Meditation

Several years ago I was on a trip to France with my 6th form Media class and staying at the Disney Land Paris resort (the ‘ranch’ type one). During the day we went on lots of rides while pretending to be doing work while in the evening we snuck out and went exploring.
We met girls, found alcohol and did flips into bushes. Then we threw a tennis ball at each others crotches. I decided I was in love with one girl in particular but as usual ballsed it up and came back to my room at about 3am yearning but still buzzing none the less.
Without thinking I flicked on the light to be greeted by the site of my roomy. I felt pretty bad - I’d forgotten this guy had opted to stay in. He wasn’t sleeping though, he was just sitting their frozenonto the spot. I waved at him and got no response. I thought this was odd but decided he’d probably had some kind of epileptic seizure. Unsure what to do I decided to look around for a pen to draw a willy on his head or perhaps some other amusing image (I’ve matured since then... maybe...).
As I crept closer with the pen in hand his eyes suddenly flickered open like something out of a horror movie. I let out a loud yet manly scream then collected myself.
‘Sorry if I’ve disturbed you...’ I said pretending to be writing on the wall.
‘No don’t worry,’ he said, ‘I wasn’t sleeping.’
‘Ah okay...’ I sat in silence for a moment before my curiosity got the better of me. ‘Just sitting... and... doing nothing then eh? Nothing better than a bit of sitting and doing nothing while everyone else is out exploring Paris...’
‘Meditating.’ he corrected me. Freak.

This event had put me off the idea of meditation for several years. It seemed to me that the only people who did it were weirdos and social rejects. I still suspect this may be the case.
However, having thought long and hard I remembered that I actually was a weirdo and as I got into this whole self-improvement malarkey the idea began to spark my interest.
Meditation has been said to have many benefits including clearer thinking, better moods and energy and even gains in intelligence. Some practitioners also speek of reaching different states of consciousness which sounded trippy and interesting. I decided then to put my preconceptions to one side and give it a go.
Sticking to the format of my previous experiments I decided that once a night for a week would be long enough to determine whether or not this was for me. So on the Monday I read up on the topic and learned the basics. There are various different ways you can meditate but the most popular way is to sit somewhere quiet and focus on a mantra. This being a word or sound that you repeat to take you mind off distracting thoughts. Other methods can include focussing on a point in your mind or a sound such as your own breathing.
Some people do it by just not worrying about the thoughts. They don’t purposefully start new threads but they don’t stop thoughts that do float by either – they just let them pass through and kind of ‘observe’ them from an outside perspective until they eventually stop being a problem.

The first thing I noticed when trying to meditate is that I instantly become thirsty, then itchy and then I need a piss. My back aches from sitting up and it feels like everything is against me. I’m certainly not used to sitting still for more than ten minutes without bobbing around, yelling obscenities or worse, singing. I go to the toilet every thirty minutes and constantly clear my throat which is a strange and annoying habit that makes me seem nervous and little bit mental. Basically I’m not a very relaxing person to be around and I find it very hard to sit still and unwind.
Writing this article right now is the closest I ever come to chilling out and later I plan to do a workout. If I’m lucky I might let myself play Bioshock for like an hour before bed.
The way I learned to overcome this problem was the same way I learned to improve my sleep (read the article) – to not worry about it. Basically I realised that when you’re meditating you’re allowed to itch your face if necessary and slowly this becomes less and less necessary anyway. Once you finally do enter into a peaceful state it starts to get weird. I recommend that you do sit in the traditional pose with your legs crossed and your fingers forming the little circles (your index fingers lightly touching your thumb). It’s important to be sat up so that you don’t fall asleep (although I personally like to lean against something to prevent back ache) and the two touching fingers give you something else to focus on and give you a strange sensation once thing start getting trippy.

To get to this stage has taken me a little while so don’t be put off if you don’t get the same effects immediately. Basically what starts to happen is that areas of your brain will be shutting down while others remain active – this is what puts you into the ‘trance’ or whatever and has been attributed with feelings of ‘oneness’ or ‘enlightenment’. The effects are actually very similar to certain types of drugs and they can be pleasant, healthy and productive. The coolest part is the feeling that you have no body – the oneness that makes hippies believe they are flying or one with mother nature (you’re not). This is because you have become completely unaware of your own body. To accelerate this experience you can actually imagine yourself expanding outwards and just being ‘everywhere’. Try it, it’s weird. Although it becomes old fairly quickly too...

Doing this regularly for 10 minutes a day for the past week has also lead to me feeling more calm in general and perhaps a bit more clear-headed. I guess this might be ‘zen’…
They have also left me with slightly more energy – acting as kind of power naps without the feelings of grogginess and fatigue that those bring.

I haven’t achieved any states other than the aforementioned one-ness, but as you get further some people have reported seeing vivid colourful patterns, having the sensation of an OOBE (out of body experience), reliving memories or gaining new perspectives.
The problem is that all that stuff sounds mental and also I can’t really be arsed with it. If you want to dedicate tonnes of time to it then go ahead, but I’m perfectly happy with just a bit of focussed chilling every now and then (it also recently helped me out when I was trapped in the back of a van. I thought ‘what would Bruce Lee do?’ so I sat there meditating in the pitch black. That’s how I was found – I looked well cool (in that sense it is a cool way to preserving energy)).

So try it if you want, I just won't be joining you. Whatever you do though don’t miss out on Disney Land because of it.