Every now and then, I write about meditation because it has been shown to be valuable and rather easy. As Karen Maezen Miller explains, it just involves sitting and looking at a wall. I say it is rather easy because it is easy to explain and easy to do but not easy to do again and again, just like biking or walking or weight lifting. It can be questioned. When we are sitting and looking at a wall, we can naturally start to wonder:
Why am I doing this?
How long do I have to sit here?
Am I doing this correctly?
Is doing this nutty? Healthy?
The main reason many present day Americans sit and look at a wall is to develop mindfulness. That is the habit of noticing, of being aware of what one is thinking about. That may not sound like much but developing better and deeper self awareness increases sympathy for oneself and improves respect for the self's feelings, reactions and choices. Better self awareness creates a more integrated, unified self.
You may feel that you want some coaching or some companionship, maybe some feeling of camaraderie and fellowship while meditating. Having a loved one meditate in the same room might help. Books about the practice are quite available and getting more so all the time. It isn't difficult or tricky but sometimes people want help or guidance. If you just take a kitchen timer or use Google to search for "timer" or "timer 5 minutes", you can sit still and look at a wall until you hear the timer go off.
That's it. That's all there is to it. It is so simple, so basic, it is easy to feel that you need help, criticism, evaluation, a magazine, a membership, something to listen to. But, you don't need anything. Just five minutes. I say give yourself five minutes and see what you think. Do it again tomorrow. Do it again the next day. You are not "better" or "superior" if you meditate for a longer time. The Google Chinese-American engineer, Chade-Meng Tan, taught a course on doing this to Google employees. He also has two books about the practice: Search Inside Yourself and Joy on Demand. He says you just need a mind to meditate and you just need one conscious, deliberate breath.
