How to meditate like a Zen Master

3 Comments on “how do I learn to meditate?”

1. HJG
   November 22nd, 2007 at 1:51 pm

   There are many ways to meditate.

   I use a visualization technique.

   see articles on my website,

2. natasha
   November 25th, 2007 at 7:00 am

   i sit at the bottom of the shower in the dark and imagine i am under a waterfall somewhere peaceful and start there.

3. ElectricMoon
   November 27th, 2007 at 4:01 am

   Try this:
   Take a moment now and just listen to all external sounds. Don’t try to name or identify them. Just let them play on your ears like music. Now look at the things around you. Look and don’t try to name or identify them. Just see them, as you would an abstract painting. Regard your thoughts as nothing but words that pass - essentially as just noise.

   This is from a 25-minute film called “The Art of Meditation” by the famous philosopher, Alan Watts. I found the film after dabbling in meditation on and off for a while. To this day, I think it is probably one of the most thoroughly researched, artfully presented, and enjoyable introductions to the practice of meditation. Watts truly gets at the fundamental heart of the practice and doesn’t water things down. He leads you right along with him through a meditative experience, gives you tips, techniques (on breathings, listening, and clearing the mind), and anecdotes.

   I think the film is available on Youtube. EDIT: I was right: here are the links - it’s broken up into three parts because of Youtube’s 10-minute upload limit:

   It may seem weird at first (and sort of freaky at the end when he’s laughing like a maniac), but just go with it. Again, it’s only 25-minutes in all and at the very least, you will get an understanding of what meditation actually is, which is half the process. Some things he mentions to think about:

   - The past is just a memory. The future is only an expectation. reality is what is here and now: eternally being reborn and redefined each moment. (This actually parallels the concept of matter existing in four-dimensions in modern physics: the three dimensions of space and the fourth dimension of time.)

   - Things are not the words we superimpose over them.

   - Meditation has no purpose: it’s not a place you actively try to reach. It is only bringing your awareness to a higher level. Your thoughts, sensations, emotions, etc. will always be there and reality will still be happening. Meditation is just witnessing them impersonally from a higher standpoint.

   - In a nutshell: meditation is about being in the moment.

   Also, I recommend reading through a few books on mystic traditions from around the world and, oddly enough, on physics. The famous “Tao te Ching” (my favorite translations are by Red Pine, David Hinton, and Witter Bynner), “Bhagavad Gita” (try the Eknath Easwaran translation), and “Zen in the Art of Archery” by Eugen Herrigel are pretty good places to start. Also, I suggest “A Brief History of Time” by Stephen Hawking and “The Tao of Physics” by Fritjof Capra.

   Of course, none of these books are required to be able to meditate. In fact, all you really need to meditate is to be aware of the world around you and the “eternal now” as Watts calls it. It’s beautiful journey, so much luck to you!

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