What is meditation? In my practice as a hypnotherapist, I
often advise people to meditate. The question I get is usually how to meditate,
how do I do it, in the end, I think about it here and there?
So what exactly is meditation? The word meditation in
English is derived from the Latin word meditatio which means to contemplate.
But didn't this teacher say that meditation is to empty the mind / calm the
mind / chant mantras / increase awareness / realize what is happening around /
etc ..
During meditation it was found that theta waves were
found dominant in the midbrain and forebrain. Theta waves usually appear when
someone experiences deep relaxation. The part of the brain that emits Theta
waves instructs the rest of the brain to relax, which in turn causes physical
relaxation.
In fact since the beginning of the 20th century
meditation has been a general term for the various practices mentioned above.
This is the same as saying sports for all things like tennis, basketball, ball,
etc. This is a challenge for researchers to examine the effectiveness or brain
activity when someone meditates.
The meditation techniques that will be explained here
will be taken based on techniques that come from Buddhist literature. The
reason is that Buddhists are one of the very few groups to have a complete and
detailed record of meditation.
If we want to learn this knowledge, of course we want to
know what are the ways to meditate? I list here a few things that we can get
only with 10 minutes of meditation per day.
1. Reducing stress
2. Improve work performance
3. Become more aware of our every action
4. Increase our emotional intelligence
5. Makes you calmer, be nicer to others
6. Make you smarter (Thickening of the cortical area,
especially in the awareness section)
One of the good effects of meditation is relaxing the
mind. Of course, then meditation will be very useful for those in the office
and need to be refreshed for a while. But besides meditation, it is not like we
can sleep on our arms and fold on the table
In addition, our brains also emit Alpha waves that appear
or become larger when our brains reduce intentional activities (intentional).
Alpha waves are also a sign of deep relaxation.
Which also means that the most suitable meditation for
stress relief is meditation which is let go. Relinquishing meditation is
meditation where the meditator allows all thoughts that arise to come and go.
Instead of controlling your thoughts (which create activity in your brain), you
better relax yourself and let everything that comes, pass away.
The essence of this meditation is slaughter. The simple
way is to find a comfortable place wherever you are, close your eyes and feel
your body. Scan your body from top to bottom and if there are tense muscles,
relax the muscles, if the sitting position is not comfortable, change the
position until it is comfortable. Once done you just enjoy the silence with
ease.
There are many meditation techniques in this world. In
Theravada literature there are at least 50 meditation techniques, while in
Tibetan there are thousands of meditation techniques.
In this discussion the technique used is the technique
taught by Ajahn Brahm. In his book Mindfulness, Bliss and Beyond: A Meditator
Handbook (Superpower Mindfulness). He said that there were 4 initial stages in
meditation:
1. Current awareness
2. Current awareness of silence
3. The current awareness of silence on the breath
4. Full attention to the breath
Starting from the present awareness where
we let go of the past and the future that is in our minds.
Often we think too much about the past and the future,
for example when we want a hearing tomorrow, how about tomorrow UAS? What will
you come out with later? Or for example thinking, fighting with friends
yesterday.
This means we live in the past or in the future. Before
starting to meditate, we let go of the past and the future that is in our
minds, and enough to live in the present forget that we have the past, also
forget that we have a future as long as we meditate, just enjoy the meditation.
After letting go of that we have passed stage 1 and
entered stage 2 where we have entered the stage of silent awareness at this
time.
Silent awareness means not commenting, sometimes when we
get input we always think, "oh, that's good" or "I don't
agree" or "fun" or something else.
What is meant by silent awareness is to be quite silent
and watch over without commenting on what is there.
It is said in the literature that silence is more useful
in attaining wisdom and clarity of mind than thinking. Silence is a state of
fun and joy.
If it has passed these two stages, it can be said to have
passed a long path in meditation.
The next stage is
the current silent awareness of the breath, simply the human mind can think of
several things at once, which is about 7 plus / minus 2.
In this stage we decide to pay attention to one thing
only, breath. After going through the two stages above, you will realize that
it will be very easy to shift attention only to the breath alone.
One of the problems with watching your breath is the
habit of controlling your breath while you are breathing or sighing.
To get past this obstacle then imagine that we are
driving.
Look that we are not the driver of the car, not even
inside the car, we are only watching the car from outside. So no need to
control it, just pay attention.
The fourth stage is
the stage where we focus fully on the breath as a whole, where we are aware
when the breath starts, when the breath comes out, and when the inter-breath
pauses we realize it as a pause before the next breath is pulled.
Starting from the breath to the breath and then to the
breath we all realize with silence and present. And this can last for a long
time without obstacles.
This cannot be achieved with strength, only strong will.
Only by releasing everything that happens in the world except focusing on the
breath will this stage be achieved by itself, without enough effort just to pay
attention.
These 4 stages are
called stepping stones in meditation by Ajahn Brahm because it is at this stage
that we will be able to feel the beauty of meditation. When you reach stage 4
the breath will begin to disappear because we begin to focus on calm, freedom
and happiness.
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