Learning meditation can be both simple and complicated.
Simple if you are only looking for a temporary sense of calm.
Complicated if one wishes to enter into a process of transformation.
These two basic notions were however lost sight of when meditation left the East to come to the West.
From a practice that combined both mindfulness to be able to 'start meditating' and to enter into simple to very complex meditative practices that aim to transform us, the West has put forward an elided version of mindfulness, copyrighting it through various methods that merely reduce it to a mere drug.
Medicine is something you take when you are sick, it cures it but it doesn't stop you from getting sick again.
Authentic meditative practices are not mere medicines but transformative tools that enable the subject to stop getting sick.
This is the big difference, but it requires effort, training, regularity, in short, the famous discipline that puts off the Westerner who is always pushed to grasp more and more quickly.
I would therefore advise you to turn first to authentic mindfulness practices, because let's be honest, mindfulness cannot be learned in 8 sessions..., and to get closer to a teacher, either in real life or online, because books can give indications, but nothing can replace guided practice, which aims to constantly help you bring your point of attention back to here and now.
There are methods, built up over many years of progression, just search the internet and you will find them.
This is an answer I gave to a question on Quora.
Valerie Lobsang-Gattini, teacher of relaxation, meditation and Tibetan yogas.
Commentaires