of your feet, completely relaxing everything on the way through. On the inhalation, the plane returns to your belly and then, on the exhalation, passes up through your upper body to the top of your head, relaxing everything on the way through. 

Now the plane turns on its side so that, still passing through your belly, it divides the right side of your body from the left side. On the next exhalation, feel the plane pass through the left side of your body, completely relaxing everything on the way through. On the inhalation, the plane returns to your belly and then, on the exhalation, passes through the right side of your body, relaxing everything on the way through. 

Now the plane turns flat so that, still passing through your belly, it divides the top half of your body from the bottom half. On the next exhalation, feel the plane pass through the back half of your body, completely relaxing everything on the way through. On the inhalation, the plane returns to your belly and then, on the exhalation, passes through the front half of your body, relaxing everything on the way through.

At this point, you should be either fast asleep or else deeply relaxed. If you are still awake, just enjoy the sensations of deep relaxation, allowing yourself to go deeper and deeper, as deeply as you can.

As such, in its most basic form, it constitutes one of the four natural states of the mind, the other three of which are waking, dreaming and deep sleeping.

Briefly explained, waking is our “everyday” awake state of mind, what you are in right now. Dreaming occurs during a light stage of sleep, which is different from the dreamless state of deep sleeping. And meditating begins in the relaxed state of mind we experience between full waking and dreaming.

First though, note the word “natural” in the sentence, “Meditation constitutes one of the four natural states of mind.” This word suggests a couple of things, like the possibility that there are other states that could be considered unnatural – such as hallucinating or lucid dreaming, for example. But more importantly it suggests that along with waking, dreaming and deep sleeping, meditating is an activity so natural to us we don’t really need to be taught how to do it.

It suggests the possibility that we all already know how to meditate, or at least that we don’t need to be taught how to begin meditating.

Of course, that’s absurd! Don’t we pay good money, sometimes even thousands of dollars, in order to learn from expert teachers how to meditate? Isn’t it common knowledge that mastering even the basics of meditation requires many hours of dedicated practice? And how about people who say they’ve tried to learn meditation only to find they just couldn’t do it, it wasn’t for them and, after all, they really don’t like to meditate?

Well, just because it’s natural and we already basically know how to do it doesn’t necessarily mean we know how to do it well, in the same way that many of us are unable to sleep well. Nevertheless, the truth is, we all already do meditate, and likely every day, just like we sleep, dream and are awake every day.

The following suggestions will raise the hackles of meditation teachers and practitioners everywhere but activities like listening to music and (horrors!) watching TV constitute the state of awake non-striving that is characteristic of the meditative state of mind. That’s not to say that the teenager plugged into her airPods or the house-husband glued to the tube for hours on end are experiencing anything at all close to what could be called a “high-quality” or deeply meditative state.

In the same way that it’s possible to eat low quality food with little or no nutritional value, it’s similarly possible to practice a very low quality form of meditation that provides little or none of the benefits of high quality meditation and that could in fact be deleterious in the long run to your mental well-being.

Most TV and many kinds of music are, to put it bluntly, like the McDonalds of meditation…. 

How about watching a sunset? Or sitting by a pool enjoying a glass of wine? Or taking a walk in a quiet forest? Or sitting in a cave chanting ommmmm? Yes, all of these could provide contexts within which a meditative state of mind can arise (well, maybe it’s better to save the wine for afterwards). It largely depends on what’s happening in your mind while you’re there.

Let’s return to our definition of meditation for a moment, that the essence of this state of mind is awake non-striving. This can be opposed to the state of mind called waking, which we’ll sum up as awake striving. When we are in the state of waking, we are always striving to do something, no matter how insignificant it may seem. There is something we want to do, and we are trying to do it. Typically it’s something like earning a living, getting somewhere, learning something, acquiring something, or even something simple like washing the dishes. We are striving, which basically means we’re trying to do something according to a belief or set of beliefs about how we think things are and how we think they should be. And also about the way we think we should accomplish what we want. This is crucial for the understanding not only of the waking state but also of the meditative state. Because at the heart of every true meditative state exists a relative absence of beliefs. This is crucial to understand for a couple of reasons: one having to do with how we meditate and the other with why we meditate.

