12 Meditations - For Beginners

I did a meditation tips thread not long ago, but didn't feel it was enough. So I then decided to take the 12 things I hold in mind that help me with meditation and write about each one. It's not in depth, but in the future I might expand on it. After this though I'm done for the time being! Hope it helps a few people anyway.

So the 12 are : Egolessness, Equanimity, Non-Duality, Effort, Awareness, Body, Feelings, Mind, Unattachment, Metta, Serenity, Concentration.

- Egolessness -

Meditating on egolessness, or at least a lack of ego to start with, can help break down a lot of illusions about who we are. It can help us realise that what we think of as ours, our personalities and so on, are often not so fixed at all. That in fact many of the aspects that make up our “ego” are often just habits, likes and dislikes, and that as we change a lot of those parts change too, and no longer act as obstacles stopping us from being who we can be.

It’s not easy to understand at first, but after some time meditating it becomes clear that our ego can often cause all types of problems in our lives, even to the point where it can often stop us from meditating altogether. The worst part is when it tells us that we’re ok to leave it for now, we’ll do it a bit later, then that repeats until we’ve spent so long doing other things that we don’t feel like we’ve got the energy to meditate properly. So it’s put off until the next day, then it starts up again and the cycle repeats. But as time passes it becomes clear that what we thought of as our ego is often something we need to move past in a big way, and with more meditation it becomes a lot easier to work out how to do that.



- Equanimity -

Equanimity helps us remain calm and stable in the face of all types of situations that would normally have thrown us out of balance. By having this we don’t get wound up so easily, we don’t fear things so much, we kind of remove our awareness from our old way of reacting to things, and with the calmness and stability a deeper concentration is developed that makes us better people to those around us and also to ourselves. We don’t have to waste so much energy on stress because things don’t get to us like they used to, and often we can wonder in this state what all the fuss was about in the first place. It’s a great way of detaching from our often conditioned set of reactions, so that we can experience things more fully.

People often think that being detached in this way would leave you a cold and robotic, unfeeling type of person, but the opposite is the case when it’s done properly. This is because we’re not spending so much energy reacting in habitual ways, and are instead calmer and more focused, so our awareness and experience of things is actually a lot more enhanced, and we’re then able to understand the nature of ourselves, others, and reality, on a more truthful level.



- Non-Duality -

Meditating on the illusion of duality helps to overcome many of the problems most of us currently have. The idea that we’re separate from our surroundings, from eachother, and so on. One way of seeing through this is to realise that nothing can exist on its own. Every one of us depends on several factors to survive, and every “thing” also depends on several factors to be brought into what we call existence. So in reality nothing is truly separate, everything that we know of only exists relative to other beings or things, and the idea that things are dual in nature is based on various delusions, or mis-perceptions that we hold in our minds for various reasons.

This idea can be researched into much further via Buddhism, Taoism, and several other teachings from around the world. Personally I’ve approached this from Buddhism and Taoism, and would suggest Taoism for easier methods to begin with, or finding mindsets easier to grasp at first, then Buddhism if you want to go into more detail. (and Buddhist ideas here can go into a ‘lot’ of detail in several ways.)



- Effort -

Effort, especially when it comes to meditating, can be a strange thing. One way of showing this easily is if you try meditating for a while, then have a think about how long you can meditate for. Then think of something you often spend quite a bit of time on. One example could be playing computer games for instance. Often you can meditate for 10, 20, or even 30 minutes if you’re doing well, but if you’re a gamer, have think about how long you can be playing an addictive game. You can be there for hours! Then have a short break and spend more hours at it again. But you don’t get so wound up, it’s not that hard, your attention is fixed on the game properly, and so on. If you’re not a gamer just think of whatever else you can spend hours doing, then realise that you can do it with meditation too, if you take breaks inbetween of course. Know that you do have effort and that you show that regularly, but it’s often just mis-directed.

So the problem with effort can be deceptive, and can come down to simple things like fear of the raised awareness from meditating, anxiety when sat with just yourself for so long, being without an outer attachment when meditating, and so on. So the ability is there, you just need to be patient with yourself, and if you can be consistent enough and meditate regularly, you can go back to thinking of it like exercise. Maybe when you jog at first you can only last 5 minutes before you’re struggling for breath and out of it, but with practise you can run for a lot longer.

