Click here to find out more about Burt Goldman and what he learned under Guru Yogananda.

Through mindful meditation, we are sometimes distracted by the most intrusive of thoughts. But we are human! Initially, new meditators will find it hard to control the mind’s need to speak it’s mind. But do not be disheartend, even the most masterful of meditators sometimes fail to quell the mental conversation.

The following story comes from a set of parables (or koans), translated into English from a book called the Shaseki-shu (Collection of Stone and Sand), written late in the thirteenth century by the Japanese Zen teacher Muju:

Learning to be Silent

The pupils of the Tendai school used to study meditation before Zen entered Japan. Four of them who were intimate friends promised one another to observe seven days of silence.

On the first day all were silent. Their meditation had begun auspiciously, but when night came and the oil lamps were growing dim one of the pupils could not help exclaiming to a servant: “Fix those lamps.”

The second pupil was surprised to hear th first one talk. “We are not supposed to say a word,” he remarked.

“You two are stupid. Why did you talk?” asked the third.

“I am the only one who has not talked,” concluded the fourth pupil.

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Thanks to AshidaKim.com for providing us the enlightening koan!

Want to learn more?

Learn how you can quieten your inner conversation through the art of Mindful Breathing.

The simple and scientifically regulated research adds more interesting discoveries on meditation and its benefits for its practitioners.

BRAIN SCAN SHOW MEDITATION CHANGES MINDS, INCREASES ATTENTION

MADISON – For hundreds of years, Tibetan monks and other religious people have used meditation to calm the mind and improve concentration. This week, a new study shows exactly how one common type of meditation affects the brain.

Using a scanner that reveals which parts of the brain are active at any given moment, the researchers found that meditation increased activity in the brain regions used for paying attention and making decisions.

The changes were associated with the practice of concentration meditation, says study leader Richard Davidson, professor of psychology and psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health and the Waisman Center. Practitioners were instructed to focus attention intently on a stimulus, and when the attention wandered off, to simply bring the attention back to the object, explains Davidson

“In one sense, concentration mediation is ridiculously simple, but in another, it’s extraordinarily difficult,” adds Davidson. “If you try it for two minutes, you will see that it’s not so easy. Minds have a propensity to wander.”

In collaboration with colleagues Julie Brefczynski-Lewis and Antoine Lutz of the UW-Madison W.M. Keck Laboratory for Functional Brain Imaging and Behavior, Davidson compared newly trained meditators to people with up to 54,000 hours of meditation experience. The study is being published this week in the online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.

After the novices were taught to meditate, all subjects underwent a magnetic resonance imaging scan of the brain while they were meditating. Among all experienced meditators, the MRI scan found greater activity in brain circuits involved in paying attention.

“We found that regions of the brain that are intimately involved in the control and regulation of attention, such as the prefrontal cortex, were more activated in the long-term practitioners,” Davidson says.

A different picture emerged, however, from looking only at the most experienced meditators with at least 40,000 hours of experience. “There was a brief increase in activity as they start meditating, and then it came down to baseline, as if they were able to concentrate in an effortless way,” says Davidson.

Effortless concentration is described in classic meditation texts, adds Davison. “And we think this may be a neural reflection of that. These results illustrate one mechanism by which meditation may act in the brain.”

While the subjects meditated inside the MRI, the researchers periodically blasted them with disturbing noises. Among the experienced meditators, the noise had less effect on the brain areas involved in emotion and decision-making than among novice meditators. Among meditators with more than 40,000 hours of lifetime practice, these areas were hardly affected at all.

“Most people, if they heard a baby screaming, would have some emotional response,” Davidson says, but not the highly experienced meditators. “They do hear the sound, we can detect that in the auditory cortex, but they don’t have the emotional reaction.”

As Davidson notes, any comparison of average middle-aged Americans to people who have meditated daily for decades must try to associate the differences with meditation, and not lifestyle factors such as isolation or religious faith.