Let’s deal with this question of how first, taking the example of watching a sunset. We don’t have a lot of beliefs about how to watch a sunset. It sounds absurd, in fact. In order to watch a sunset, you don’t have to sit in a certain way, feel a certain way, act a certain way. It’s not like washing dishes, for example, where we each have our own particular set of beliefs about the best way to do it, even if we hardly take any notice of those beliefs. The sink full of water? A pot full of water? Rinse first, then wash, then rinse? Just wash without rinsing first? Scalding hot water? Luke warm water? Got to use gloves? Gloves not important? And so on and so forth.

Marital dramas are built out of this kind of stuff!

But no-one can say you’re watching that sunset in the wrong way, simply because, if you’re doing it in a fairly meditative, non-striving state of mind, there is no right or wrong way to do it.

You are simply there. The sun is setting and you are watching it do its thing. You might have some thoughts float through your mind – about the office or your spouse or that jerk who did whatever he did to you the other day – but those thoughts don’t really take hold. Each one just sort of comes along and then passes by and you return to watching the sunset. Perhaps a particular thought comes along and you follow that one for a while. But eventually, after awhile, you return to watching the sunset, and you’re simply there, and the sun is setting, and all you’re doing is watching it.

And that is all there is to it.

Because the fact is, you are not really doing anything. No one can write a How To book on doing nothing because there’s no way to say how to do nothing. About the best one can do is give some suggestions about ways to set yourself up that are conducive to doing nothing and maybe a few more words about what it means to do nothing and how when you think you’re doing nothing, you may actually be doing quite a bit still. In the end, all one can do is point to instances of doing and say, “That’s not doing nothing!”

Okay, now the question is likely coming up: “But why ever would I want to sit around while I’m wide awake and just do nothing? I can understand deep sleep – that’s doing nothing, but at least I’m asleep and my body is getting its needed rest. And I can also understand dreaming – that’s a kind of doing something while I’m asleep and it usually feels right to do it. And of course I can understand doing things while I’m awake, because it’s the only way I’ll get food on the table and have fun with the family. But doing nothing? While I’m awake? What’s the use? What’s the sense?”

All of which, of course, is to ask why we meditate, which was the second question raised above.

There are two ways to answer this question, the simple way and the complex way. The simple way is to point to all the obvious benefits one gets from deep relaxation as in the article on this website, What are the Benefits of Meditation?”

The complex answer (which we’ll just outline here) begins with the admission that much mystery surrounds the mind and its various states. For example, we don’t yet really know why we dream. Many suggestions center upon the notion of the subconscious mind in some way reorganizing itself. This notion of reorganization can be usefully applied to all the mind’s states. When we sleep deeply, for instance, the body and its unconscious processes can be said to be reorganizing their energies so that we wake up feeling healed and refreshed. Similarly, while we are in the waking state of mind, we are actively reorganizing our environment in various ways, shaping it into forms that we hope will fulfill our needs and desires. So we see a clear progression from deep sleep, to dream, to waking:

• Deep sleep => reorganization of the body/unconscious mind 
• Dreaming => reorganization of the subconscious mind 
• Waking => reorganization of the environment 

What, then, is left out of the above schematic? Consciousness, of course. And that’s precisely where meditation comes in. Through the practice of meditation, consciousness is reorganized in such a way that it can more adequately reflect reality, which effectively comprises all the material of consciousness (if that seems like a circular argument, it is). What this largely boils down to is the reorganization of our belief structures so they not only more adequately reflect reality but also eventually interfere less and less with our mind’s ability to directly reflect reality.

In any case, for most of us a large portion of the time during which we are awake is spent in this state of awake striving we are here calling “waking”. And a far less portion of that time is spent on this thing we’re calling meditating, a state of mind characterized by awake non-striving. And that, of course, is how it should be. You’d eventually starve if you did nothing but watch sunsets all day long – even if you watched them in a profoundly deep state of meditation!

Joking aside, because we spend most of our awake time striving, it’s only natural that when we turn to meditating, we carry with us that element of striving – especially if we’re doing something called “learning how to meditate”. This simple fact explains nearly all the difficulty people report when they try to learn how to meditate. As long as we are striving to learn how to meditate, our minds will be in direct opposition to that which is supposedly being learned: awake non-striving.

Taking it further, any method that places the mind in a striving mode in order to acquire or develop the state of mind called meditation will fail to successfully teach meditation. Many methods do just that:

• “Now concentrate unwaveringly on the space between your eyes.” 
• “Now repeat the mantra 1008 times.” 
• “Now visualize a six-pointed azure star rising out of a lotus flower with one million multi-colored petals.” 
• “Now spend the next hour focusing on your breath. And don’t move a muscle either, no matter how much pain you’re in.” 

