Thoughts on meditation after six weeks
At the end of last year I spent more time thinking about what has intrinsic value to me. I identified human consciousness, life, and technological progress as the main elements. And because I felt like I was not acting on my values enough, I decided to pick up a meditation practice again.
I have done 10 minute meditations on most days for the past six weeks. I started out with 5 minutes in the morning doing the following
- Start 10 minute timer
- Sit down
- Notice how my body is feeling
- Narrow focus down to sensations related to my breath
- Count exhalations until I reach 10. Restart if I get lost in thoughts.
- Switch to following the whole breath cycle. Noticing the beginning and ending of inhalations and exhalations.
- Get up when timer rings.
The steps are straight out of The Mind Illuminated. I chose this routine because I liked the simplicity of it and felt like I need to develop my ability to focus a lot before I switch to other kinds of meditations.
After listening to Sam Harris on a podcast episode, I switched to guided meditations led by Harris. This means I shifted from mostly focus based meditations to mindfulness meditations. While I did a few sessions of unguided breath focused meditations on some days, I have done mostly guided mindfulnes meditations since then. I am very fascinated by the states of consciousness described by Harris and the experiences I made so far during the guided meditations. But the main point for sticking with the mindfulness meditations was the impact on my day to day life. In the last days I have had more and more moments in my "normal waking life" where I felt as connected to my body and consciousness as during moments of clarity in the formal meditation setting. I have felt more in tune with myself more often.
Harris says that one can experience a state of mindfulness that leads one to see the experience of the "I" being the thinker of thoughts and the actor as an illusion. Throughout the guided meditations he gives pointers towards this state and guides through experiments that he says can put one onto the path towards it. I have not had this sort of experience but it's deeply intriguing to me how the experiences I have made so far and continue to make influence my "normal waking life".
It's fascinating stuff and I'm grateful I have stumbled up on it. Let's see where this goes.