Posted 5/6/2001 by Beorn
Meditation.

I haven't written about this before, and I rarely talk about it either, because it's not something that is easy to describe in words. But in the off chance that anyone actually take my narcissistic know-it-all ramblings here seriously, let me just say this once that it is something I strongly recommend.

I've been meditating for about 6 years, thanks to a suggestion on long-dead Arcades BBS from Magnus Itland, who's also written a decent introduction to it. In the end, nothing you'll ever read can teach you to meditate, but it can point out the direction and give a few helpful hints on the way.

If I have to describe what it's like, I would say that meditation creates a place in me that is timeless and resilient, like a rubber ball or the bamboo tree that bends in the wind. I've learned to put my mind in a meditative mode at will, which feels a bit like relaxing a muscle you didn't know you were flexing. It would be a lie to claim that meditation is always relaxing or pleasant, but that place is always there, growing slowly in strength, even when my meditation is horribly unfocused, (and it often is).

You might call it the opposite of information processing. Sitting still with only yourself as company may sound boring, but actually, overcoming boredom and sleep was the easy part. Meditation is often frustrating, but I've never been bored after the first couple of weeks. Since that I've learned, slowly, a few tricks on how to navigate in my own mind. About once or twice every year I've had some sort of crisis, where I've reached a dead end, beaten my head against the wall for a few weeks, then ended up on a better path. I recently changed my style of meditation as a result of a crisis like that, from counting my breath to using a mantra - and when I say recently it's propably one or two years ago, I'm not sure. As I said, time moves differently.

Why do I meditate, and why should you? I don't know. I do know the medical benefits are pretty well-documented, but that doesn't explain it. I know that from time to time, I've been able to apply some of these tricks to other areas of life. There's no way to be specific about this, but you might say that while doing things completely unrelated to meditation I've suddenly found myself walking down a mental path meditation has previously opened for me. But that doesn't explain it either.

I suppose it comes down to this: A day without meditation is like a morning without coffee, and I would feel a lesser version of me if I stopped.

Again, nothing I've written here says anything important about meditation, most of which takes place where words cannot go. And I do apologize if I've given the impression that there's something metaphysically exciting about it, that it's some sort of psychedelic journey to another universe, because there's really nothing there but you yourself. You're the path, you're the wanderer, and you're the enemy. But give it a shot, and I don't think you'll regret it.