Socratic Life

In life we can all get stressed out and feel as if we are alone and in mental pain or distress. Everyone that I have ever talked to has felt stressed out at one time or another. What can we do when we are feeling this stress and pressure? Just relax? Take a chill pill? Just don’t let it get to you? As we all know it is easy to give that kind of advice. It is very hard to do however. Unless you have a few tricks up your sleeve.

Basic meditation can help more than you know.

Relaxation and meditation can have a very powerful effect on the body, says Steven Fahrion, Ph.D., director of research at the Life Sciences Institute of Mind-Body Health in Topeka, Kansas. It can help you cope with all kinds of stress-related problems, including migraines, peptic ulcers and anxiety. So I think that people who develop and retain peace of mind do experience mental and physical healing.

How does a person meditate and what is basic meditation?

Meditation can be thought of as many things, including a specific place to go, or a time to relax, or just a few minutes to close your eyes and be at peace. Meditation can really be anything that you want it to be . For that reason there is no real way to define what meditation is exactly for everyone. The Dalai Lama probably meditates differently than you or I do but, for practical reasons let’s call what we are going to to “A basic meditation for relaxation”.

Lets start with the steps to a basic medititation.

• Find a quiet place that you can be at peace. be calm

• Get into a comfortably seated position. spine straight and stacked

• Notice your breathing. inhale-exhale-deep breath.

• Continue to breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth.breathe deeply

• Continue to focus on your breathing.
  feel the breath in and out.

• Breathe in and out at least 10 times letting your lunges get the maximum air possible.

• Come back into awareness.

• Take a deep breathe and feel refreshed

Is it really that simple? YES! it really is.

If one’s life is simple, contentment has to come. Simplicity is extremely important for happiness. Having few desires, feeling satisfied with what you have, is very vital: satisfaction with just enough food, clothing, and shelter to protect yourself from the elements. And finally, there is an intense delight in abandoning faulty states of mind and in cultivating helpful ones in meditation. Dalai Lama