“This was a highly unusual group of people. Two-thirds of the experienced meditators were Tibetan monks, recruited with the help of the Dalai Lama, and they all had an extremely long history of formal practice.”

For 15 years, Davidson has had a scientific relationship with the Dalai Lama, spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhists, to investigate the effects of meditation.

Still, the correlation between more meditation experience and greater brain changes does suggest that the changes were caused by meditation.

“If it were simply lifestyle, we would not expect a very strong correlation with hours of practice,” Davidson says.

Other evidence for the neurological benefits of meditation came from a study Davidson reported in May, which showed that three months of meditation training improved the ability to detect a brief visual signal that most people cannot detect. “That was a more definitive kind of evidence, because we were able to track the same people over time,” he says.

Psychologists have long considered an adult’s capacity to pay attention as relatively fixed, but Davidson says: “Attention can be trained, and in a way that is not fundamentally different than how physical exercise changes the body.”

The attention circuits affected by meditation are also involved in attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, which Davidson describes as the most prevalent psychiatric diagnosis among children in our country.

“Our findings suggest that it may-I stress may-be possible to train attention in children with methods derived from these practices,” he says.

Davidson says scientific studies of meditation are proving traditional beliefs about the mental benefits of meditation. Yet although meditation is often associated with monks living a life of simplicity, poverty, and prayer, “There is nothing fundamentally mysterious about these practices; they can be understood in hard-nosed western scientific terms.”

And, he adds, a growing body of “hard-nosed neuroscience research” is attracting attention to the profound effects of meditation.

“This deserves serious scientific attention,” he says. “It also explains why people spend time sitting on the meditation cushion, because of the effects on day-to-day life.”

Davidson compares mental practice to physical exercise.

“We all know that if an individual works out on a regular basis, that can change cardiovascular health,” he says. “In the same way, these data suggest that certain basic mechanisms of the mind, like attention, can also be trained and improved through systematic practice.”

Read Article Here

Want to start off with some basic meditation that can change your mind and increase attention? Check out our article on mindful breathing!

Many of us take for granted the subconscious capabilities of our bodies. For instance, breathing. When was the last time you sat down and focused on your breath leaving and entering your body?

Want to know more about mindful breathing and how it can change your life?

A basic of exercise that one can use during meditation is mindful breathing. Many of us take for granted how basic and important the act of breathing is, by focusing on breathing, we can come closer to ourselves and our amazing physical forms.

As you are reading this, begin to be aware of your breath as it enters and exits your nostrils. Consider how short or long the breath enters the lungs and how it feels. Is it cold or warm?

And as you become more mindful of your breathing, begin to feel a calm pass over yourselves as each breath quietens the mind and loosens up your muscles.

This process calms and centers the mind from tension, stress, and the trivialities of everyday life. Breathing acts as a point in which the mind can focus, unifying our minds with our bodies.

The video below, made available by The Vipassana Research Institute, is a discussion of Anapana meditation. One aspect of Anapana meditation focuses on the importance of mindful breathing and how it acts as a vehicle for personal discovery and mental well-being.

If you are interested in reading more about meditation techniques like mindful breathing, be sure to check out our article on 10 Key Ways To Improve Your Meditation

Other findings show that meditation affects the structure of the brain, meditation exercises different parts of the brain and these areas tend to grow with regular meditation.

Meditation Builds Up The Brain

by Alison Motluk NewScientist.com

Meditating does more than just feel good and calm you down, it makes you perform better – and alters the structure of your brain, researchers have found.

People who meditate say the practice restores their energy, and some claim they need less sleep as a result. Many studies have reported that the brain works differently during meditation – brainwave patterns change and neuronal firing patterns synchronise. But whether meditation actually brings any of the restorative benefits of sleep has remained largely unexplored.

So Bruce O’Hara and colleagues at the University of Kentucky in Lexington, US, decided to investigate. They used a well-established “psychomotor vigilance task”, which has long been used to quantify the effects of sleepiness on mental acuity.

