A Simple Approach to Meditation

Bliss More by Light Watkins shares a practical approach to meditation for our modern society, that I highly recommend. I’ve been dabbling with meditation for over a year now, but have had trouble keeping up with a consistent practice. I found myself worrying about whether I was meditating properly, felt uncomfortable sitting cross-legged for an extension of time, and had trouble trying to turn off my thoughts. Needless to say, there’s a much simpler and comfortable way to approach meditation. Light shares what he calls the E.A.S.Y. approach to Bliss. Combined with this approach, make a promise to yourself to meditate for a minimum of 10-20 minutes at least once a day if not twice. Once in the morning, once in the evening. The more consistent you are with the practice, the more you will notice and feel the benefits. One other extremely important aspect is finding a comfortable position that works for your body, similar to how you might watch TV.

The E.A.S.Y. approach to bliss:

Embrace: practice allowing the existence of all of your thoughts and experience
Accept: cultivate an attitude that whatever is happening in your meditation is what should be happening This includes happy thoughts, sad thoughts, negative thoughts, sleep dreams, wondering about the item, and feeling antsy
Surrender: be willing at all times to surrender your idea to how you feel your meditation should be progressing. Surrender to thoughts, sensations, noises, or distractions
Yield: be open to whatever is happening in your meditation.

Why meditate?
Daily life makes us all susceptible to accumulating stress, mostly due to the non-stop demands and pressure of juggling work, home and personal responsibilities. This stress revs up the nervous system cousin the brain to flood the body with hormones that trigger overreacting, irrational thinking and even insomnia. As it happens, meditation has been proven as one of the greater counter-stress solutions. When practiced daily, meditation can help to restore balance and re-supply much needed rest to your physiology. Common side effects of a daily meditation are increased energy and feelings of contentedness and inner happiness.