There are so many living proofs that testify to the greatness of meditation and it eventually serves as a catalyst for change in one’s life. Here is a very inspiring story about Arden, a business woman, and how she found the way meditation.
It can be tough, grueling and boring she said but also added that once she woke up in the morning, she never hesitates to start the day with her meditation that could long for about 45 minutes.
The following are subtopics including the discussion and her side of issue.
In my line of business, I have often promoted networking as a strong point in encouraging young minds to ensure their growth and success. Of course we do this all the time in my company. This is because, over the years, networking has been referred to as a power that enables you to make great things. But for me, I consider meditation to be the best thing that ever happened to me.
I have experienced a lot of great things when I started practicing meditation, I compare this kind of method to a person attending a GYM session – lifting and burning out fats. The similarity between the activities is that they are both considered to be work outs. In the GYM, you manage to work on your body parts such as biceps, chest, and so on, like in meditation; it is also working out
the brain. By meditation, the front parts of the brain is being strengthened, creating a mental awareness in all sorts of situations and allowing you to stay focused and balanced at the same time when some things turn bad.
I once knew a man that wanted to hire me at a certain company, probably sharing that experience is really relevant.
It was 2010 and I was just returning from a long period of meditation. My way of meditation is called Breath Watching Meditation. It is series of observation with your own breathing without letting anything to interfere with you. Hours of not performing any unnecessary movements, actions, and even leisure’s. It just pure observation, you can attain this with the most common position which is sitting still, or walking. It has been 8 days already of finding the inner experience and calming the body as well as the mind. I have learned this kind of meditation at Insight Meditation Society, which is located in Barre, Massachusetts. It has been considered to be one of the pillars in terms of the Meditation field. During my stay there, I remember a certain moment; it was when I was in a long line of 100 people, all in the waiting list.
As I stood up in the line waiting for my turn to give my choice of food in the counter, suddenly, a thought rushed into my mind –
what if I ordered a double serving of lasagna, how is it gonna look?, then mentally, I had this inner dialogue in my mind that it feels like I am asking myself and at the same time trying to answer them. I just thought that whatever it’s gonna look, atleast they be happy. After that dialogue, I found myself in the middle of realization in which at first I thought about insecurities, and then I thought about the happiness it could bring to others.
This has been the result of meditation I have been doing. It has opened my deep consciousness, allowing the stream of inner thoughts to be express widely and accordingly.
I received a job offer from a big time business company, I was invited to come to the big boss’s Office for some tea time and as well as job interview. Not knowing that the actual interview would be in form of writing. He said that I need to write things about how I would start upon hiring with the company. I felt so confident about it, since I have managed to learn the breath watching meditation, I can easily meditate at any given place and time. Right there and then I meditate, after being relaxed and stilling the mind, I began writing. All the words came through my mind and kept on jotting it down. I was not surprised when they liked my writing and instantly gave me the position I was offered to apply. I believe that I could not have done that if I did not have the ability and the knowledge of meditation.
To achieve the level of focus is also very difficult, but, during my stay in the meditation center in Massachusetts, we are incorporated about a certain practice involving your thumb as well as your attention to details. You need to focus on the thumb and should not be able to get distracted, in comparison, you need to represent your thoughts as like clouds in the sky, they passes by, but would not affect you or drawn you into it. In relevance with my work in the business industry, in our culture, we were all educated in the field of capitalizing any distraction.
I was in my senior college in 2005, I was already meditating during that time but it was a really different method of meditating, that I have read about some Buddhism that at first, I was hesitant in being attach in that kind of level. But accidentally, I picked up a certain Vietnamese book written by a Vietnamese monk named Thich Nhat Hanh.
When I opened the book, the first page says that life is full of suffering but you don’t have to suffer. If suffering can be avoided, it would be a great thing. It just suggests that there are also other things to consider to life than suffering. With those words of wisdom, I instantly became connected and attached to the book. During those years, I always feel alone, depressed, and other
words that corresponds with the word unhappy. At that particular day when I got the book, I started meditating. Sitting on the floor of my dorm room. It took me a couple of years to meditate properly using the sitting posture and then once I did, there was one type of practice that I was doing by my own where I hold my breath, count to 10, and then when you get to 10, you then again start from 1. This helps you settle, focus so that it would give your mind the idea of concentrating. Counting to 10 is very difficult and would take a lot of practice and time to master such concentration and energy. Supposedly you don’t get into 10, you then start from 1 until you reach 10 or your maximum number if you cant get to 10. For me, it took me several weeks before I finally get to count from 1 to 10 without forcing and distracting myself.
To some people, the idea of meditation is just giving yourself a hard time focusing and yet starting to fail and be distracted, not allowing them to experience the inner expression and the feeling of inner peace. They are all tied up in the thought that it would cost them too much time in order for them to experience such greatness – and it’s true, it’s just as normal as why the table is hard and the tissue is soft.
What I literally do in a day is to supervise everything, understanding the present situations and problems as well as
reading all the news feeds every now and then. I am no excuse when it comes to distractions, I myself also get distracted, and after all, my work is all about cultivating the different ways in creating a different approach for the business insider. Although I get distracted, meditation taught me something useful that I have been using for the past years of working here in the business industry – it’s the muscle memory or repetition. It a like a defense mechanism by the mind that when you are being bombarded with different stress and as well as endless pressure and too much instructions and desired goals to achieve, your mind then tells your body, or somehow reminds you at the back of your head, to slow down and take a break. I notice this kind of action when I felt so distracted that I am falling apart, I just then realized that I need to sit down and think of this a couple of times and try to figure out the best way possible to resolve it. If you have experience the same, I believe that it would be easier from now on to access such meditation and even the flow of life. This kind of result from meditation is only achieved by constant practice.
Upon waking up in the morning, I start the day by sitting in a cushion with my phone with some meditation software. It comprises of one soothing Zen music that helps me to get relaxed and also, upon the fading music, it only signifies that 45 minutes has already passed by. Even though that after all the meditating experiences I had, I already know the feeling after 45 minutes. I rely it on the sound for it would be distracting if ever I display a
time showing the countdown. So it would be more appropriate to use the sound.
I start with breath watching meditation, wherein I am using my breath as an anchor for my attention, with this, I can be able to focus on one single thought in my mind and give so much attention to that until I become relax enough to sustain balance and to keep away on being distracted, relieving the stress and anxiety I am feeling. The idea of breath watching is not just simply or literally focusing on the breath just for the sake of the knowing how breathing works but more importantly to notice what’s also happening in the mind.
What would life possible be with the absence of meditation?
First of all, I won’t have the same level of self-awareness that I have at the moment for people are not born self-aware. Practice makes perfect, to achieve such mental alertness and other awareness, you must consider unvarying practice of meditation, but if not, then you can’t think well and do things as great as you can do when you meditate properly.
Meditating won’t necessarily mean that you know every piece of background where it all started, all you have to do is sit for a couple of minutes a day and witness how it works.
You can compare meditation to everyday exercise – you can choose among the thousands of applicable ways to accomplish it. A piece of advice, for beginners, try to do the breath watching meditation, watching your breath and finding your own inner thoughts and I hope that works for you.
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