The test involves staring at an LCD screen and pressing a button as soon as an image pops up. Typically, people take 200 to 300 milliseconds to respond, but sleep-deprived people take much longer, and sometimes miss the stimulus altogether.

Ten volunteers were tested before and after 40 minutes of either sleep, meditation, reading or light conversation, with all subjects trying all conditions. The 40-minute nap was known to improve performance (after an hour or so to recover from grogginess). But what astonished the researchers was that meditation was the only intervention that immediately led to superior performance, despite none of the volunteers being experienced at meditation.

O’Hara:

“Every single subject showed improvement”

The improvement was even more dramatic after a night without sleep. But, he admits: “Why it improves performance, we do not know.” The team is now studying experienced meditators, who spend several hours each day in practice.

Brain Builder

What effect meditating has on the structure of the brain has also been a matter of some debate. Now Sara Lazar at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, US, and colleagues have used MRI to compare 15 meditators, with experience ranging from 1 to 30 years, and 15 non-meditators.

They found that meditating actually increases the thickness of the cortex in areas involved in attention and sensory processing, such as the prefrontal cortex and the right anterior insula.

Sara Lazar:

“You are exercising it while you meditate, and it gets bigger”

The finding is in line with studies showing that accomplished musicians, athletes and linguists all have thickening in relevant areas of the cortex.

“It is further evidence that yogis aren’t just sitting there doing nothing”

The growth of the cortex is not due to the growth of new neurons, she points out, but results from wider blood vessels, more supporting structures such as glia and astrocytes, and increased branching and connections.

The new studies were presented at the Society for Neuroscience annual meeting, in Washington DC, US.

New Scientist Article >>

Editor’s Note: I recently found this great article which reveals 10 ways to improve your meditation. It really doesn’t matter whether you’re a beginner or advanced at meditation, these pieces of advice are vital on getting to know your inner self.

Top Ten Tips for Meditation

by R. Pettinger

Meditation can simplify our lives and help us live in the eternal now. When we enter into real meditation we experience a real sense of peace and joy. To gain access to this inner reality meditation is necessary. These are some tips to help improve our meditation.

10 Pointers

1. Proper Breathing

If we can carefully regulate our breathing this will be a great aid to our meditation. When we slow down and become conscious of our breathing, the mind naturally slows down and it is easier to control our thoughts. When we meditate our breath should be so gentle that if someone placed a feather by our mouth it would barely move.

2. Stop Thoughts entering

This is often easier said than done. However it is the essence of meditation. If we can learn to stop our mind from pursuing endless thought then we will be able to enter into real mediation; real meditation is inner silence.

Sri Chinmoy says the essence of meditation is:

“When we meditate we empty our minds and then fill our minds with something divine.”

3. Mantra

The use of mantra can be of great help in quietening the relentless noise of the mind. A mantra is a sacred word or phrase repeated many times. By repeating a mantra we calm the mind and also make it one pointed. After chanting a mantra meditation will be easier.

4. Meditation Shrine

If we can create a sacred space for meditation we will gain added inspiration. A meditation shrine can be a small corner of a room we keep only for meditation. Over time we will find this space builds up a meditative consciousness helpful to our meditation.

5. Regularity

Like many other activities the more we practice meditation the better we will become. If we meditate sincerely everyday then we will find that our capacity to meditate increases. If our meditation is sporadic, progress is much more difficult.

6. Spiritual Heart

If we struggle to calm the mind and stop the unceasing flow of thoughts we can try meditating on the spiritual heart. We should try to feel our whole sense of awareness is leaving the mind and entering the heart. If we are able to meditate in the heart we will identify with the expansive and divine qualities the spiritual heart embodies.

7. Concentration.

To meditate well we need to master the art of concentration. In essence concentration involves focusing on only one thing at a time. If we can be one pointed and not get distracted, then our meditation will become very powerful.

8. Inspiration

Meditation should be viewed as a lifelong process of self – discovery. It is important to try and maintain our enthusiasm and inspiration for meditation. We can do this by associating with other like minded people who also meditate. If we can find a real spiritual teacher this will also give us significant inspiration to meditate.

