My experience with meditation is relatively brief. I’ve been sitting down and meditating for only about two and a half years. This is all relatively new to me, even though my introduction to meditation goes back many, many years. The clear transformation, however, has only happened during my recent experience of actually sitting down and meditating.
It is only recently that I have learned to anchor my meditation in focused body-awareness. My gateway into meditation is through my intimate awareness of my body. Like others who meditate, I often rely on my breath to make me aware of my physical person. I observe my body, I feel my chest or whole body, I settle into that awareness. My mind is given nothing else to do but pay attention to my body and what it feels.
I have learned what this feels like only because I have done it many, many times. My attention finds its way home, just as I can find my way through my house with no lights on. I have cultivated the habit of being attentive and totally immersed in the awareness of my body.
That’s really all there is to it. As my mind wants to wander off, I notice that it is wandering. There are some times that I will choose to follow the lead of my mind and perhaps reflect on some observation my mind might make. Mostly, I watch my thoughts pass by, much as I might watch a passing cloud. I am meditating.
Some people like to use guided meditation as a guide in their meditation exercise. It gives them something to be attentive to. For me, guided meditation runs away with my awareness. I like to remain aware of the intense presence of my body.
For me, meditation is an exercise. It is practice in being attentive. I am training and strengthening my mind very much as I train and strengthen my back and leg muscles by the exercises I do at the gym. I carry the experience of that meditation training with me through the day, and consciously call upon it to be intentionally mindful of what I am doing
I rely on my gym exercise to help me to go up and down my stairs. I rely on my meditation practice to help me be aware I am going up and down the stairs.