I was driving to a yoga class the other day, and I was not five minutes away from my destination, when my mind was suddenly seized by the notion that my apartment was--at that moment--on fire. Did I leave the stove on? OMG I left the stove on!!
In addition to the paralyzing alarm I felt, this stunning thought was accompanied by visions of fire engines and smoke pouring out of windows. There, too, I saw my friend, my landlord, as he watched his building go up in flames. In my mind, these nightmarish scenes were all there circling, prodding me to turn my car around to race back to my apartment and verify or dispel this vision.
Then, just as suddenly, this mind storm was swept away, replaced by a focus on my immediate world: on my driving, on the music I was listening to, on the three boys walking on the sidewalk, one on a scooter, moving at a hurried but merry pace. Something inside compelled me to turn away those thoughts and bring myself into the present, to the place inside my dusty, paper-strewn car, looking out through a dirt-streaked window at the many everyday images passing by as I drove.
I can’t say for sure, but I believe the ease of transition from ‘there’ to ‘here’—from a horrific mess to the peace in my immediate surroundings was eased by meditation. I meditate regularly and the switch was not unlike that which occurs during meditation, from thought-fulness to thought-lessness. Meditation involves sitting alone, in comfortable position, and focusing attention away from the random thoughts that pass by during waking hours.
With practice, meditation enables those who do it to take more control of the whims of the mind and in so doing bring an equanimity to its function, making the mind a more effective tool for carrying out the chores that we must in order to live. While there is a spiritual side to meditation—after all, which ‘I’ was it that steered me into the present and which ‘I’ was it that started the fire in my mind?—there is also hard evidence that meditating is just plain common sense.
Meditation has been studied by a multitude of medical and scientific organizations and proved to enhance our waking performance: improve attention and reduce stress (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences October 23, 2007 vol. 104), reduce anxiety, improve Social Skills, and Academic Performance Among Adolescents With Learning Disabilities (Complementary Health Practice Review, Jan 2008; vol. 1), and improve musical performance (Psychology of Music , April 1, 2008, Vol. 36, No. 2). There are scads of other examples. Just type ‘meditation studies’ into your favorite search engine.
And while you’re at it, type in the word ‘meditation’. Up will pop a dizzying array of sites, offering a zillion ways to meditate. Some are the ‘best’, some are backed by prestigious organizations and carry heavy-duty words with them, like ‘Zen’, ‘Buddhist’, ‘Vipassana’; some use mantras, some require training. Like yoga, meditation is older than dirt. It’s passed through millions of minds, some of which have made modifications and offer them to others.
I can’t validate any of them. I only know the method I use, which is the simplest: sitting comfortably in quiet, low-lit room, eyes closed, and spending 20 minutes focusing on my breath, or at least trying to. The mind will interfere with the process, as will the emotions, but when I become aware of it, I pry its fingers loose, and turn my attention back to the breath. Give it a try. At the very least, you’ll get 20 minutes of solitude and a snatch of freedom from processing the millions of parcels of sense data your mind receives on a daily basis. That alone, to my mind, is good enough reason to meditate.
Oh, and that fire? Well, the fire fighters must have done a miraculous job putting it out, and then restoring my apartment to pristine condition, because when I returned home from the yoga class, all was as I had left it. And the stove top was turned off.
For more info: For you who live in the
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