The student may discover how to meditate more effectively, but it will be despite methods such as these. It won’t be the method itself that teaches effective meditation.

This notion of effectiveness explains the difference between a so-called “experienced” meditator and a “beginner”, in the same way that a “successful” deep sleeper is able to sleep much more effectively than someone who can’t, and in the same way that some strivers are able to strive for and accomplish what they strive for more effectively than those who can’t.

So what we’re going to do here is learn how to do what we already know how to do but to do it more effectively, more deeply and with a profound increase in its quality. And the crucial two words we’ll be taking with us as we begin that journey of learning are “awake” and “non-striving”.

This acceptance of what was once considered at best a hobby of anti-social eccentrics has become so general that even mainstream institutions like Massachusetts General Hospital has an entire department dedicated to Mind-Body Medicine. Not surprisingly, the cornerstone of their methodology is teaching people how to meditate in order to avoid and assist in the cure of stress-related diseases.

Meditation for Health

The team there is led by Dr. Herbert Benson, a long-time researcher into the connections between mind and body. In 2008, a Harvard Medical School study led by Dr. Benson confirmed that deep relaxation of the kind possible using a suitable meditation method has profound health benefits which could be every bit as powerful as any medical drug – but without the side-effects. Specifically, the study revealed that methods such as visualisation, meditation and deep breathing switch off disease-causing genes at the same time as they switch on genes that actively protect against illness. 

During the study, the genetic makeup of long-term practitioners of meditation and similar relaxation methods was compared to a control group of people who never use these methods. It was found that specific disease-fighting genes were active in the practitioners that were inactive in the control group.

And yet, when the control group began practicing the same methods, the constitution of their genes began to change. After two months of daily practice, specific genes that help fight inflammation, kill diseased cells and protect the body from cancer and other forms of damage began to switch on. 

Not only that, the benefits of what Dr. Benson calls “The Relaxation Response” were found to increase with regular practice, significantly increasing practitioners’ chances of enjoying a whole host of benefits, including strong immunity, low blood pressure, healthy arteries and increased fertility. 

Other studies have confirmed that the health benefits of relaxation are both profound and measurable. 

One study at Ohio State University found that progressive muscular relaxation, when practiced daily, reduced the risk of breast cancer recurrence. In another research project at the University of Western Australia, women were more likely to conceive when feeling generally relaxed as opposed to stressed. A similar study conducted at Trakya University, Turkey, recorded parallel effects in terms of sperm count in men. In a study at the University of Albany in upstate New York, patients suffering from irritable bowel syndrome who twice daily practiced a relaxation meditation reduced symptoms such as bloating, belching, diarrhea and constipation. The improvements were so significant that researchers recommended the practice as a particularly effective treatment for IBS. 

And that’s just for starters. Here is a quick overview of some of the scientifically established health benefits linked to a meditation practice that induces deep relaxation:

Immunity: When medical students undertook relaxation training during exams, the level of the so-called “helper cells” that defend against infectious disease increased significantly, according to a report in the Journal of Behavioral Medicine – and those who most faithfully did the exercises had the strongest immune effects. In another study at Ohio State University, a month of relaxation exercises boosted immunity in seniors, increasing their resistance to tumours and viruses. 

Blood Pressure: A study at Harvard Medical School found meditation lowered blood pressure by reducing the stress response, with an effectiveness practically equal to that achieved using blood pressure pharmaceuticals. Another report in the British Medical Journal similarly established that patients trained to relax enjoyed significantly lower blood pressure. 

Heart: Meditation can improve blood flow to the heart, lower cholesterol levels and lessen the severity of heart attacks, as demonstrated by research at the Preventive Medicine Research Institute in San Francisco. 

Blood-Sugar Control: Relaxing could help curb appetite by keeping blood sugar stable, thereby helping diabetics control their symptoms. In a series of studies on diabetic patients at Duke University Medical Centre, relaxation was shown to improve the body’s ability to regulate blood sugar. 

Inflammation: Stress leads to inflammation, which in turn is linked to heart disease, arthritis, and various skin conditions such as psoriasis. According to researchers at Emory University in the US, relaxation can play a role in preventing and treating such symptoms by switching off the stress response. Similarly, a study at McGill University in Canada recorded clinical improvements of the symptoms of psoriasis through the practice of meditation. 

