Author: Billy Wynne

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How to Meditate: Billy Wynne

In this article, I will provide core methods for practicing mindfulness meditation. In the first post of this series, I described the substantial evidence supporting the benefits of this tradition. In the second, I explored the definition of mindfulness meditation: the practice of paying attention to the present moment without judgement. Now, it is time to get started meditating. Here’s how you do it.

Body Posture: Upright and Relaxed

The first step in establishing an appropriate posture for meditation is to anchor yourself on three points. If you are meditating on a cushion on the floor, those three points are your knees and your tailbone. If you’re in a chair, it’s your tailbone and your feet. In either case, this tripod orientation is essential to achieving the stability of your body that will support the stability of your mind. 

The most common positions for floor meditation are one of the lotus variations, the Burmese style, or the seiza posture. The quarter lotus, typical for most American meditators (including the author), involves placing one foot on top of the calf of the opposite leg and tucking the other foot underneath the opposite knee. The half lotus entails placing that first foot on top of the opposing thigh, with the opposite foot still tucked under your knee, and the full lotus is putting both feet up on the opposite thighs. If you find the lotus posture unsuitable, I encourage you to explore the other postures mentioned above or to simply sit in a firm chair. 

Despite the assumption that it is a common meditation posture, the ”criss-cross applesauce” style we learned in pre-school is not optimal for this practice. It leaves the knees “floating” up in the air and it requires a tremendous amount of core strength to keep the torso upright when seated this way. 

However you decide to sit, the most important thing is to maintain an upright posture with a straight back. To accomplish this, you might tilt your hips forward so that your lower back curves naturally inward. If you are meditating on the floor, use a meditation cushion so that your hips are raised above your knees. Other types of pillows or even folded towels can also work fine. Then, elongate your spine up through your neck and head. I find it helpful to imagine there is a small hook on the crown of my head with a string tied to it that someone is gently tugging upward. 

As for the rest of your body: relax. Another helpful visualization I often use is to imagine my spine is a coat rack, directly upright, and the rest of my body is a long coat hanging effortlessly from the rack. As you settle into your meditation posture, scan your body for areas of tightness that you might relax by breathing in your awareness of that spot and breathing out whatever tension may be there. 

With most of your body nestled into place, you can allow your hands to rest comfortably in your lap. There are a variety of ways to position your hands. The simplest and most relaxed may be to put your dominant hand on the bottom, palm up, with the other hand placed gently on top, also palm up, with the middle knuckles approximately aligned. You can allow your thumbs to rest naturally or take up the “cosmic mudra” by letting the ends of the thumbs touch each other gently. 

While some meditation traditions call for placing the hands, upturned, on top of the knees, with the thumbs touching the tips of the middle fingers, maintaining that posture for an extended period of time can place unnecessary tension on the hands, arms, and upper back. In the long run, the posture that is most comfortable and relaxed will likely best serve your meditation practice. 

Finally, we get to your noggin and all of its wonderful components. Recalling that little hook, it’s important to keep the head up rather than letting it slouch forward, back, or to the side. Your mouth should be closed with your breath flowing in and out of your nose naturally. Many meditators find it helpful to let the tip of the tongue rest against the back of the top front teeth. (This may seem specific, but I promise the question will come up if you meditate for a while!) Your eyes can be open or closed; there are strong traditions of both. Either way, you want to let your eyes be soft, not focused on any particular thing. Similarly, let your ears be soft. Sounds may arise, but you don’t need to go out and grab them.

Ok, you are all set. Now we get to the trickier part… 

Mind Posture: Attentive and At Ease

Of all of the beautiful pictures you’ve seen of people meditating on hillsides with the sunset behind them, all of that external setting and the posturing of your body only serves one purpose: focusing and easing your mind. Once you have settled into your posture and allowed your breath to begin flowing naturally, it is time to turn your attention to this fascinating place.

As I stated plainly in my prior post, please forget about the idea that meditation is about stopping your thoughts. That would be like trying to stop your heart from beating or your gums from salivating. Secreting thoughts is what the mind does. There is nothing wrong with that. Meditation helps us learn to be with our thoughts in a different way. I will come back to mindfulness of thoughts practice, specifically, in a future post. 

The primary method of mindfulness meditation and numerous other meditation practices is to simply focus your mind’s attention on the sensation of your breath. Again, without feeling the need to alter the pace or depth of your breath, locate the part of your body where you feel your breath most prominently. That might be the tip of your nose, the nasal cavity or inside the mouth, or in the chest or belly. Wherever it is, try to maintain your attention on that place and gently experience the rhythm of your breath’s movement there. With time, you might begin to notice the unique sensations of the in and out breath, as well as the moments when the breath pauses between the two. 

