Learning to How to Learn

My mind never shuts up. In fact, I find it pretty miraculous that I ever fall asleep or finish any task. But I’ve learned to work with my rambling, unfocused brain over the years, and sometimes, in brief moments, I’m actually able to think about things in a clear and logical way. In the summer I had really been making some headway in organizing my life, but it appears to all have come crashing down in the last month. Working at a (much more) stressful job and beginning graduate school have left much time for mental release.

It is in this chaos that I have begun to meditate, and I could not have started at more ideal time. Let me begin to discuss meditation (or Zen mediation, as it is my focus) with a disclaimer for the uninitiated: meditation is and is not what you think it is like. You need to do a little tuning and/or accommodation, as I have this week with regards to meditating. Meditating is sitting, sure. It is also calming and refreshing. Yet, meditation is also really difficult. It’s difficult like going to the gym is difficult. There is always an excuse to put it off until tomorrow. In fact, I’ve been putting off meditating for 10 years. I’ve always wanted to do it; I’ve just never taken the time to do it. If you can’t relate to that feeling, you’re a far better person than I am. Nevertheless, I have begun.

This was my first week of actually plopping down, closing my eyes, and watching my thoughts—which has been my first and most important lesson this week. Meditation is really just watching. To meditate is to pay close attention. So I’ve been watching my thoughts for around 30 minutes for the last three mornings, and last night I attended my first Zen mediation class session.

The class is going to be a really wonderful resource. There are 9 people in the class, and they all are very different people. I suppose I’m the youngest in the group, which did feel a little strange. There are two elderly people in the class and several people in their thirties. They all have really different reasons for learning to meditate, which they provided during our first meeting. All in all though, it appears that we all would like to improve the way we think and perceive the world around us.

The class provided me with several new tools and strategies to use for my personal sessions, although we did have a great class meditation session. I've been assimilating new concepts about what meditation can be and how it can be done. When meditating, I learned, it is useful to find an area of your body to focus on for a few breaths. It could be your breathing, which is the obvious and popular choice, but you could also move your eyeballs with your breath or check your heartbeat. These kinds of strategies help loosen your mind and enter (what I’m calling) the zone. 

My Zen teacher (or should I so guru?) began the class by explaining how the class was about “learning how to learn,” which made it really strange when I later explained that part of my motivation to take the class was my Learning Theories class. It only became stranger when she recommended that we all make a goal for ourselves to accomplish in the next eight weeks because our Professor had just asked us to do the same thing. Although now, having attended a very enlightening class, I have a much clearer goal. I want to be regularly meditating every morning for at least thirty minutes, and I want to be able to stay in the zone for at least 10 of those 30 minutes regularly.

I’ll explain the zone, the Zen, and the self-hypnosis, which is within my teacher's meditation schema, aspects of my ongoing journey in next week’s update. Also, I’ll discuss how close I am toward meeting my goals.