Meditation is often made to seem either more or less than what it actually is.

The truth is, it is not about having some wonderful spiritual experience nor is it just sitting down and relaxing. It is, simply put, like a medicine that encourages the mind to return to its most natural and tranquil state; the present moment. In fact, the root of the word meditation is the same as medication, medere, meaning, to heal. Meditation can be done in many ways, not just by sitting in some 'special' position. Although sitting and walking meditation are most commonly talked about, and although sitting meditation usually allows for the deepest and most profound meditation, our chief goal is to become mindful of the present moment throughout our waking hours so we should attempt to practice meditation throughout the day. You might say, that is impossible, you cannot meditate at work or that is impractical, I don't have time to meditate all day, I need to be active. Well, you don't know what meditation is or how to do it yet, so don't jump to conclusions so fast. Again, meditation is not about adding anything to our mind, like knowledge or a religious experience, rather it is about allowing the mind to return to its natural state, awareness of the present moment, where no thoughts of the past or the future dwell. Since childhood, we have trained the mind to dwell in the past and the future, and this has helped us increase our imagination and intelligence capabilities, but it has also hindered our ability to find our way home - the present moment, where balance and tranquility reside. Without balance and tranquility there is no clarity, and without clarity our imagination and intelligence is rendered useless. So this is why meditation is so important, it is almost like a 'reset' button that clears away all of the filth and messiness that our minds accumulate from day to day. It is important to understand that the mind cannot actually ever truly be in the present moment, as the mind itself is but a series of thoughts, which is always a product of the past. So don't over think this whole idea of 'the present moment', you'll be led in circles and go crazy. People use this term (present moment) only as a pointer, a 'place marker' for the mind to move towards and away from. The actual present moment is beyond the mind, beyond thought, it is the timeless raw awareness of experience before thought arises. Meditation does help retrain the mind to remain closer to the present moment though. Thus, through practicing meditation, our mind begins to operate (move outwards) from a 'point' closer and closer to this 'place marker', the present moment, and so feelings of tranquility, freedom, contentment, clarity and happiness are more prone to arise. For the Christians who see meditation as only an 'eastern religious thing': Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you." Luke 17:21. How are you to 'find' this 'kingdom within' without directing your 'spiritual' inquiry inward? Before we actually take a look at how to meditate we must first go over three very important basic principles that apply to our life. Understanding these 'principles' and accepting them as true is an absolute necessity for our meditation practice to succeed and bring about beneficial qualities. They are: impermanence, non-self and dissatisfaction. Impermanence (anicca): All conditioned phenomena is impermanent. From the trees to the stars to our bodily sensations and our thoughts and emotions, everything is impermanent. That which is born (created) must die (expire). That which rises must fall. That which comes must go. Everything is in constant change, from one form or state to another. Understanding this and accepting it as true means we also understand that clinging on to one form or state, as if it was permanent, goes against the nature of reality and thus must result in stress and dissatisfaction (dukkha).

Non-self (anatta): Absolutely nothing can be considered to inherently have a 'self'. Absolutely nothing can be considered to inherently be whole. Everything is made up of smaller 'parts' or aggregates, which are themselves made up of smaller 'parts', and so on, and all of this is in constant flux, prone to the rules of impermanence (anicca). Therefore, on a fundamental level, it is incorrect to claim you or I, or anything else, inherently has a 'self'. I say inherently because through conventional knowledge we can assign the quality of a 'self' to ourselves or others, we can collectivize a group of parts, states or aggregates and assign a static title of whole to them, but fundamentally this is incorrect. Understanding this and accepting it as true means we do not cling to notions of a static self. It would be fundamentally incorrect for me to say, I am an angry person or I am a happy person or You are a good person or You are a bad person, and so on. A more correct assessment would be to say, This is a state of anger or This is a state of happiness or That action/thought is/was good/bad. By clinging to notions of a static self we are going against the fundamental truth of impermanence (anicca) and thus again setting ourselves up for stress and dissatisfaction (dukkha). Dissatisfaction (dukkha): When we do not accept the principles of impermanence (anicca) and non-self (anatta) as true, or do not live our lives in accordance with them, then we are going against the natural flow of all phenomena and setting ourselves up for disappointment, delusion, dissatisfaction, stress, anxiety, sorrow and/or suffering. And since it is nearly impossible for us, as conditioned beings, to structure our lives absolutely in accordance with these principles (anicca and anatta), the Buddha said, life is suffering and offered an eightfold path to help us structure our lives in a way that is most in accordance with these principles. Meditation is the tool that helps display the validity of these principles to us most profoundly. So let us now go through a brief explanation of how to meditate. Even though this can be done in any position, during any activity and at anytime of the day, we will be learning about meditation while in a static position (not moving): The meditation method here is called Vipassana, as it was originally taught by the Buddha and later revised/clarified/expanded by Mahasi Sayadaw. 1. First let us bring our awareness to the position of our body. Are we sitting, standing, lying down, kneeling...? Whatever position we are in, we should reel our awareness in towards it through the repeated mental noting of, sitting, sitting, sitting... or standing, standing, standing... or laying, laying, laying. As we are mentally noting the position we are in, we should be mentally scanning over our entire body, from our feet to our head to our arms, in no particular order. Let us do this until we have a clear awareness of the position that every part of our body is in. 2. Next we are going to bring our awareness to any physical sensations of feeling in the body that are arising at the moment. Is there tingling sensation in the feet? An itch on our face? A shooting pain in our back? Do we feel particularly cold or hot? Whatever bodily sensations we are feeling we should mentally note them as, itch, itch, itch... or pain, pain, pain... or cold, cold, cold... and so on. Try not to immediately act upon the sensation when it arises, instead just mentally note it for a while until it goes away. If it won't go away then act upon it mindfully by noting what you are doing, lifting arm, itching face, lowering arm, resting... or bending down, stretching back, rising up, resting... or rising, standing, walking, bending, lowering arms, grabbing blanket, lifting arms, covering body, turning, walking, stopping, bending, sitting,