Asthma: Relaxation seems to offer relief by reducing the emotional upsets that can trigger attacks at the same time as it frees the air passages from the constrictions that choke breathing, according to a study in the Journal of Psychosomatic Research. 

Pain: Patients reported sharp decreases in painful symptoms following a regular practice of relaxation methods, according to a study in the Journal of Behavioral Medicine. The patients in the study – suffering from backache, chronic migraine, tension headaches and similar conditions – were able to lessen or, in some cases stop altogether, their use of pain drugs. 

Beyond the Body

How about the benefits of meditation on the mind – specifically in terms of emotional well-being and mental performance? Studies have found that deep relaxation through meditation switches off the stress-response, thereby reducing chronic stress and anxiety. In the same way, depression, tension, irritation and anger can also be reduced, giving rise to improved feelings of well-being and satisfaction with life.

Furthermore, the ability to concentrate can be improved and significantly increased by employing a correct meditation method. With deeper levels of relaxation, more profound levels of concentration can be accessed which are not otherwise normally available – or even imaginable to the untrained mind.

And beyond that, meditation has for millennia served as the gateway to deeper self-knowledge and experiences of unity. This is because it is only through deep relaxation that the mind can slow down enough to “catch sight of itself” and of the deeper reality which generates it.

Benefits by Type and Difficulty of Attainment

Below is a relatively complete list of the claims made for meditation. This is not to suggest that you will experience (or should want to experience) all of these benefits. Some have been fairly well established. Others have yet to receive any real scientific scrutiny, and are based largely on anecdotal report.

There are some different ways we can usefully categorize the benefits associated with meditation. We might, for instance, divide between physiological, psychological and spiritual benefits, like so:

Physiological Benefits to Meditation

• Decrease in stress hormones
• Lower blood pressure
• Reduced migraines and headaches
• Increased energy and/or libido
• Better pain management
• Improved breathing
• Improved posture
• Relieved insomnia
• Reduction in cholesterol
• Reversal of aging process
• Decreased cigarette, alcohol, and drug abuse
• Relieved Irritable Bowel Syndrome
• Help with Premenstrual Syndrome
• Increased fertility
• More positive health habits
• Improved general health
• Reduced need for medical care

Psychological/Emotional Benefits to Meditation

• Greater orderliness of brain functioning
• Improved concentration and ability to focus
• Increased creativity
• Deeper level of relaxation
• Improved perception and memory
• Development of intelligence
• Increased strength of self-concept
• Increased self confidence
• Increased understanding and self insight
• Increased productivity
• Better communication with others
• Improved relations at work
• Improved patience
• Emotional stability
• Greater tranquillity, peace and calmness
• Less prone to depression, worry and anxiety
• Support for major life changes such as divorce, menopause, loss of a loved one

Spiritual Benefits to Meditation

• Increased self-actualization
• Union with God or one’s higher power
• Insight into or access to ultimate reality
• Union of the subjective with the objective worlds

Another way to categorize the benefits is by the amount of time a practitioner might expect to spend in order to gain the benefit. Of course, the actual time spent will vary widely between different people, but generally speaking, we can divide between beginning, intermediate and advanced levels. By beginning, we would mean within the first few days and weeks of learning a basic meditation technique. By intermediate, we would mean generally within six months to two years of having started. And by advanced, we would mean generally after two or more years of practice, and probably more like a minimum of five to ten years for the more advanced attainments. So, we could re-arrange our above list like so:

Beginning level

• Decrease in stress hormones
• Improved breathing
• Improved concentration and ability to focus
• Deeper level of relaxation
• Greater tranquillity, peace and calm

Intermediate level

• Improved posture
• Relieved insomnia
• Reduction in cholesterol
• Lower blood pressure
• Reduced migraines and headaches
• Increased energy and/or libido
• Increased fertility
• Better pain management
• Decreased cigarette, alcohol, and drug abuse
• Relieved Irritable Bowel Syndrome
• Help with Premenstrual Syndrome
• More positive health habits
• Greater orderliness of brain functioning
• Increased creativity
• Improved perception and memory
• Improved patience
• Increased strength of self-concept
• Increased self confidence
• Increased understanding and self insight
• Increased productivity
• Better communication with others
• Improved relations at work
• Emotional stability
• Less prone to depression, worry and anxiety
• Support for major life changes such as divorce, menopause, loss of a loved one
• Increased self-actualization

