Learning To Still The Mind
Learning To Still The Mind
One of the most important practices to cultivate in this busy modern world is the art of calming and stilling the mind.
If you can learn to have a calm mind even when all around you is busy and hectic then you will no longer be at the cause of life but at the effect. Others will notice how calm you remain even in potentially stressful situations.
How do you do this? There are many techniques to help you cultivate this inner calm. And yet the primary tool that I have used over the past 20 years is meditation. I first learned meditation in 1997 and have meditated every day for the past 18 years. This is my go to for stress management, happiness, insight and healing and one of the main tools I teach my clients.
...What I love about the modern advances in technology is that now we can learn new practices so easily. We can download an app, an MP3 or watch a video with such ease.
The first time I learned meditation was at a Mind, Body, Spirit Fair in King's Cross, London. I had read a number of self-help books and yet I hadn't quite grasped how to meditate. These books talked about meditation but they didn't outline how to do it.
When my partner and I arrived at the MBS Fair I looked at the program. I saw a talk about Transmission Meditation and thought, “Ah, this is where I will learn how to meditate...”
Unfortunately, it was instead a talk and a video about a spiritual teacher. My partner, who was a banker, found the talk rather unsettling and asked to leave half way through. Indeed the talk was not really about meditation.
As I wondered around the stalls afterwards I must have been talking to one of the stall holders. I said that I wanted to learn meditation and wondered where I could go. He replied, "I can teach you here."
So we both sat cross legged on the floor of this busy conference centre. And he started to teach me meditation. It was so simple. “Watch the breath. And when your mind gets distracted, come back to the breath and the sensations of the body breathing.”
It was that simple.
Guided Meditations
In the Buddhist monastery I lived in often the guided meditations would really help me to stay focused and deepen my meditation.
And while I still like to practice meditation in this simple manner to this day, watching my breath, I have started to use guided meditations a lot more. I have found that it has helped to deepen my practice.
For this reason I have been creating over the past few years some guided meditations to help you deepen your practice.
Whether that be to still your mind, release stress, increase joy, improve sleep or heal your heart.
I am now offering these meditations for sale on my website. Some are 20 minutes long and others run for an hour. Please find the link below.
https://www.piers-cross.com/shop
Many blessings, Piers
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