28-Day Meditation Challenge

I'm very excited to announce a new project that begins February 1.  I have committed to Sharon Salzberg's 28-day meditation challenge and I am honored to be one of the bloggers discussing my experience in community.  This is her second year doing this, you can read last year's archives here.

The challenge is to follow Sharon's program as laid out in her book, Real Happiness: The Power of Meditation: A 28-Day Program.  The book is neither too woo-woo nor too advanced, it offers a framework that can enhance any level of practice.

As my own background, I started meditating in 2010 when I joined Simply Power Yoga.  The two practices tend to go together well, as they both focus on breathing and present time awareness.  In my experience, some yoga teachers utilize meditation in classes more than others and I feel lucky to have found a teacher who is gifted in meditation and yoga.  Gina Fennell talks about mindfulness and meditation in a blog post here.

There are countless ways to meditate but I have found that the simple ways Gina teaches work well for me.  She speaks my language too.  I once heard her describe meditation as, "Sit down, shut up and see what happens."  I've had people ask me how to meditate and that's the best way to put it.  There's no dogma and it's not a religion.

You don't need any special equipment, unless you want some.  I usually light a candle and set a timer, but anything more than that would probably just distract me.  I don't meditate as often as I think I should (there's that word again) but the beauty of meditation is that you can meet yourself wherever you are.

The point is to try to stay fully present in the moment.  If you're anything like me, your mind is constantly running between events of the past and plans for the future.  That's ok, that's what the mind does.  The Monkey Mind.  It's quite useful in its thinking ways.

But for a certain time, I shoot for 20 minutes, we ask our minds to step into the background and let our sensing self have a turn.  The most constant reminder we have of this moment is our breathing, so we concentrate on that.  Sometimes I count my breaths, or the length of my breath.  Sometimes I pay attention to where I feel the breath most strongly at the moment.  Sometimes I try to trace the breath in and out.  Of course I have been know to get lost in those "games" too, so it's a balance.

Eventually I let my other senses be known through investigation, like how my legs feel where the meet the floor, what the air feels like on my skin or what I can hear and smell.  Of course, that can draw you deep into mind stories.  Once again.  Balance.

And that's the crux of the practice.  When you are drawn away and realize it, you have the choice to come back.  To me, that is the moment of magic - when you choose to come back.  And make no mistake, I choose it over and over and over.  I consider myself a success if I can manage to follow one breath in and out without getting distracted.  No judgement of being a "failure."

You can't do this wrong.  There is no secret and it's hard as hell.  But the openings in my awareness have been awesome, and I just get little cracks here and there.  When I quiet my mind, I find that insights open up and my signature emotional turmoils calm down.

I am so looking forward to 28 days in a row, and writing about it.  I hope you'll consider joining me.

For further reading:

Highly recommend Sharon's book on which this program is based

Sharon's website - on meditations

Against the Stream - American Buddhism written in my native tongue (check it out and you'll know what I mean)