Advanced level

• Improved general health
• Reduced need for medical care
• Reversal of aging process
• Development of intelligence
• Union with God or one’s higher power
• Insight into or access to ultimate reality
• Union of the subjective with the objective worlds

There are four main categories of hazard associated with meditation 

– the hazards of self-inquiry
– the hazards of faulty methodology
– the hazards of the tradition
– what could be called organizational hazards

Self Inquiry

Self-inquiry can be hazardous only if you are ultimately unable to accept and assimilate what you discover. For most people, this poses no problem, though to be able to benefit from the process of self-inquiry does require the skill of acceptance of self and others – which is one of the important practices associated with the meditative path. If you are unable to learn this skill, then you may end up re-experiencing over and over again the pain associated with your life’s past traumas rather than working through them. So do pay attention to the practices associated with acceptance of self and others, such as those associated with Metta Bhavana.

Naturally, if you have a confirmed history of mental illness, then please do consult with your health care provider before beginning a meditation practice. Of course, we all at some time in our lives feel like we’re “going crazy” – but this is not what I mean here by mental illness. Indeed, this feeling of “going crazy” is just the kind of “cognitive dissonance” which meditation can eventually heal, even if during the process you sometimes feel “crazier” than ever. This feeling of “craziness” is, in fact, a by-product of the process of maturation: the friction between old cognitive patterns and the reality of “things as they really are”. Real mental illness is a far more serious thing, and you, your family and the medical establishment will have likely dealt with it in various ways, whether appropriately or not. So again, if you have a history of mental illness, please consult with your doctor before continuing with meditation.

Faulty Methodology

The second category of possible hazards associated with meditation has to do with faulty methodology. Most established schools and traditions have mapped out systems of practice that are perfectly safe, and any practices that might cause you problems (if there are any – a big “if” there ) are often kept in relative secrecy until you’re ready. The principal problems stem less from meditative practices per se, than from what can be called “energy practices”, in particular, so-called “kundalini” practices. Without well-developed mindfulness, or if taken up too quickly and vigorously, these practices can sometimes foster or aggravate imbalances in the practitioner. You might have experiences that seem extraordinary and, in rare cases, even frighteningly out of control. In order to avoid this possibility, the best advice is to follow a structured system that takes into account the order in which practices should be learned, as is taught by most established schools that deal with energy practices. (Note: Here at Meditation Mojo, I don’t teach energy practices – at least not any powerful or potentially dangerous ones – so if you’re seeking those you’ll need to look elsewhere.)

Hazards of the Tradition 

The third category of hazard is what can be called the hazard of tradition. What this entails is the realization that much of the methodology of meditation and yoga was developed within a monastic tradition. Most of us are what can be called householders or students. Few of us are monks (I’ll use the same word for either male or female monks). With all due respect to the monastic tradition, we have to realize that the life of a monk is very different from that of a householder or student, with far different demands. Monasteries essentially can be looked at as groups of people banding their energies together in order to accomplish two things:

• provide for their physical needs which are voluntarily reduced in order to 
• allow more time for spiritual practice 

This reduction in physical needs has inspired a vast literature around the concepts of renunciation, detachment and self-denial – concepts which are not well-suited to the average householder or student, whose struggles are more centered around advancing themselves in social and economic life.

For non-monastics it’s more appropriate to talk of concepts like equanimity as opposed to outright renunciation – that is to say, not getting caught up in your mental and emotional games, as opposed to withdrawing from the world to a hermit cave.

Organizational Hazards 

The fourth and final category of possible hazard is what we could loosely call “organizational”. Since the late 60’s, when meditation began to gain popularity in the west, numerous organizations have sprouted up purporting to teach meditation. Often there is a significant monetary component mixed in, such that even if the beginning lessons are free, eventually you are asked to pay more and more in order to advance. And the promised “advancement” is often associated with gaining various super-powers, which never quite seem to materialize, though the money disappears all the same.

If money isn’t required, then significant amounts of time are required, usually with the notion that you are doing service to “the mission” or “dharma”. While this may be true, what is also true is that these organizations are typically run upon a business plan, and the time invested freely by the supporters figure significantly into these organizations’ bottom line. In some cases, the organizations are sincere; in other cases, they are not and the bottom line results in some pretty outlandish profits for the actual “owners” of the organization. 

In any case, the victims of these “spiritual” scams eventually end up poorer and somewhat wiser, or else they find a way to insert themselves in some fashion into the organizational food chain.

