The Unnatural Act of Meditating

It’s pretty well documented that meditation helps you focus better, think more clearly, be more patient and maybe  get you  through your day with a little less coffee.

So… you’ve never really figured out how to mediate.  It just doesn’t come naturally to you. You sit down and pretend to be some type of guru. You feel silly. You sit there for five, ten, thirty minutes and nothing happens. You’re bored out of your mind. Your mind is racing ahead to your next meal or maybe what you have to accomplish before the day is over.

You’ve tried meditating before and you’re sure pretty sure you won’t b able to reach any type of Zen state. There are a ton of reasons why you’re having trouble.  My contention is that all the myriad of reasons really boil down to one.

First, I have a thought that I will ask in the form of a question? Have you ever been so busy at work (or at school) that you don’t have time to spend on all the things that you need to do? Your whole day is booked. You don’t have time to assess and analyze your work. You just do it and however  it comes out is what you turn in. Your mind is in overdrive, racing one hundred miles an hour. You are in an adrenaline pumping zone.

Basically, you were meditating while you worked. (Interesting note: There is a long history of mediation while performing tasks. You’re not doing anything new.) With single minded focus you accomplished what you needed to do. You may argue with me that work isn’t meditation. That’s where you and I will disagree. Most every human meditates every day.

When you drive to work do you take the same route every day? How often do you look up and realize that you just drove a block and you weren’t even aware of it? You were meditating. In a meeting or a lecture, do ever look at your watch and realize that you have no idea what was being said for the last five minutes? You were meditating. You may have another name for this state of sub-consciousness. Basically, your mind is taking a break for just a few minutes, which is a form of meditation. Whenever time stands still for you, you’ve meditated.

The biggest difference is that these everyday experiences and the meditation you’ve tried and failed at is one of direction. In a self directed meditation you have a goal or objective. Maybe you have a mantra.
So what’s the problem? You can mediate when the pressure is on (when you’re under a strict deadline) and you can meditate when you’re bored (sitting in a meeting), why can’t you meditate when you choose too?

In the first case, your adrenaline was pumping and you didn’t have time to edit yourself. You just let things come out of your mind. Editing is typically a left brain function. This means that you basically turned-off your natural, mental editor and relied on your G-d given talent. You just worked. You’re left brain was not dominating your right brain. Your right brain was free to inspire and direct your actions while your left brain guided you.

The right brain is more intuitive and understands things rapidly, using images and feelings about information you already had stored in your mind. There was no time to argue with yourself, put out the fire and react later. The urgency of the situation ratcheted your performance up. There may have been some small errors like punctuation, which is more of a left brain function, but you probably did pretty well.

In the second case, you’re bored left brain allowed for your right brain to be more active. Your right brain kind of took over and wandered into some images and thought that you might not even recall. You didn’t analyze anything critically. You just felt kind of mindless. This meditation had not direction and no purpose.

So David….what’s the problem? The problem is one of brain alignment. Your left brain oriented functions and right brain oriented functions are off kilter. When either one is dominating, it’s very difficult to meditate. When you sit down with a very directed meditation, you’re left brain has taken charge and isn’t really leaving any room for your right brain.

Some of you may argue that the brain isn’t so neatly divided into left and right brainfunctions. You would argue that brain processing is highly distributed. You would be correct. However, since all communications from between hemispheres has to go through something called the corpus callosum, it really doesn’t matter. The corpus callosum manages all the traffic from both sides.

If a memory or command is split across the left and right brain, the communication has to go through it. The distributed nature of thinking require that you use both sides of the brain. If you get anxious or critical or commanding, your left brain is going to take over. This is why I sometimes refer to left brain and left brain oriented and the right brain as right brain oriented.

How do you align your mind to work in an optimal manner? How do you reach balanced mental state? You’ve probably figured out that balance is the one thing I was referring too. Without balance, it’s very difficult to meditate.

Stay tuned for my upcoming posts on how to achieve better mental balance and deeper states of meditation.

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