Meditation is an important activity for centering your mind, body, and even psyche, and Technalink always encourages people to try it. However, that recommendation is tempered with a warning: Meditation, while easy to do, is not easy to master quickly.
Another Art
Anyone who has ever tried to learn a musical instrument, pick up a pencil and draw, or even sit down to write a novel knows that you must be patient with yourself in the beginning. Certainly, you may have ambitions of playing beautiful music, creating a stunning drawing, or even telling a moving story, but most people have reasonable expectations of what their earliest attempts in these arts will look like. Few people expect to sound like a concert pianist, create a Mona Lisa, or write a Pulitzer-winning book straight out of the gate.
The same is true with meditation. The goal of meditation is to learn to cultivate mindfulness, focus on the present, and get bogged down in intrusive, random thoughts. This seems, on the surface, like it may be an easy activity, but like the arts, this requires practice, and people must be patient with themselves in the beginning.
Mindfulness Is Not Easy
As with the arts, practice and repetition is the key. Except that where the arts are about creating and reinforcing new neural pathways that become familiar with fingering on an instrument, understanding light and shadow on paper, or creating convincing dialog in a story, mindfulness is about being able to focus on the present, to allow a distance from thoughts and feelings so as to be able to observe them as they happen, and then let them go, and focus on the here and now.
Needless to say, exerting influence over thoughts and feelings is a discipline that takes practice. Repetition and the use of tools for focus, such as mala prayer beads, can be useful aids in helping to master these skills.
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