So being aware of restlessness, anxiety, fear, being with yourself and no other habit while sitting, and facing those problems one step at a time, with each meditation, can help solve issues here. And try to remember not to be too slack, but equally not to push yourself too much. Don’t freak yourself out by sitting too long too quickly. Take it gradually, at the pace that you think and feel is right for you, and the correct amount of effort will hopefully come naturally over time.


Continued >

- Awareness -

Awareness is one of the most important aspects of the 12 things I’ve listed as meditations, and for several reasons. It can also be translated as mindfulness, from the Eightfold Path of Buddhism. Here’s several translations of mindfulness from the wiki page :

Attention, Awareness, Concentrated attention, Inspection, Mindfulness, Self-recollection, Recollecting mindfulness, Recollection, Reflective awareness, Retention.

So it’s obvious just from that list how important this is to anyone practising meditation. It’s related to concentration in the way that awareness is about keeping, or holding, several things in your mind, but differs from concentration in the way that concentration can be a pure focus on a singular aspect.

Another simple way of putting it would be that if you had your own set of aspects/meditations, etc, similar to what this 12 will hopefully be written as shortly, awareness would be the thing that ties them all together and keeps them in your mind, instead of just recalling them every so often and having trouble remembering them if your memory isn’t so good. Clearly it’s also related to recollecting anything and everything that you keep in mind to help you with anything you do.

To go out on a limb a bit, you could say that in psychology we have a conscious and unconscious mind, and that many of the problems we face are due to us forgetting previous conscious things that can take a lot of messing around dragging back out of the unconscious, whether they slipped into there recently or a long time ago. But with a truly mindful or aware person that problem is reduced, or eradicated in a huge way, because those things, aided by a much better ability to recall information, make up a more or less constantly present mind-set.

I could say more but seeing as this is just plotting out 12 things that I hope to expand on as time passes, will leave it here. If you meditate though, or even if you stop meditating for a while, hopefully you’ll remember how this aspect is equally important to everything you do.



- Body -

Meditating on the body can be a simple and great way to start improving your skill in meditating when new to it. Clearly you have the breath, one thing that’s so central to meditation, but you also have the sensations of the body which can be meditated on in their own way. You can start by relaxing the areas of the body, finding all those tense parts and relaxing them so meditating is a lot better, and you can also have a focus on the body constantly in meditation, and you then notice the different sensations coming and going as the time passes. And when you improve at this, your ability to sense the many things happening in your body is increased in stages, which in turn is improving your awareness in general.

There’s obviously several other factors that assist your meditation here that are basic aspects of general health. Eating and drinking better things so that your nutrition is better and less impurities are in your body, staying away from drug habits like smoking and whatever other drugs you might be taking, like alcohol, etc, or at least making the effort to cut down as much as possible. Then you have exercising, stretching before meditating, and whatever else you can do to help your body be as natural as it can be when you meditate on it. All things that help you get a better idea and a deeper understanding of how your body actually is, and how it relates to the feelings and the mind. Which hopefully leads to the understanding, if done well enough, of how the body, feelings and mind are part of the same thing.



- Feelings -

Feelings can be a strange thing when meditating, and personally I’d say this is one of the parts I have to work on most, so will keep this kind of brief for now. They’re so tied to your thoughts, perceptions, memories and so on in several cases, that when you start shifting to different feelings during meditation it can bring all types of things to mind. So sometimes you can meditate and feel great, other times you can meditate and bring about something that makes you feel not so great, and so on.

But one of the tricks is to not attach to these feelings and see them as always coming and going, things that are teaching us about ourselves, and also something that we’ve been kind of taught not to focus on so much, being so used to thoughts and thinking instead. It’s almost like feelings have been relegated in a way, so it’s really important to get better at experiencing them, so that when we do get better at understanding them we’re not so controlled and swayed. This is also where equanimity can be hugely important.

Again, like with the body, this can increase your awareness and understanding in huge ways if meditated on enough.