9. Never Give Up!

Sometimes we meditate well but sometimes we feel meditation is most difficult. However it is important that we should not become discouraged just because of an unsuccessful meditation. Often we may be making progress, even if it is not always immediately obvious.

10. Intensity

Meditation doesn’t just mean sitting down quietly for 10mins. If we have real eagerness to experience the inner rewards of meditation, we will give it all our focus. When we feel this burning aspiration, our technique of meditation becomes less important. Instead our soul will come to the fore and our meditation will become spontaneous.

full article >>

“BREATHING? Are you doing it? . . . Or does it happen?”

About Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev

Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev is an Indian yogi and mystic that founded of the well renowned Isha Foundation with yoga centers across India and the USA.

He is so well respected in the meditation field and also worldwide. In 2006 this phenomenal forward-thinker was a delegate for the United Nations Millennium World Peace Summit and also spoke at the World Economic Forum.

On How To Become Meditative

“If you cultivate your body, if you cultivate your mind, your emotion and energy to a certain level of preparedness meditation will blossom within you.” – Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev

Words of Wisdom:

Sadhguru Official Website >>

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Find out the background to meditation and the proven benefits and results it has to offer.

The Benefits of Meditation

By Alex

April 7th

Meditation for health purposes is a mind-body practice in complementary and alternative medicine. There are many types of meditation, most of which originated in ancient religious and spiritual traditions.

Generally, a person who is meditating uses certain techniques, such as focusing attention (for example, on a word, an object, or the breath); a specific posture; and an open attitude toward distracting thoughts and emotions.

Meditation can be practiced for various reasons–for example, with an intent to increase physical relaxation, mental calmness, and psychological balance; to cope with one or more diseases and conditions; and for overall wellness.

This Backgrounder provides a general introduction to meditation and suggests some resources for finding out more. The term meditation refers to a group of techniques, most of which started in Eastern religious or spiritual traditions. These techniques have been used by many different cultures throughout the world for thousands of years.

Today, many people use meditation outside of its traditional religious or cultural settings, for health and wellness purposes. In meditation, a person learns to focus his attention and suspend the stream of thoughts that normally occupy the mind. This practice is believed to result in a state of greater physical relaxation, mental calmness, and psychological balance.

Practicing meditation can change how a person relates to the flow of emotions and thoughts in the mind. And here is your list of the benefits of meditating. At the bottom of this article you will find links to start learning how to meditate.

Health Improvements

General Health

Improvement of body luster and general health – When your mind focuses on a particular part of the body, the blood flow to that part increases and cells receive more oxygen and other nutrients in abundance. Today, many of the film stars and fashion models include meditation in their daily regime.

Positive Hormones

When practicing meditation, your heart rate and breathing slow down, your blood pressure normalizes, you use oxygen more efficiently and you sweat less. Your adrenal glands produce less cortisol, adrenaline and noradrenaline, you make more positive hormones, your body ages at a slower rate and your immune function improves.

Your mind also clears and your creativity increases. People who meditate regularly find it easier to give up life-damaging habits like smoking, drinking and drugs.

Proven Results

Research shows that meditation can help ease a host of stress-related problems, including chronic pain, headaches, anxiety, PMS, sleep disorders, even infertility. In a study on anxiety at the University of Massachusetts, 20 out of 22 anxiety-prone volunteers showed marked improvement after taking an eight-week class in meditation.

And in a study on headaches, 72 percent of headache sufferers reported moderate to great improvement after learning how to meditate.

Cultivate Awareness

Meditation is reported to calm the anxiety that frequently accompanies chronic pain by cultivating awareness. At the Duke University Medical School, psychiatrist Ron Vereen teaches Integrative Medicine students how to use meditation along with mindful breathing as a tool for coping with pain.

Becoming mindful through meditation doesn’t diminish pain but changes one’s understanding and relationship to pain. By removing resistance to pain, the suffering is relieved.