As you can see, this is a simple practice, but it is not easy. Very quickly, your mind will start to wander off into thoughts of what you might have for your next meal, an email you need to answer, or a dream vacation you want to plan. All of this is completely natural and will be a part of your meditation practice forever. Please don’t worry about it. 

To support maintaining your focus on the sensation of the breath, it is recommended to count your breath to yourself. There are some variations on exactly how to do this and you are invited to explore the approach that works best for you. A common technique is to simply treat each full breath (both the in and the out) as one count. Many find it easiest to “mentally verbalize” the number during the full length of the outbreath. In other words, I breathe in all the way and then, in my mind, it’s “oooooone” as I breathe out. Then I breathe in again and, as I start to exhale, it’s “twwwwwwwwwwwo.” And so on. 

If you make it to ten without wandering off into paragraphs of thought, which is rare for beginners, then you can begin again at one. While this device can be very handy in maintaining your focus, it’s just as important to remember that this is not a “test” or, worse, a “contest.” There are no bonus points for making it to ten and that is not the goal. The goal is to give this one breath, the one that is here with you right now, your full attention. The rest – your expectations and doubts, critiques and comparisons – you can set aside for now. Let’s treat our meditation practice as the one sanctuary in our life that might be free from all of our incessant judgment.

The Golden Rule of Gratitude

Building on that last point, I find that the most important ingredient that enables people to maintain a consistent meditation practice is not having a flexible body or highly concentrated mind. It is not fierce dedication to discover “enlightenment” or drill sergeant-like discipline. 

The essential ingredient to maintaining a consistent meditation practice is the decision to simply enjoy the experience of meditating. Here you are, on your mat or chair. You’ve made a good decision to be there, and you’ve carved out some time in your busy life to take good care of yourself. It’s a unique and rare opportunity and, if you just simply let it, it will be relaxing. Pretty soon, you will start to experience your body and mind in a different way, even if for just a passing moment at first. 

So let’s be grateful. This practice is a gift. Our life is a gift. What a joy to simply be here with it intimately for a moment. 

Next Steps

Having examined the Why, What, and How of mindfulness meditation, next we will turn to the very practical considerations of When, Where, and Who (spoiler alert: it’s you). Please tune in next time for tips for integrating this healing practice into your busy daily life.  

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What Is Mindfulness Meditation?: Billy Wynne

Key Points

  • Mindfulness is the practice of paying attention to the present moment without judgment.
  • Mindfulness is not about suppressing thoughts or other aspects of our life experience. 
  • Mindfulness need not be religious and it is not a substitute for therapy or other clinical support for those who need it. 
  • Meditation is time we dedicate to the exclusive purposes of cultivating mindfulness. 

Just a few decades ago, mindfulness meditation was considered an esoteric, “new age,” or downright weird activity. Now, you would need to be living in a cave to miss reference to it. It has become so mainstream that it is on the verge of becoming cliché. Meanwhile, misperceptions about the practice abound, with common beliefs ranging from it being an exceedingly difficult and demanding discipline to it being little more than lazy navel-gazing. 

In a prior article, I summarized the persuasive evidence that mindfulness meditation can improve mental health, cognition, and overall wellness. In this article, I will explain what mindfulness meditation is and what it is not, with the goals of dispelling the mystique surrounding it and bringing this timeless practice down to earth and into your daily life.

What is Mindfulness?

It may be clearest to start by defining the mindfulness part of mindfulness meditation. Put simply, mindfulness is the practice of paying attention to the present moment without judgment. In this brief definition, you can discover four vital elements: 