Continued >

- Mind -

The central and most important of the 12, from which all of the other 11 either issue from, or are qualities of. If there’s no mind, or a mind in a bad state, clearly there’s little or no meditation. Several takes on reality have our minds as the actual creators and upholders of reality itself, which is related to the theory of consensus reality, the idea that our reality is what most of us agree on, consciously and/or unconsciously, so that’s the way it is. Not saying I think that’s true, but that it could easily be the case. (I try not to hold beliefs whenever possible!)

You also have schools of Buddhism that say everything is mind, or consciousness only. That not only are our minds and bodies mind created, but that everything else is also mind created, or projected by our minds, which leads to the idea/theory of reality as an illusion, or what is also called maya.

Will leave this here, because if there’s anything in these 12 meditations to be researched further, it should be this! If you want to really take the plunge down the rabbit hole from the off, doing some research into the Buddhist school of Yogacara could help a lot.

- Unattachment -

Not being attached to things can be easy in some cases, and the complete opposite in others. What’s probably best here is to get a good view of the range of attachments first, then work out what are priorities to try and let go of, and what aren’t so much. If you take it to the extreme everything that we attach to can be seen as a type of clinging, which clouds our ability to see things as they truly are, but we’re just talking about getting into meditation here and not the other extremes, so being realistic at this stage is a good thing.

But even though you’re not just going to be able to, or even want to, drop almost every attachment you have straight away, again, getting a good knowledge of what you’re actually attached to will help in a big way. So you have your beliefs about anything and everything, your habits, likes, dislikes, things that you’ve been taught by the education system and people, and on and on. The range is basically everything that makes you who you are and whatever you take part in doing. Or it could even be good or bad memories that lead you to several types of clinging, craving, aversion, fear, etc.

Once you get a decent idea of how much this actually affects you in almost every way it can be mind boggling. But once you realise and are able to start dropping those attachments as time passes, your idea of who and what you are also changes, and you see that the self you really can be, or whatever you want to be, becomes a much clearer and more real possibility. We don’t have to be stuck as who we are or what we currently are, and anything that says otherwise is basically a form of delusion, and if you meditate on it enough, you’ll hopefully see the possibilities start opening up for you.

- Metta -

Metta is a pali word that can be translated into various things. It could be kindness, loving-kindness, friendship, good will, and several others. So you could say it’s love too, but it doesn’t have to be taken as a type of mystical, flowery love that’s up in the clouds somewhere, but instead a type of love that just makes you a decent person. Someone that cares for others and that’s not self-centered, someone that avoids hating others and that instead tries as hard as possible to understand the problems of the situation of others if that type of emotion is stirred up. Someone that tries their best to be happy about helping others instead of grudgingly doing it and being negative, or that at least tries hard to overcome any of the negative problems if they arise.

Then if you can establish this type of thing, metta, or being a decent person who cares for others, it brings a whole new aspect to your meditation. You’re not just sitting there for yourself, but you’re also sitting there to improve yourself for others. And if you get into the habit of it, you don’t get into so many arguments or other negative situations, but also, because you take the time regularly to try and understand the problems of others, you can also help others a lot more than you previously could. You have an extra perspective on various situations, and it can help people around you when applied properly in many ways.


Continued >

- Serenity -

Meditating on serenity is to increase your ability to be calm and have peace of mind, feelings and body, which then allows access to so many other states which make meditation better. If your mind is chaotic you’re struggling with meditation, restless, anxious, and many other things that basically mess up any type of meditation, so practising bringing serenity to your mind is a great thing to do.

Then if you can do this, the more serene you manage to get, the longer the effects of the meditation usually last once you’ve finished. It helps your concentration, your awareness, it’s almost like you’re a different person when you first get into it, because your mind is usually so busy with thoughts flying all over the place, which then filter across to your feelings and body and unsettle everything compared to what it could be. As with many things, it’s not easy at times, but the more you’re able to bring serenity into your meditation, the better you generally are at meditating as a whole. Finally, the previous meditation of unattachment helps your mind to be clearer and helps with this in a huge way.

You could say the last two meditations equal love and peace, but remember they’re not of the mystical flowery fantasy type! You can make them very real with practise and transform who you are.



