A Lust for Life, with the help of 1 Giant Mind founder Jonni Pollard, are on a mission to support you getting your meditation groove on and over the coming weeks we will be sharing out some helpful tips, tools are resources. To help keep the process flowing, here are four principles to help make meditation easier and more enjoyable.
By now you’ve probably downloaded the 1 Giant Mind Learn to Meditate App and began the process of learning how to meditate. If you haven’t, make it the next thing you do after reading this post! Learning to meditate is actually very easy with an experienced teacher and a great technique. Below are four key tips to help you get started and keep your meditation practice flowing strong.
The four principles are:
- Having a Teacher(s) with Knowledge of the Mind
- Having an Effective Technique
- Correct Attitude
- Regularity
Think of these four principles as the four legs of a horse. A great meditation practice gives you the ability to stay on the horse and ride it through any circumstance in life. Life can be busy, stressful and very challenging at times. If you are able to keep these four legs of your horse strong and stable, you’re guaranteed to stay on. Remove any one of these legs and you’re going to have a tough time getting that horse to giddy up.
All four principles are equally important. You need each of them in equal proportion to keep you comfortably cruising along.
- Having a Teacher with Knowledge of the Mind
Understanding why the mind does what it does and knowing how we can influence it to do what we want it to do (rather than being a slave to it) is really why we meditate. The workings of the mind are subtle, obscure and at times utterly confusing. This is why it is important to have an experienced teacher/s with direct insight into the nature of the mind gained from their personal experience. Without an understanding of the nature of the mind, we find it difficult to understand and contextualise all the different experiences we have in meditation, what they mean and how to relate to them.
Often, when we don’t understand our meditation experiences, we tend to resist them, thinking that we are not meditating correctly. We then fall into the trap of trying to make the mind do something it doesn’t want to do. At this point, the practice can become frustrating and even feel like a chore. If meditation feels like this, then you are completely missing the point. A teacher with knowledge of the mind helps eliminate doubt and ensures you won’t get stuck.
- Having an Effective Technique
There are many techniques and styles of meditation. A good meditation technique enables the mind to expand beyond the everyday level of thinking into quieter states of awareness and simultaneously enables the body to rest deeply. If a technique requires focus and concentration it can often cause more stress and frustration than restful expansion. Effortlessness and ease is key here.
- Correct attitude
Attitude is 25% of the game here. Meditation is a journey, not a destination. When you start your meditation practice, it is important to surrender your expectations, preferences and preconceived ideas about what you think meditation is. Discovering the nature of your mind is the most radical journey you can undertake. To do this successfully, you must take the approach of being the innocent witness. If you come to your practice with rigid ideas about what you want, you may very well miss out on what you actually need in that moment. Forcing the mind to make things happen in meditation will have the opposite effect of what you desire. So let go and get flow.
- Regularity
Like anything, the more you meditate the more it becomes habitual and the benefits increase exponentially. This principle applies to all things positive and negative. The more we go to the gym the stronger and fitter we get, the more we surf, the better our style or the more we smoke cigarettes the more addicted and unhealthy we become. It seems so obvious reading this right now, however, as you will discover when you begin to meditate, without this leg of the horse, the practice won’t yield what you truly desire. Regularity is key.
The 1 Giant Mind ‘Learn to Meditate’ App is free, easy to use and facilitates expansion of the mind and deep bodily rest. If you haven’t already and want to get started right away you can download our app now for free. This program has been created by experienced meditation teachers who know exactly how to get you on the meditation horse and riding like a pro in no time.
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