That unscrupulous people should use spirituality as their way to get rich is one of the great mysteries of the spiritual quest. For in some very odd way, they usually do end up serving spirituality despite themselves. After all, they do need to provide a fairly decent portrayal of the quest (even if ultimately their portrayal is a betrayal). So they give spiritual seekers something of what they seek, while ultimately providing them with a good life lesson, if somewhat harshly taught: namely that we are all ultimately responsible for our own advancement, and should not expect to discover all the answers in any one place or from any one teacher, unless that place and teacher be ourselves.

There are two important aspects about whatever position you decide to use:

• that you are comfortable in it so that you can maintain it for your entire meditation session without having to move, experience pain or think about discomfort in your body
• that you can stay alert during the duration of your practice without risk of falling asleep

The choice of position is, ultimately, up to you. However, here are a couple of considerations you might wish to take into account.

As you begin to learn meditation, it’s important not to encourage any kind of striving (read the article What Is Meditation for more on this topic). For this reason, complex or difficult to maintain positions are less than optimal. Unless you are already quite flexible and have strong core support, any of the floor sitting positions will be difficult and you will have to strive to maintain them. Lacking flexibility, you’ll likely need to overcome feelings of discomfort or, worse, pain. At worst, if you insist on maintaining a painful position for long periods of time – as not a few teachers misguidedly recommend – you could do lasting damage to your ankles, knees or hips. Having to deal with pain each time you sit is for most people not a great way to get excited about establishing a regular meditation practice.

Another more subtle issue, also having to do with striving, has to do with our image of what it means to meditate. Practically the only images we ever see of what it looks like to meditate show someone in a floor sitting pose. Often the images lend a certain mystique or exotic air to the pose or to the person doing it: the pose might be full lotus, said (wrongly) to be the best position for meditation, or the person shown meditating is made to seem full of wisdom in some way.

It’s only natural, then, that when we sit down to practice meditation we will carry these images with us, striving to match the same mystique and exoticism we’ve seen in them. But that leaves us trying to do something – and whatever we’re trying to do is not true to what is actually happening in the moments of our meditation. Put simply, we are trying to be something we are not, rather than being fully what we are.

The following suggestions offer a good way to discover the best sitting position for you to use while meditating. I’ll suggest four different positions, each more difficult than the other. You begin with the first and easiest position while learning and becoming comfortable with meditation. In this way, you can more easily involve yourself with that process, rather than simultaneously concentrating on maintaining a position that feels uncomfortable or difficult.

The first position is sitting on a comfortable chair or sofa that provides back and head support. Typically this will be a high-back chair of some sort (lounge, recliner, easy etc.). If you don’t have access to a high-back chair, then you can place a regular low-back chair (like a dining room chair) against a wall in such a way that you can use the wall for head support. You may need to use pillows behind your back in order to provide comfortable back support. Make sure your head is not pushed too far forward or else it will be difficult to maintain it in an upright position.

This is a perfectly acceptable position to use while learning meditation. If you find that you are able to stay alert using it, then there is no real reason to change. However, if you find yourself often drifting off to sleep or into a kind of half dream state, then you might wish to try the next position.

The second position requires the use of a chair or sofa that does not provide head support while at the same time providing back support. In this way, you can relax back, but you’ll also need to maintain your head in an erect position and hence any tendency to nod off will bring you back awake.

Be careful to choose a chair or sofa that allows you to keep your back in a relatively upright position. This will keep you from having to overstrain in order to keep your head level. If your back is too far reclined, your head will naturally wish to fall backwards and you will need to exert your neck muscles to keep it upright. This, in turn, will likely result in discomfort and strain in the neck muscles, leaving you anything but relaxed.

This position is fine, especially in the early days of your practice when you may not be practicing for longer periods of time. The truth is, however, virtually any chair or sofa used in this way will likely fail to provide an alignment between your back and neck that will completely negate any and all straining. For this reason, you may find this position unsuitable for longer sittings.

The third position corrects this alignment problem, making it potentially more suitable for longer sittings. For this position you sit towards the front edge of a chair, typically a dining room chair or folding chair, and maintain an erect position with good alignment between your back, shoulders and neck such that you no longer need to strain to keep your head level.

