What is Meditation?
Difference between Mindfulness and Meditation
I’ve started practicing yoga when I was searching for means to calm my frantically anxious and restless mind to the point of illness. So no wonder I found a Tantra and Tibetan Buddhism mentor to study with in Canada. What is more, I settled in a city called Halifax where a group of American Buddhists from Colorado moved in 1970s led by none other than Chogyam Trumpa, himself and later a well known author and buddhist nun, Pema Chödron settled in a Buddhist temple, Gampo Abbey in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia.
It was a spiritual heaven. In those early 2000s, there were a few Ayurvedic practitioners down the road from where I practiced yoga, vegan restaurants were popping up and it was not hard to find meditation circles.
So I am well aware of the luck I had to have learned yoga and meditation. I say, yoga and meditation, as if these two are separate things but they are not.
Nowadays, when I say yoga, people immediately picture a fitness class where really it’s not a yoga class but an āsana (posture) class. There is nothing wrong with it but I am apt to differentiate those two.
If you look at the chart that I have created here, you can see that Ayurveda, prānayāma and āsana are just parts of what we call Abhyasa or practice (Abhyasa means something that repeats).
You can see that the top of this pyramid is Samadhi and Nada. The means to get to Samadhi is all the practices we now know to be yoga.
And these wide spread yoga practices are all aimed for us to find meditative states or minds that are suitable for meditation.
The practice of meditation is basically a process of getting to know yourself by becoming familiar with your mind. The Buddhist view of the mind is that it’s always awake. Its nature is awareness and compassion. Whatever meditation practices we may do, they are all intended to increase our mindfulness and awareness, strengthen our sense of inner peace, and improve our ability to deal with our emotions as well.
Mindfulness is to pay deep and focused attention to what is around you. Whatever the situation you are in, or actions you are taking, that is where you place your mind’s attention. In other words, mindfulness is outward focused where meditation is inward focused.
I must mention here that I am not referring to “meditative activities” such as listening to music while walking, or lying on the bed or floor during savasana or yoga nidrā. These are restful activities that may induce a quality of meditative states but it is not what I call a formal meditation practice.
If you are in search of a meditation practice seriously, this is what I recommend:
- Find a meditation teacher (I teach both online and in-person lessons)
- Find a space in your house where it faces north or north east. It doesn’t have to be big or fancy. It just needs a space that you can dedicate for meditation practice.
- Start with basic Shamatha meditation. (I do coaching on this method)
- Start small. 3-5 minutes and continue on everyday for 30 days without skipping. Then increase a little more.
Once you start, it is natural to have questions. I am always available to spread meditation practices so please do ask any time.
Hoping for more peaceful and stable days to come for all.
Hi, My name is Tomomi. I’ve been a teacher of yoga and meditation for 16 years and have been practicing since 2000. I have been fortunate to teach yoga to people from so many backgrounds and belief systems. And all of these experiences confirm that yoga goes way beyond what we commonly understand. I am committed to spreading yoga that doesn’t end in āsana, yoga that aims to build a healthy stability for the mind. I met yoga while I was studying Psychology at a Canadian university and I was trained by teachers who didn’t forget yogic philosophy and traditions.
Currently, I live in Okinawa, Japan teaching private yoga classes in-person or online.
If you are interested or have questions, please feel free to contact me.