If you read this blog very often, you know that I advocate practicing meditation. As Dr. Richard Davidson says, the term "meditation" is comparable to the term "sports" - there are many kinds and types of each.
As you could find in other posts in this blog, years ago I saw in our university publication of available courses, a course labeled "Relaxation". I chuckled. What did they do? Sit around and relax? I looked into it a little and found lots of writing about relaxation, like the book that first helped me, "The Relaxation Response" by Harvard physician Herbert Benson. Got my attention.
I was on Semester Abroad when I came across three students lying on the floor of a study hall. "What are you doing?" "We are practicing our Transcendental Meditation." What is this business? I read and thought. I read "The Relaxation Response". I read Steve Hagen's "Meditation Now or Never." I read Jack Kornfield books and Slyvia Bornstein's "Don't Just Do Something, Sit There!" Evidence was piling up that being still and keeping my attention on a single spot, noticing when I wavered and returning to my spot, did good things for my awareness of me, my thinking, and the paths I used in my head. I had read and taught W. Edwards Deming's ideas and immediately aimed away from a month or even a week of being still and meditating. I went for 10 minutes of meditation activity a day.
Whether one is after more empathy or courage or self-reliance, practicing meditation is the single most valuable thing I know, after the basics of good eating, sleeping and exercise. I am repeating all this to say that I just watched the 4th episode of The Mind Explained on Netflix, "Meditation". It's 20 minutes and packed with explanation and valuable language. You can lower pain, increase awareness of your powers and live better if you meditate. As I love to repeat, author and software engineer Chade Meng-Tan says you just need a mind and a single, conscious deep, slow breath.