  1. Mindfulness is a practice. Once we take it up, we can cultivate mindfulness in meditation (more on that later) and also in the car, going up the stairs, and in conversation with loved ones. Every moment is an opportunity to practice and deepen our mindful awareness, and that practice never ends. After a lifetime of reacting to circumstances automatically, with deeply ingrained habits, we are now setting a new course. It is a simple practice, but it is not always easy, and, as with any other new endeavor, it will get easier with practice.
  1. Mindfulness is about paying attention. How often do we coast through our lives without focusing on what we are doing? If we pause to observe, we might see that most of the time, while we engage in one activity, we are thinking about another. Taking a shower, we’re thinking about what we’ll have for breakfast. Engaged in a conversation, we are planning how we’ll respond. Going on a walk, we’re recycling an argument we had six months ago. Mindfulness is about coming back to awareness of what is here now. This awareness exists beneath our thoughts and activities, emotions and intentions. It is inherently clear, present, and non-judgmental. With practice, we can reconnect with this precious place. 
  1. Mindfulness is applied to the present moment. Thich Nhat Hanh said, you “have an appointment with your life….[It is] the present moment. If you miss the present moment, you miss your appointment with life1.” Our life only unfolds in moments. It doesn’t happen any other time. So often, we miss it while we’re preoccupied with revisiting our past or planning our future. Mindfulness is an invitation to reestablish an intimate relationship with what is happening right now, both inside of us and around us. In this way, it is about living fully and wholeheartedly. 
  1. Mindfulness is the art of nonjudgment2. We have a deep-seated instinct to rapidly assess each thing we encounter as beneficial or threatening. For the sake of our survival, it evolved over millennia as we learned to avoid predators and find sources of food, shelter, and other sustenance. Unfortunately, though we now live in relative security and comfort, our spigot of judgment never turned off. We apply it to sights, sounds, emblems of social status, our own ideas, and each other. Once you decide to notice your judging mind3, you might find that it is quite harsh, it never stops, and it reserves its fiercest criticism for its host: you. To be mindful is to practice noticing what’s happening before we add that second layer of judgment, allowing the dust we’ve stirred up to settle so we can see things more clearly.

What Mindfulness is Not

So many ideas about mindfulness have flooded into our culture that it is important to take a moment to “myth bust.” Here are a few corrections to common misperceptions about mindfulness:

  1. Mindfulness is not about stopping thoughts. As you can see in the description above, it is about turning toward the authentic experience of our life, here and now. It is not about suppressing; it is about acknowledging. This may be most important when it comes to our thoughts. We do not have to change them. We start by simply watching them as they rise and fall. Because we are no longer infusing them with more power, they will start to soften of their own accord. We will come back to mindfulness of thoughts in future posts.
  1. Mindfulness is not a substitute for therapy. While many individuals trained in psychology and other forms of therapy are also qualified to support your mindfulness practice, and the two techniques are often complementary, those who need clinical care for mental health challenges should not hesitate to seek it. This is particularly true for those who have experienced significant trauma. There are some instances where mindfulness when practiced without the support of a professional who is trained to deliver care for such conditions, can pose the potential for harm4. 
  1. Mindfulness is not a religion. The origins of mindfulness5 practice are most often traced to Vedic and Yogic traditions that were practiced in India over 2000 years ago, which we now generally refer to as Hinduism. Analogous mindfulness traditions also arose in aspects of ancient Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism, as well as indigenous religions around the world. Despite these roots, the techniques of mindfulness need not have ties to religious beliefs. Recently, they have been intentionally secularized, perhaps most decisively by the work of Jon Kabat-Zinn in establishing and rigorously testing Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR). Whether or not you integrate mindfulness practice with your own religious or spiritual beliefs is entirely up to you. 

What is Meditation?

While we can engage with mindfulness anywhere, meditation is time we dedicate specifically to the purpose of deepening this practice. It’s the difference between the way we exercise our muscles all day versus the time we might spend in the gym lifting weights. 

Even within meditation, there are various forms – walking, lying down, etc. – but the most common, and the one we will focus on in this series, is seated meditation. We will delve into the details of these techniques in much greater detail, but the hallmark of seated meditation practice is finding stability of the body so that we can begin stabilizing the mind. There are forms of meditation that are characterized as “just sitting,” but usually it is recommended to engage our minds by focusing on a simple aspect of our experience, starting with the breath. 

While meditation often occurs in groups, and this can be quite helpful, it usually involves turning inward to investigate our own, unique experience and the nature of our own mind. With meditation, we can begin to see, perhaps for the first time, how our mind influences our perception of our circumstances and the ways we respond to it. In this way, as the clutter of our thoughts and judgments can begin to dissipate, we may discover a new way of being in the world and the boundless possibilities that offers. If mindfulness meditation has any “message” for us, it is simply to appreciate our opportunity to be here, now.

Next Steps

Having addressed the “What” of mindfulness meditation in this article and the “Why” in the previous one, my next installment in this series will focus on the “How.” I hope that, with what’s been presented so far, your interest is piqued and you are ready to jump in to this healing, invigorating, and joyful practice.

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Why Meditate? with Billy Wynne

I first started meditating almost two decades ago. After graduating from law school, I was early in my career as a health and well-being entrepreneur, living in Washington, D.C., and quite stressed. My cardiologist handed me The Relaxation Response and suggested I get started. At the time, that was a pretty innovative thing to do. Now, references to meditation are everywhere.