- Concentration -

Finally near the end…..so yeah, last, but definitely not least. As with many others listed, if you don’t have this you’re not going to get anywhere. Concentration can be applied to any of the previous 11 for individual meditations, or it can simply be on the breath alone, or whatever else. Some people imagine shapes, colours, look at things when meditating and try to have fixed concentration on them, there’s a lot of ways of applying it basically. There’s also what’s known as insight meditation, and this is to bring something to mind, say the mind itself, and focus only on that aspect for as long as you can. What this can do is bring your deeper mind into the meditation if your level of concentration is good enough, and insights, intuitions, or different levels of understanding what you’re focusing on, will arise.

This can often be seen as a more advanced type of meditation, and can be said to be the faculty that brings the answers to the real truths of our reality if done properly, but in order for it to work you have to be relaxed. So this is also why when you start out it’s usually best to get used to being able to remove various attachments first, get rid of any tensions, and develop a lasting state of serenity. Then if you can do that, you can then have a lot more chance of insight, or deeper concentration meditation working.

To finish, as I said elsewhere when listing some brief meditation tips, you should constantly be aware of the fact that you don’t need to get wound up when your concentration lapses and other thoughts come into your mind. It will happen, and it’ll very likely happen a lot. What you do when this happens, once you realise you’ve lost concentration, is to calmly let go of what you were thinking of and guide your mind back to what you were concentrating on. The more you do this, the more you develop the ability to stay calm, avoid being wound up, and you also develop increasing levels of patience and equanimity.

All 12 things listed here have only been touched on, you could say they’re 12 tips of 12 icebergs, and there’s so much more to research and understand if you get into meditation. This hasn’t been written in the hope that you adopt “The 12 Meditations” and stick to using them. The only purposes have been to help beginners to meditation, and to show how there’s several aspects that can work together when used enough, that make meditation something that can adapt to all types of situations, and change your life in many ways. So if this has helped, please go your own way once it’s served its purpose, research further, and I hope meditation works out for you if you try it enough.

Last note : I'm aware that there might be various errors there, but it's the first time I've written at this length about meditation and I guess kind of expected, so thanks if anyone can see any clear errors and point them out.

12 huh? That's a lot for a beginner, no?
Either way, thanks for the post, I've been interested in mediation and definitely need a guide.

Thanks, Will be giving some of these a try starting tonight!

Cheers and much Love my friend!

I assumed there was more than one way of meditating..

But I had no idea there were 12 different types!

As a newb, thanks for sharing these tips & info.

I don't meditate much, but I'm gonna look into these ones.

Thanks all.

As for them actually being 12 separate meditations, well you could say that, but they're also interlinked. For instance you can't really meditate without several of those 12 being present at the same time really, (effort, awareness, some level of serenity, mind, and concentration, for example.) it's just to give beginners a better idea of what's going on if possible by going into more detail about several aspects.

So, if meditation can be focused on any one of this variety of things, then why do so many practitioners say that meditation involves eliminating all thoughts from your mind? To me, that seems incompatible with what you've posted here. Is there some sort of controversy within the meditation community concerning what meditation is, or can you offer a plain-spoken explanation for this apparent dichotomy?

One thing about meditation is there should not be so many rules, or my soul just ignores rules, because its not best to say there should be focus, nor best to say there shouldn't be. In fact all my meditations begin with focus, ie. prayer, asking for help for family, the world, for myself, to get on target, to know my next step, what to do, what to do, what to do? Health issues so I can do. Or, with intentions to astrally project say, to connect to Higher Self, to picture the world waking up. A number of things, could begin, but as I go usually about 2 hours, then you drop it, and you do strive for zenmind.

There is another aspect to meditation and that is feeling, both in terms of emotions, ie when you set intentions, but this is a different kind of feeling, more using your extra sensory feeling. Meditation should be intutive, with your psi feeling the waves, and interactively responding or choosing how to relate to the experience, there are more senses engaged than the input senses we are trying to quiet down, or still. You can begin with a purpose behind a meditation, and your energy recognition or soul sensing, leads to whole different meditation emerging, as you should be open to soul direction, and listen not project, as much as you can.