Mental Improvements

Being at Ease with the World

Meditation leads to a feeling of being at ease with the world. Like many people who meditate, you may find that you have greater self-esteem, self-confidence and inner peace. You’re able to concentrate more easily and and your ability to learn and remember improves.

Relieves Depression

Feelings of helplessness, hopelessness and isolation are hallmarks of depression-the nation’s most prevalent mental health problem. Meditation increases self-confidence and feelings of connection to others. Many studies have shown that depressed people feel much better after eliciting the relaxation response.

Stress Relieving

Meditation can help to resolve the deepest of neuroses, fears and conflict which play their part in causing stress and ill health.

Effective Treatment for Insomnia

Intrusive thoughts and increased muscle tension can interfere with your sleep. It’s not surprising, therefore, that practicing meditation, with its effects of quieting your mind and relaxing your body, has been found to be an effective treatment for insomnia. Several studies have shown that regular meditation results in higher blood levels of melatonin, a hormone that plays a critical role in the regulation of sleep.

Higher IQ

Increased brain wave coherence. Harmony of brain wave activity in different parts of the brain is associated with greater creativity, improved moral reasoning, and higher IQ.

Babies and Ladies

Meditation puts mothers in tune with their babies. Manta Japa is especially appropriate for pregnant women. After birth, daily meditation becomes a precious time to refocus and make sense of the many new thoughts and feelings which can be running through your mind, brought about by the events of childbirth and new motherhood.

“When you meditate regularly, you dramatically reduce your body’s response to stress, and that can ease the discomfort associated with PMS,” Dr. Carrington.

 

Learn How to Meditate

Breathing Meditation

The first stage of meditation is to stop distractions and make our mind clearer and more lucid. This can be accomplished by practicing a simple breathing meditation. We choose a quiet place to meditate and sit in a comfortable position. The most important thing is to keep our back straight to prevent our mind from becoming sluggish or sleepy. link.

General Meditation

Meditating a few minutes each day is a proven stress reducer, and it can improve your outlook on life as well. There are as many different meditation methods as there are instructors, but if all you need is a basic, universal method, here’s an easy way to get started. link.

Buddhist Meditation

This mindfulness actually envelops our whole life. It is the best way to appreciate our world, to appreciate the sacredness of everything. We add mindfulness and all of a sudden the whole situation becomes alive. This practice soaks into everything that we do; there’s nothing left out. Mindfulness pervades sound and space. It is a complete experience. link.

Yoga Meditation

Meditation lifts us above the cares and anxieties of our daily life, it enables us to overcome our moral weaknesses and evil habits and thus transform our very life. By dispelling ignorance, meditation removes all our morbid and childish fears and leads us to the hall of divine light, where we perceive our self as the immortal essence of all existence, where we realize that we are at once linked in a bond of eternal love with all creation. link.

Zen Meditation

Zazen is a particular kind of meditation, unique to Zen, that functions centrally as the very heart of the practice. In fact, Zen Buddhists are generally known as the “meditation Buddhists.” Basically, zazen is the study of the self. link.

benefits of meditation >>

He dates back the state of no mind consciousness, the merging of the soul and the spirit, to biblical times with the transfiguration at the Mount of Olives.

Yogiraj’s Lesson

“Humanity is one’s only religion. . .

Breath is one’s only prayer. . .

Consciousness is one’s only God”

10 Enlightening Minutes

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Hello World! For anybody out there that practices meditation or is interested to start, your life has just started to taste that much sweeter.

Meditation Living is the only destination you’ll now need to know for the most comprehensive information and thoughts on the practice of meditation.

Everyday we’ll serve up gripping articles covering the masters and leaders of meditation, all the different techniques  possible, insights into how meditation and yoga is practiced throughout the world, great meditation experiences and how meditation benefits both your mind and your health.

When you think of meditation you are certainly on the right path, and we hope to share this amazing, enlightening journey with you along the way in the quest for inner piece.