What is the power of meditation?
Let’s start by defining what meditation is.
Your mind is arguably the most powerful thing you have, and while some things in life are beyond control, your mind is something you can control. One of the ways you can control it is via meditation. So you can say meditation is a form of self control.
This is incredibly empowering. When you change your state of mind for the better you have more control over your destiny. You can manage your thoughts, discarding the negative ones and focusing on the positive ones. You can overcome worries and fears, and create a state of mind that empowers and helps you to take action and live the life you want to live, free from stress and anxiety. Meditation also gives you energy and enhances your energy centres and meridian channels
There are two types of meditation:
1) Standing Meditation
2) Sitting Meditation
Benefits Of Standing Meditation
Standing meditation has its roots in the Chinese internal arts, where it helps participants develop their skills in Qigong and Tai Chi. Its effects on the individual vary from person to person, but the ultimate aim for anyone who takes it up is to improve the overall health and wellbeing.
Some benefits of standing meditation are:
- Improves sensitivity with your environment
- Helps to develop more physical and mental strength
- Improves posture
- Enhances flexibility
- Builds internal energy quickly.
- Endurance – by practising standing meditation, you are able to raise your endurance levels by simply standing and focusing.
Benefits Of Sitting Meditation
Sitting meditation is the most popular type of meditation in the Western world. As mentioned earlier, this type of meditation helps to calm the mind and keep negative thoughts at bay and allows more focus. Where standing meditation can provide more physical benefits, sitting meditation provides emotional benefits, such as:
- Focus – By practising sitting meditation, you are able to increase focus. When you first begin to meditate you may find the ability to concentrate very low, but as you increase sitting time you find the conscious mind babble will quieten and the sub conscious quiet mind will increase allowing for more awareness of self and your surroundings to arise.
- The ability to observe – As you are able to sit for longer periods of time you will observe as thoughts and feelings arise and pass away. Just simply observing this process is powerful in and of itself. This ability to just observe without reaction will extend into your daily waking life and helps you become less reactive to things around you.
- Meditation helps to see things as they are, as most of our suffering comes from not accepting things and wanting things to be different than they are.
- You learn to let go. Through sitting meditation, an understanding of the impermanence of all things will develop and with it comes more inner peace.
- You get a better sense of self. How this benefit manifests itself is unique to the individual. Through meditation, you grow more self-aware, to the point where your decision-making and action-taking is less reactive and much more authentic.
For emotional and physical well being, it’s a good idea to practice both sitting and standing meditation. By practising both regularly, you can achieve an equilibrium and a sense of calm that radiates on both the outside and inside.
Anyone can practice meditation, you don’t need any special qualifications and it costs no money at all. You can practice in your bedroom, outdoors, or with a group of friends, or practice wherever you feel comfortable, a quiet space is all that is required. The benefits are profound.