However, though commonly recommended by meditation teachers, this position can nevertheless be difficult for many people to maintain comfortably (and without striving to maintain it) for periods longer than a few minutes. This can be due to using a chair that is too high or too low, or else because of weakness in the practitioner’s core muscles, making it difficult to hold the back in alignment without straining. If you find this to be the case, then it’s best to take a two-fold approach: step back to the first or second position for the time being, while working on strengthening your core muscles and overall posture until you can maintain the third position comfortably for longer periods of time. You might try out the exercises in this video:

The only remaining disadvantage to this position is that the circulation to the legs is not reduced in any way, and consequently as you become more relaxed, blood can pool in the lower regions of the body. This can cause various issues if you intend to use this position for sittings of longer than half an hour or so. For this reason, you may wish to pass to a floor position. Folding the legs beneath the torso will, for most people, maintain a better balance of blood circulation throughout the body during longer sittings. 

Therefore, for the fourth position we move from a chair to the floor and into one of the traditional cross-legged sitting positions. Specifically how you choose to place your legs is of course entirely up to you. Again, however, it must be in a way that is natural and comfortable to you. As mentioned before, there is a very real risk of damaging your ankles, knees and hip joints by assuming a position, such as full lotus, when you are not easily capable of doing so. Furthermore, despite what certain teachers may say, no advantages accrue to the practitioner capable of assuming a difficult position such as full lotus. No “magical alignment” exists, nor are any special energy points “activated”. On the contrary, subtle feelings of pride and self-admiration can distort the relation of such a practitioner towards his or her own practice as well as towards other practitioners. This is especially true in western cultures that lack a tradition of floor sitting and in which acquiring the ability to sit in full lotus can appear, wrongly, to be some sort of advanced spiritual attainment. This is simply a delusion and represents one more belief structure that will eventually need to be dismantled if the practitioner is to make real progress in their practice.

Hence, unless you grew up sitting in full lotus because that’s the way your parents and grandparents sat or unless you’ve already been practicing for years within a tradition in which full lotus is encouraged, it’s probably best not to even bother with this position, despite the fact that it’s the one position that above all others appears to be associated in the popular imagination with spiritual mystique, exotic wisdom, “true” enlightenment and so forth and so on. Indeed, that’s the best reason of all not to use it.

A relatively easy to assume floor sitting position is what’s traditionally called (appropriately enough) easy pose in which one foot is placed on top of the opposite calf. You can move your feet and legs around until you find what fits best for you. Use of a blanket or thick mat beneath your legs and a pillow beneath your seat is encouraged. The blanket or mat keeps your knees off of a hard, cold floor, while the pillow allows you to adjust your position to find a suitably comfortable angle between your hips, thighs and knees.

Here are some tips on how to sit comfortably in this position:

• Unless you are already quite flexible and have good core strength, before starting to use this position try some of the limbering up/strengthening exercises in the video above.
• For the first few months, use a high pillow that will raise you well off the floor. You’ll likely find that the more gentle the angle between your thighs and hips, the more comfortable the position is. Continue to use the pillow as long as you like, even for the rest of your life!
• Allow the top of your pelvis to tilt slightly forward. This will help maintain the natural curve of the back, allowing your chest to remain high and full, your neck long and straight, and your head well balanced and aligned above your shoulders.
• Think of a straight line extending from your ears to your sit bones, passing through the middle of your shoulders and along the outside of your lower back, and entering your pelvis at the highest point on your hips (the iliac crest). This is more or less the optimal alignment – though it will vary somewhat for different builds – and it should allow you to sit comfortably for long periods without strain (as long as you have adequate flexibility and core strength).
• The main muscles used for maintaining the position should be your core muscles, those that run from within your pelvis to attach onto your spine. If you are using your back, thigh or abdominal muscles to maintain this position, you will eventually feel strained and tired, and will end up concentrating more on maintaining the position than allowing yourself to meditate. If you find this to be the case, use one of the chair positions instead and work on your core strength for a couple of weeks.
• It’s a good idea to alternate which leg rests on top each day. This will avoid the creation of imbalances over the long term. After all, half an hour a day for 10 years is over 1800 hours, plenty enough to gradually bend your skeleton and ligaments into misalignment.

In conclusion, the most important thing to remember is that the position you sit in does not matter. What matters is that you remain comfortable and alert without striving to do so. If using the first position allows you to accomplish that, then there is virtually no reason to “graduate” to the other positions. No cookies are awaiting the practitioner who moves “up” to a more difficult position, only subtle feelings of pride in a place where pride has no place.