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Bring Joy to Life with Meditation
By Ace Remas
All of us without exception seek a purpose in our lives. A sense of purpose makes our activities feel meaningful. This meaning we experience as joy. Purpose brings joy, and joy is what we want.|
Meditation is like medicine, therapeutically removing the
obstacles to joy. |
So why is it, when we’re surrounded by all these sources of joy, we feel sad and blue, depressed, fearful, worried, or in pain? Where is the joy in our problems?
If the challenges in our lives haven’t brought us joy, it is because we have lost our purpose. To bring back the joy we have to remember our purpose.
This remembering is called mindfulness—literally a “not forgetting.” The chief way to create mindfulness throughout the day is to begin the day with meditation. Meditation creates mindfulness; with mindfulness we do not forget our purpose; with purpose we find joy in our life. Therefore, the chief way to joy is meditation.
People meditate for many different reasons. For some, meditation is therapy. For others, it is a pleasant interlude to a demanding day, sort of a mental vacation. For others, meditation becomes spiritual, revealing truths and subtle meanings in a new way. For some, meditation can be religious, reinforcing reverent beliefs.
In short, meditation is what you make of it. In reality, it is not one or another of these things. It is all of them and none of them. The meaning of your meditation will come from you, not from what someone tells you it is.
Meditation is a tool. Any tool can be used for multiple purposes. For example, you can use a hammer to build beautiful things, and you can use it to destroy something. Meditation is a tool you can use to make your life better by bringing back purpose and joy to your daily experience.
The easiest way to begin a simple meditation practice is to focus on your breath. As you inhale and exhale, just keep your attention on the breath, temporarily stopping or ignoring the thoughts and feelings that may arise unbidden. Follow the in and out movement of the air, feel the sensation of the air passing through the nostrils, sense the rise and fall of the chest, relax the body throughout. Although you try to avoid thoughts and feelings, don’t fight with them. Let them come and go without commentary or reaction. Let them pass by like clouds skimming overhead, unnoticed.
You can evolve from this fundamental beginning of meditation to more refined levels according to your intent. As you are able to focus your concentration on the breath and are not distracted by thoughts and feelings, you can imagine as you inhale that you are breathing in pure white light, a purifying and pleasant white light. As you breathe out you imagine that all your distractions, negativities, and tension are exhaled in the form of black smoke, permanently removing these obstructions from your mental continuum.
Continue this concentration for as long as you wish. If you must stop meditating, pick it up the next time you meditate. At some point you’ll come to feel pure and liberated from distraction, as if your skin is a thin membrane containing a body of pure white light, which you have identified as your true nature. Meditate on this purity without distraction for as long as you can.
Before long you’ll be able to revisit this peaceful state of mind effortlessly in meditation. The experience of this calm view will influence your day; bringing contentment in places where before it was not possible, bringing wisdom where confusion might have reigned, bringing action where hesitation once stalled you. You will find that in actuality you have discovered a great tool to bring purpose to your life.
Meditation is like a medicine, therapeutically removing the obstacles to joy. It is re-energizing, like a brief vacation, giving you the ability to relax even when there are external stresses. You may find your meditative experience meaningful in a way you would call spiritual, revealing aspects of your true potential that you will then want to realize. And some will find meditation even a religious experience, empowering their prayers and sacred beliefs. No matter how you individually interpret your meditation, it will help you find purpose, meaning, and ultimately joy.
For more info call the Tahoe Yoga & Wellness Center/Reno at 775-746-8681.