I guess a kind of meditation that I find useful is with your intuition and extrra senses hightened to put the purpose of the medittion in your Soul's hands, Higher Selve's hands.

I think the best meditation is to let go, be peaceful, patient, zenmind, calm still waters of the soul, and let things bubble up and concern ourselves with the direction Family or Higher Self/Soul wants to go, leaving this and your instruction in their hands. So put the whole thing in your Soul's hands, without expectation.

And a friends advice that I am following, before sleep, write down what you wish to happen. Visualize it for 5 mintues. And then do the same when you wake up.

Originally posted by NorEaster
So, if meditation can be focused on any one of this variety of things, then why do so many practitioners say that meditation involves eliminating all thoughts from your mind? To me, that seems incompatible with what you've posted here. Is there some sort of controversy within the meditation community concerning what meditation is, or can you offer a plain-spoken explanation for this apparent dichotomy?

I don't think there's any controversy, just different styles of meditation. The way I can best try to explain what I've written is to say that it's trying to list qualities that you can develop, which then help you meditate in whatever way you want. To make another point totally clear : I'm not trying to be an expert, or sound like one. If I had that outlook I'd not aim what I'd written at just beginners mainly.

So to try and help what you're getting at more : there's two distinct styles of meditation that I prefer. One is Zen, and the other is Theravada. In Theravada there can be many different things that you train your mind to have, but to a beginner I don't think that's very easy to grasp. One example of this could be the complex seeming, but interlinked aspects of The Wings To Awakening : www.accesstoinsight.org...

I tried working with that and still do keep a lot of it in mind, even if it's altered in several ways. But the thing that always made me turn back to Zen was that I'd often find myself sitting there and running through the 37 Factors listed there, and I didn't feel like my mind was suited to that style.

But over time I've tried to kind of blend the two in a way, and now I work with these 12 qualities, or meditations, as a guide as I'm meditating often, or I'll just focus on say, the breath, the body, feelings, mind, and so on. There's other parts I use to check things but I didn't want the whole thing to be too confusing so left them out here.

One thing I did notice was that you mention "eliminating" thoughts from your mind though, and there's a lot of meditators that don't really agree with that. It's usually, as far as I've noticed anyway, about not attaching to them. You let the thoughts come into your head, notice them, then let them pass. And then if things work out you realise the illusory nature of those thoughts, and on another level the part of the mind that carries on creating those thoughts almost endlessly, and it doesn't affect you as much any more.

So if the idea of 12 meditations still seems at odds with how you think meditation should work, you could just reframe them as qualities, and that as you tune yourself to the right state by checking one or more of those qualities, you can let all of them drop away and maybe then approach the place where Unity_99's method of accessing intuition would come into play. I actually think getting to intuition is maybe the main goal of all meditation, but deliberately avoided that too because I don't know enough about that yet, and couldn't describe it properly. But if I can improve and get better at explaining meditation that's where I think I'd maybe end up. I just don't think it's easy to describe.

But as a final thing, I'd definitely not suggest that any beginners see this as a full-proof, perfect way of starting out. It's just someone trying to help, and I think it can still do that as long as you research further and find what type of meditation suits you best. Or just skip the whole thing and go off and research. The aim was to try and give information on how meditation can help, and I'm not personally bothered what methods people end up using if they do, as long as they find something that works for them.

Originally posted by robhines
The aim was to try and give information on how meditation can help, and I'm not personally bothered what methods people end up using if they do, as long as they find something that works for them.

edit on 9-6-2012 by robhines because: added and typos

I appreciate your thread and the information. My problem is that I can't seem to actually find a process description that isn't littered with jargon or terms that suggest concepts that are extremely difficult for the average nuts and bolts thinker to relate to. I suppose that I'm getting pretty fed up with the inference that someone like me - who doesn't even have a clue as to what enlightenment could possibly involve - will never (and can't ever) figure out what some of these obviously important self-improvement practices require of a person. I think that if someone could really define some of these vague notions for normal people, they could achieve some big book sales.

