Other Techniques of Meditation

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Tactile meditation

Before you begin, choose an object to hold while you are meditating-something light, for if it is too heavy its weight will affect your concentration and hence your focus. It need not be soft, but it should not be sharp. Now close your eyes and concentrate on the texture of the object in your hand, focusing on how it feels rather than what it is.

Another method of using touch to help reach the meditative state requires either a set of worry beads or four or five pebbles. Relax in your favourite position, holding the beads or pebbles in the open palm of one hand and with the other move them rhythmically and methodically between your fingers, counting them one at a time.

Feel each bead or pebble as you count, focusing all your attention on the slow, repetitive movement.

Music and meditation

The relevance of music as an aid to meditation is a personal one. Its effect depends on facilitating your meditations, and that in turn depends on your own instincts and intuitions.

Percussion instruments have long been used in meditation, especially where it is practised by atavists. The music they produce symbolizes rhythm and vitality.

Gongs and bells are said to purify the surrounding atmosphere making it more conducive to meditation. Many religions use peals of bells to help their adherents regather wandering thoughts. If you want to use bells as an aid to meditation, focus your thoughts on the sound, trying to experience it beyond audibility.

Harps have long been associated with meditation. In China the cheng and other zither-like instruments are widely used, while in India, the sitar and the vina accompany meditative chanting.

The gentle tinkling of the Aeolian harp can create a perfectly calm state of mind as you approach your meditations, and help you to focus your thought. To meditate to music, take up your usual position, close your eyes and listen to a favourite piece, immersing yourself in it completely. Try to become one with the sound, letting the sound encompass you, and if your thoughts are invaded by memories associated with the piece you have selected, imagine them as musical notes floating off into the distance.

Transcendental meditation

Transcendental meditation, or TM, involves concentrating on a particular sound, or mantra. Many instructors make a point of issuing each person with a mantra to suit his or her individual nervous system, but there is no scientific data to prove that this in any way increases the benefits of meditation. There is, however, much to be said about choosing one word or syllable and using it as a mantra. One word or sound can have very personal connotations, and repeating it can quieten the mind and aid concentration, becoming in the process a channel for the flow of peacefulness and strength throughout the body.

If meditation is new to you, experiment with postures, background sounds, mantras, etc, until you find what suits you. It is important that you make an effort every day, even if only for five minutes at first, and stick at it. It may take some time before you find a routine that works for you, but if you are willing to spend that time on yourself then eventually you will reap the rewards.

Zen meditation

The word 'Zen' derives from the Sanskrit dhyana, meaning 'meditation'. With its roots in the Yisuddhimagga tradition, it is widely practised in Japan, having arrived there through the Ch'an meditation school of China. Zen's main practice is zazen, or sitting on a cushion facing a wall, and is done daily by those who practise it, usually adopting the full lotus position. Meditation sessions are quite lengthy, hence, in zazen, great stress is placed on correct posture. The body is held upright, and it should be theoretically possible to draw a line from the centre of the forehead down through the nose, chin, throat, navel into the coccyx at the tail of the spine. Every part of the body must be in balance: if it is not, incorrect balance in one part of the body will cause strain in another and ruin the meditation.

The left hand rests within the right, the middle joints of the middle fingers touching, with the thumbs, also lightly touching each other, held at the navel and the arms slightly away from the rest of the body.

Apart from the fact that novices to Zen are sometimes advised to count their breaths, from one to ten, and the use of koan {see below), zazen uses no mantra, mandala or other object of meditation. In zazen, thoughts are allowed to come and go without being banished by the meditator, who remains attentive and alert throughout the meditation, concentrating on sitting as still as possible in a state of quiet awareness.

Zen masters often ask their pupils impenetrable questions, known as koan, an unanswerable puzzle designed to precipitate awakening by breaking through the limited confines of consciousness. A common one is 'What was your face before you were born?' From then on, whenever the koan comes to mind, the pupil banishes all other thoughts and concentrates on his koan. As he comes to realize that there is no answer per se, he reaches a state that has been described by those who have achieved it as 'feverish concentration', from which arises 'supreme frustration', and with conscious thought transcended, the pupil attains samadhi, the state of total concentration.

The first koan is said to have arisen when the great Zen master Hui-neng was attacked by robbers. He begged them to be silent for a moment and then said to them, 'When you are thinking of neither good nor evil, what is at that moment your original face?' The assailants were so astonished that they begged Hui for an explanation. The master sent them on their way, and the men found that the question came to dominate their thoughts to such an extent that when something else came to mind, they banished it and resumed their meditation on the question until they found they had arrived at samadhi.

Yoga

Yoga is a technique of self-awareness that integrates the mind and the body. The word derives from the Sanskrit yuj meaning 'to bind together', and through practising yoga, the yogi tries to bind himself with the universal process of being.

Yoga recognizes the interrelatedness of mind and body. Hatha yoga teaches techniques of physical control of the body through postures known as asanas and breathing techniques called pranayama. The asanas make the body supple and benefit the neuromuscular system, each posture combining mental acuity with breathing techniques and a specific body movement. Pranayama builds up the body's energy.

Yoga is a means of seeing things as they really are rather than as they seem. In Yoga, all body and mental tensions have to cease if this end is to be achieved. Accordingly, one of the basic yoga techniques is meditation, which turns our consciousness towards the inner calm helping us to achieve samadhi, or pure consciousness.

The dharanas

Yoga is perhaps the only discipline that encourages meditation on sex. Such meditation is found in the Vijnanabhairava, an ancient book on yoga that is essentially a dialogue between Shiva and his enlightened consort. When she asks Shiva how the supreme state can be realized, Shiva suggests 112 dharanas or centring techniques, that enable those who practise them to attain divine consciousness.

Among the dharanas is one that suggests meditating on the delights of a remembered intensely pleasurable sexual experience. In practice, the meditator must turn his or her attention away from the actual experience and trace the pleasure back to its source-the inner self.

The Vijnanabhairava also promotes the Hamsah meditation technique. By it, the meditator watches the breath going in and coming out, making a ha sound with each inhalation and a sah sound to accompany each exhalation. The m is inserted between the two other sounds. Hamsah is often called 'the universal mantra'.