To meditate properly, you need to be sitting in the full lotus position on top of a mountain just before the sun rises.
As the rays of the celestial body crest the horizon, an eagle will land near you. If this does not happen, you’ve done it wrong and will gain no benefits whatsoever from the meditation. Walk the 17 miles back to your car and try again tomorrow.
Ok, I lied about all that. But seriously, meditation is one of those practices that can seem daunting to get into. There are so many ways to practice it: Vipassana, Zazen, Loving-Kindness, you name it. It’s heavily tied into religion, spirituality, and philosophy.
So where does someone with no meditation experience start?
Fortunately, there is no one “right way” to meditate. As we’ll discuss in this episode, meditation is a topic with many different layers and levels of practice. If you want, you can join the Tendai Buddhist monks in Japan and spend seven years walking daily ultra-marathons in a quest for enlightenment.
You can also sit on a chair and focus on your breath. Or, at an even simpler (but still meaningful) level, you can simply commit to focusing your attention on whatever you’re doing in the present moment instead of dwelling on what’s coming up in the future.
In this episode, we’ll dive into the different purposes of meditation, cover some methods of practice, and also dig into some of the health benefits it can provide.
Things mentioned in this episode:
This week’s episode is sponsored by Storyblocks. If you need to get your hands on some stock images, video footage, or audio clips for your next project, Storyblocks might be the place for you.
- Meditations, by Marcus Aurelius
- Kaihōgyō
- Zafu Meditation Cushion
- Bamboo Meditation Kneeling Bench
- Zabuton Meditation Cushions
- Thai Fisherman Pants
- Alan Watts
- The Tao of Pooh, by Benjamin Hoff
- The 4-Hour Workweek, by Timothy Ferriss
- How to Study Effectively with Flash Cards
- 8 Better Ways to Make and Study Flash Cards
- Real Engineering
- Brain.fm
- Headspace (iOS | Android)
- Asian Efficiency – My Brain’s Stronger Than Your Brain
- Loving-kindness Meditation
- Vipassana Meditation
- Lion’s Roar – How to Practice Zazen
- AsapSCIENCE YouTube channel
- AsapSCIENCE’s Scientific Power of Meditation video
- Ensō (iOS)
- Calm (iOS | Android)
- Meditation music on Spotify
Want more cool stuff? You can find all sorts of great tools at my Resources page.
Timestamps:
- 0:01:45 – Walking meditation and the definition of meditation
- 0:08:12 – Why and how Martin meditates
- 0:14:55 – Being present-minded and not always impatient
- 0:29:23 – Sacrificing your current happiness for the sake of future-proofing
- 0:35:24 – Sponsor: StoryBlocks (Graphic design assets)
- 0:38:28 – The mental processes Tom and Martin go through when meditating
- 0:46:29 – How your brain reacts to external stimuli
- 0:52:01 – Examples of different types of meditation
- 0:54:56 – Scientific studies on the benefits of meditation
- 0:58:29 – Tips to start meditating and conclusion
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