Originally posted by NorEaster
I suppose that I'm getting pretty fed up with the inference that someone like me - who doesn't even have a clue as to what enlightenment could possibly involve - will never (and can't ever) figure out what some of these obviously important self-improvement practices require of a person.

Weird, maybe that's an inference that isn't actually there so much? Because I remember reading a few of your posts around here and you seem a lot more clued up about a lot of things than I am! If you're interested in it, I can't imagine you having many problems understanding what any of the practices require if you research a bit and try it.

The main problem I personally found was that many concepts come from Indian and/or Chinese, so there's a translation problem at times because we don't have the equivalent words, we can only get so close. I don't think there's much more than that to be honest.

I think the guidelines are good in their own way and will even help because there are many who cannot still their minds, for example, some who the closest they can get to quieting down and meditating is the active or walking meditation. In which case, water is extremely connective, to the earth grid, and I've had both contact and HS step in, to rescue from a negative monitoring which was something special in the end as well, and showed me something. Just doing dishes. After having issues brought up, sometimes frustrations even, then you go zenmind and its just like meditation, mindless chores without thought, in rhythm connected to water. And you get answers, connection, contact, its one of the most valuable simple tools other than sungazing, aside from direct meditation that I know of. Showers and baths too.

My intuitive approach is simply out of need with my system, chronic fatigue, so that zenmind works easily for me, meditation is something I need for having that 2 hour rest is essential, and fits into my energy sensing.

Very nice thread!!

S&F

reply to post by robhines


u know that meditation justification is in meaning infinite perfection that is always stepped on in everything and everywhere existence

why are u then preaching for limitation as a blessing instead of pointin out ur right to not b limited

people that mean to meditate should aim to heal their suffer from contradictions within themselves and not for knowledge about anything, what is inherently not right cant ever b right
meditation mean conscious zero to reach as cleaning self from guilt, since noone is responsable of what happen on him, when truth is free and if one is pointing truth to say its name

right is who is present plus, so the conscious that act alone to plus what is objectively right
the conscious that exist bc of its opposition to learn existing, so always the true free stand left fact out of everything

reply to post by Unity_99


Thanks, that's interesting, and I probably agree with you a lot more than what I wrote shows. Am already thinking of maybe updating the whole thing at somepoint, or expanding it, and will definitely be adding more about intuition and zen. I guess I just didn't want to try and sound too abstract because it seems to lose people at times, but it can be explained easily if done right so I should have a go.

Originally posted by absolutely
reply to post by robhines

 

u know that meditation justification is in meaning infinite perfection that is always stepped on in everything and everywhere existence

why are u then preaching for limitation as a blessing instead of pointin out ur right to not b limited

people that mean to meditate should aim to heal their suffer from contradictions within themselves and not for knowledge about anything, what is inherently not right cant ever b right
meditation mean conscious zero to reach as cleaning self from guilt, since noone is responsable of what happen on him, when truth is free and if one is pointing truth to say its name

right is who is present plus, so the conscious that act alone to plus what is objectively right
the conscious that exist bc of its opposition to learn existing, so always the true free stand left fact out of everything

Sorry having a few problems understanding what you mean, but I think part of the problem you might have here is with how it's written, not how I actually see and experience it. I'm not brilliant at writing and I know this could be improved a lot from that aspect. For instance, if I thought meditation limited anyone in any way I'd have nothing to do with it! I don't think it has any limits if done right. I'm really not trying to preach either because that type of thing gets my back up and creeps me out really, so sorry if it seems like that.

reply to post by robhines


Well I think zenminded, in an nonformal way mind you, I could never do structured zen or TM, I don't like structure at all. But this is the essence of meditation also any form of psi. You have to reach into the waves, or pocket of information very rapidly, almost no time, and without thinking, the moment you direct the part of the brain that thinks, reasons, and weighs, the psi takes a huge hit in accuracy, and becomes your programming and what you think it should be, the other way, it is 100% when it happens. 100% at least in terms of it being information and what is given. In other words, if ET wants to give you a false energy packet, well thats a different story. You're still being accurate, but the information is a false screen.

But for many many people, stilling the mind is too hard, and so having some logical "informal and flexible" structure, to guide them into deep relaxation is good.