Making Meditation Work for You

Meditation is one of those things that makes me go hmmmmmmm...It's a rather simple thing, right? Essentially, you're supposed to sit and be. There's no doing, which can be a tough thing for our minds, which are made to run around in circles like an excited dog nipping at his tail. Sounds easy, right? No, I'm not talking about the mind doing its excited thing because that's par for the course. I'm talking about the fact that sitting in stillness is pretty basic. Yet when one begins a relationship with meditation, things get complicated.
First off, there are teachers that try to help us sit in stillness (do we need someone to tell us how to sit still?!?!). They answer our questions (which is funny in and of itself -- meditation isn't about thinking and asking questions, it's about being, remember?), they give us techniques (sit...get ready...stay -- yeah, that's quite a technique), they provide us with instruction and advice regarding our posture. That sounds like an awful lot of work to just sit still. Like I said -- complicated. (MORE)

Source: Opposing Views