Meditation for a Quiet Mind

So you're ready to explore Meditation? There are many ways to go about it, but essentially meditation is about one thing: opening to the depths of this very moment.

Our minds are constantly at work, going over the same habitual thoughts again and again. The experience for most of us in any given moment is that we are stuck in our heads, disconnected from our bodies, and living one step removed from our immediate situation.

Meditation is a method for synchronizing body and mind in the present moment.When the body and mind are in sync, we are naturally relaxed, alert, open, and aware, and we experience ourselves and the world in a direct, unmediated way, without conceptual filters. It is this direct experience of the fullness, vitality, and splendor of life that is the gift of meditation.

Meditation is generally an internal, personal practice and done without any external involvement, except perhaps prayer beads to count prayers, though many practitioners of meditation may rely on external objects such as candle flames as points on which to focus their attention as an aid to the process. Meditation often involves invoking or cultivating a feeling or internal state, such as compassion, or attending to a specific focal point. The term can refer to the state itself, as well as to practices or techniques employed to cultivate the state.