Question
hi jay,
longtime wonderer, first time asker. with the new school yr and tests around the corner, i've been thinking about meditation, to help me relieve the stress, clear the mind, and better absorb the info. but how do i get started? cuz i'm always afraid that if i close my eyes, i'm gonnna fall asleep. and also, do people really get visions? or are they just dreaming? and can meditation help me improve my grades (like allowing me to study better and remember more)? and will it allow me to connect with the real me and understand who i am?
i'm sorry about the workload, but thanks in advance!
Answer
Hey, John.
There are all kinds of meditation techniques and strategies that have been developed which aim at producing certain mental or physical results. My interest is not in techniques but in letting go of "techniquing" and just be in touch as openly as possible.
This is the simplest way of letting light be shed on things and at the same time allowing the body and mind to find its own balance. Everything flows naturally from this in-touchness, including any visual imagery that needs to come out. This is a very simple, direct way of understanding what one is, how we operate, what parts of ourselves are passing and changing phenomena and what unchanging stillness and presence are.
When you sit quietly, someplace relatively comfortable and upright, you may well fall asleep. If so, you probably needed it! If you have one sleepy round, sometimes the next round of sitting is not so sleepy. Or you can get up and go to bed and try sitting quietly at a time you are not so tired.
You can also take an interest in this sleepiness and see if it is possible to observe how it works in you, if it comes from lack of sleep and overwork or is resistance to staying conscious when there is nothing to be engaged in.
This meditative presence is an engagement with what is here right now, both inside and outside. The nervous system is not used to that and maybe can't really do it at first. I've seen people sit down to try to meditate and jump up like a spring after about 3 minutes! Often they never try it again.
It can be good to bring to this silent sitting questions and concerns about our life, human life, that come up from our daily living. There are so many things that leave me wondering "Where did that reaction in me come from?", "What was I trying to defend?", etc. We can sit down with questions like this and, realizing that thinking about these questions is of limited help, switch into observing, with a transparency to the thoughts and feelings that are happening right along with the simple sounds of the fan or traffic humming by. This is really a radical change of direction from theorizing about our lives to actually being in touch with it in a way that reveals what is happening.
I hope this helps a bit. Please let me know if something I said was unclear or doesn't seem accurate and let me know how it goes.
Best,
Jay
