Meditation is sacred idleness. It’s an activity that requires you to do nothing… except to use your mind to turn off your mind.

Why bother?

Our thoughts are tremendously powerful:  whatever we feel, say or do is preceded by what we think and don’t think.  Ultimately, the content of your thoughts determine the way you live your life. 

Muddled thinking is often accompanied by a sense of fragmentation and confusion.  Clear, focused thinking usually leads to clarity of intention and a sense of purpose.

How does one transform muddled thinking to clear thinking?

If our minds worked like a television, we could use the remote control to switch from Channel Muddle to Channel Clarity.  Meditation is a method by which to switch channels, and it works by turning down the volume and blurring the images of Channel Muddle, so that Channel Clarity can emerge from the silence.

Meditation works with the principle that all the clarity and all the understanding we need are already within us. We just have to get beyond the constant chattering of Channel Muddle to access it.

A common denominator among dozens of ways to meditate is a point of focus.  By aiming and sustaining your attention on a single point of focus, the muddled chatter calms down. 

The consequences are unpredictable:  once you’ve muted Channel Muddle, you never know what you’re going to get on Channel Clarity… there is no monthly programme guide.  However, Channel Clarity’s programmes are the best in the universe:  ever-inspiring, surprising and at times even life-changing.  Please be aware that there is no guarantee that you’ll even catch a programme on Channel Clarity once you’ve muted Channel Muddle.  Sometimes they just broadcast Pure Silence, so don’t fall into the trap of having expectations!  Simply giving yourself a regular break from your chattering mind is already a great habit.

Quietening the chattering mind is usually a frustrating experience.  The moment your attention wanders and you lose your point of focus, the incessant chattering resumes instantly.

Meditation practice entails a very simple cycle: 

Guided meditation is an easy way to begin to train a mind capable of holding focus:  it provides a focus point and gives you short periods of time to practice holding focus.  If your attention wanders, it’s never long before a voice reminds you to return to your point of focus. 

Learning to ride a bicycle with training wheels gives you a chance to “get the feeling”.  When you are ready to try and ride without the training wheels, you are likely to fall a few times… until you eventually master this skill for life.  Unfortunately, meditation doesn’t work like this at all.  Even the most seasoned solo-meditator is still susceptible to the noise of the chattering, muddled mind.  He or she can fall off the bicycle at any time.  That is why meditation is a lifelong practice, and why success does not depend on not losing focus, but on finding it again each time that you became aware that you’ve lost it.

Meditation for Busy People is meditation-with-training-wheels.  It’s helpful for novice meditators as well as experienced meditators who have fallen off the bicycle and want to get back on track.  Each exercise provides a simple structure to help you focus your mind.  You need only 15 or 20 minutes to do a worthwhile practice.  There is no need to do all the exercises in one sitting – once you know what each exercise is about, you will be able to choose the exercise that best suits your needs when it’s time for your practice.

When you start to find the instructions and music intrusive, it’s probably a good time to move on to solo-meditation by choosing your own focus point and follow the meditation cycle silently for 10 – 20 minutes. 

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