Since then, I became a Zen Buddhist and mindfulness-based coach and, not to mention, quit drinking alcohol almost six years ago. Now I teach meditation classes at the Zen Center of Denver under certification I received from Jack Kornfield and Tara Brach’s Mindfulness Meditation teacher training Program. At the same time, I have watched as meditation entered the mainstream and, with it, an array of confusing and often misleading information about the practice.

In this series, I will clear away the underbrush to help you understand what you need to know about meditation to feel confident in starting your own, consistent practice. Each post will address the Who, What, Where, When, and Why of the tradition. I’m going to start with “Why” in hopes it motivates you to continue following this series and begin to realize the benefits of meditation for yourself.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in these contributions are those of the individual authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of Recovery.com.

Summary of Meditation’s Benefits

The benefits of mindfulness meditation can be divided into three broad categories: (1) mental health; (2) cognition; and (3) overall well-being. Much of the contemporary evidence about meditation stems from the work of Jon Kabat-Zinn, a molecular biologist who adapted traditional meditation practices into a more clinical framework called Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR). Numerous other studies1 have been performed on secular mindfulness meditation techniques. 

Mental Health Benefits

A recent meta-analysis2 found that mindfulness meditation can reduce anxiety and depression, including in a diverse cohort. A subsequent meta-analysis3 reinforced these findings, demonstrating that mindfulness-based interventions significantly reduce symptoms of anxiety, depression, and stress. 

Evidence suggests that meditation yields these mental health benefits4 because it supports emotional regulation. By training the practitioner to be aware of their experiences, it diminishes the tendency to react to events unreflectively. This correlation has been identified via fMRI4 showing participants in an MBSR program had increased activation of the portions of the brain associated with regulation and decreased activity in areas associated with autonomic, stress-related responses. 

In simpler terms, meditation can help us take a beat for what clinical psychologist and mindfulness pioneer Tara Brach calls the sacred pause, a moment of grace that can make the difference between a stress-triggered reaction and a peace-empowered response.

These psychological and neurological benefits are why mindfulness meditation can also assist with the treatment of various addictive behaviors5, including alcohol and drug abuse. In addition to regulating emotional reactivity to stress, it can impact cognitive functions and neurologically-based reward mechanisms, which play key roles in addiction.

Cognitive Benefits

As alluded to above, mindfulness meditation can enhance cognitive functioning, such as increasing focus and strengthening memory. For example, a study of military service members during high-stress pre-deployment training6 showed that meditation improved their attention span and working memory capacity. Another study showed that even brief mindfulness interventions can improve focus and memory7. Participants in that study had no prior meditation experience and demonstrated benefits after only four sessions. 

The mechanism by which meditation can achieve these results likely relates to structural changes it promotes in the brain. A study of MBSR program participants showed increases in gray matter8 in parts of the brain, such as the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex, that are associated with learning, memory, and other higher functions. Scientists believe this speaks to the capacity of mindfulness to improve neuroplasticity, the ability of the brain to create new neural pathways that manifest as more adaptive responses to life circumstances. 

Overall Well-Being

One of the most accessible benefits of meditation is the impact it can have on the overall quality of your experience of daily life. Studies of these benefits generally examine a holistic array of indicators that encompass physical, psychological, social, and environmental factors. One meta-analysis found substantial benefits9 for meditation practitioners across each of these domains. 

While it also aligns with findings in the mental health arena, the evidence of the stress-reducing power of meditation indicates the way it can improve quality of life for all people, not just those with a specific mental health diagnosis. This has been documented by, among other things, measurable reductions in levels of cortisol10 (commonly referred to as the “stress hormone”) and other stress symptoms.

In this broader category of overall health and well-being, it is notable that mindfulness has also demonstrated the ability to reduce symptoms of chronic pain11, treat hypertension12, and strengthen the immune system13. Perhaps as importantly, tailored meditation techniques can improve self-compassion14, which can support overall happiness and likely contributes to the power the practice has in these other areas. As we will see in subsequent posts, self-compassion is also a key asset for building and sustaining a meditation practice itself.  

Next Steps

As you can see, the scientific evidence documenting the benefits of mindfulness meditation is extensive and persuasive. Most of all, I hope it inspires you to deepen your interest and investigation of this powerful tool. In the next post, I will explain what mindfulness meditation is (and what it is not), including its origins and the primary forms it takes in modern practice.