So I’ve been hearing and reading much more about meditation on podcasts, articles, and here on WordPress. I don’t practice much anymore and the longest stint I’ve done was a little less than a year of continually trying to do some form of meditation. In this post I wanted to give you my take on meditation.

It’s my assumption that when most people think of meditation they think of sitting in a quite room, sitting cross-legged, eyes closed, and doing nothing. However, that’s not at all how I practiced.

A little background. During my run of being a vegetarian and being all up into Buddhism, I read books on the Dalai Lama and other Buddhist books. The one that taught me a little something something on mediation was a book called Savor by Thich Nhat Hanh.

It was meditation through food, but it can transfer over to any part of your daily life. What this book taught me to do was, whenever I ate, I would think about everything that went into the food I was eating. I would think about the farmer who tended to the plants or animals, his family that he was providing for. I would think about the employees at the store selling it or help package the food and how what they were doing was helping live. I would just think about all the processes that went into that food. It not only made me more mindful (as the books cover suggests), but it also made me aware of that exact moment I was in as I was eating. I think one of the objectives of meditating is to be completely are of the “now.”

It is good to find some time to just sit and quietly concentrate on your breathing and empty your mind, but it doesn’t have to be that way every time you want to meditate.

How do you meditate?

Sidenote: I recommend the book and I do try and practice meditation from time to time still.