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resting.. and so on. But our main goal here is to bring awareness to our bodily sensations of feeling. What bodily sensations of feeling are we currently experiencing? Next let us expand our awareness to hearing, smelling, tasting, and if our eyes are open, seeing. If we hear a sound, a bird chirping or a truck driving past or a fan humming, we will note it as, hearing, hearing, hearing.... Similarly, if we smell, taste or see something, we will note it as, smelling, smelling..., tasting, tasting..., seeing, seeing, seeing.... The object is to be aware of the raw sensation, as it is, before the mind assigns a label and definition to it. This process should consist of no judging or categorizing, just awareness of the raw sensation. If we do begin to judge a sensation (sound, smell, taste, sight, touch/feeling) as good or bad, we will note this as, liking, liking, liking... or disliking, disliking, disliking... For instance, I may have got fairly deep into mediation by now and all of a sudden somebody outside begins shouting, or my phone begins ringing, or my neighbors music starts shaking the walls, I may feel this is interrupting my meditation and become frustrated by this and so I will begin noting this as, disliking, disliking, disliking...hearing, hearing, hearing..., effectively turning it from a distraction into the object of my meditation. Now we will deal with thinking, probably the most common distraction to our meditation. Thoughts of the past, I wonder if I locked my car. Oh man, I forgot to pay my phone bill today. Work was good/bad today. I miss that person..., and thoughts of the future, What should I eat tonight? I want to go see that new movie. I should hang out with so and so this weekend. What am I going to do about this problem I am having? Whether it is of the past or the future, all of this is just simply thinking, and so we will note it as that, thinking, thinking, thinking.. And if we become frustrated with our wandering mind, we will turn this into our mediation object by noting, disliking, disliking, disliking.... The final thing we will learn, which theoretically could have been first on the list, is the anchor point for our sitting meditation, the breath. Any time we get done noting a sensation, feeling, thought or the position of our body, or anytime we feel our meditation has become too unstable, boring or chaotic to continue, we will return our awareness to the rising and falling of the breath in the abdomen region. From the belly button to the solar plexus is the region we will focus on, bringing our awareness to the rising and falling of this region as each breath comes in and goes out of our body. We will note this as, rising, rising, rising... falling, falling, falling... or rising... falling... rising... falling..., however we prefer.

The order I wrote these steps does not matter, you can start with which ever one you'd like because we continuously cycle through each of them during our meditation. That is the basics of Vipassana meditation. It essentially comes down to seeing each experience for what it truly is, as it is happening, and honing our awareness in on it through the repeated use of mental noting. By doing this we are training the mind to remain at the root level of experience, the closest it can be to the present moment, and we are encouraging it to not spiral into more and more complex thought about the experience, which essentially just makes the mind drift further and further into the past or future, into chaos and confusion, where there is no true tranquility, freedom, contentment, clarity or happiness. We must understand and accept that the past is dead and gone, and the future does not exist, so the only place reality can reside is in the present moment. Set no goals, cling to no profound, pleasant or tranquil sensations or experiences, let no insights or realizations either disturb or empower your sense of self, and learn to just be present with reality as it is in the current moment. Good luck! Matt