(11) Meditation

Meditation has been the buzz word for quite some time now. Many business mogul , self help guru , celebrities and your neighbor next door credit their success to meditation. Ray Dalio , the founder of Bridgewater Associates , the biggest hedge fund in the world by assets under management says that Transcendental Meditation is one the key to his success in life.

This post is not aim to debate or prove the benefits of meditation. All the existing studies should be self explanatory. I think the biggest problem for beginners trying to pick up meditation as a habit is simply , "Where do we start?"

Admittedly the world of meditation can be daunting and confusing. There are so many different types of meditation that experimenting with each and every one of them is not very practical , let alone mastering all of them. In some ways , meditation is very much like programming. You have many different languages that serve different purposes , but the ultimate goal is to speak the computer language and get computer to do stuff for us. Similarly , all types of meditation eventually lead to the same goal of calming our mind and raising our mindfulness.

The best way of kick starting your journey of meditation is to simply start by picking ANY type of meditation. Do a quick research on meditation and pick the type where it makes the most sense to you. Alternatively you can use the guided meditation video on Youtube ( Michael Sealey's channel being one of the best ) as a start.

When you're ready to have a more structured training and guidance on meditation , I personally would highly recommend the 10-days course by Vipassana.The 10-day course is an introductory course to Vipassana meditation , which is the same technique used by Siddhartha Gautama ( Buddha ) himself. For people with a different religion beliefs out there , fret not , the 10-day course doesn't go into Buddhism at all , and it's solely focused on the technique of Vipassana meditation alone. I did it about 4 years ago in Penang ( they have since closed down the center ) , and to be honest I was way too young to grasp every wisdom of Vipassana technique , but there are some that I retained even til this very day. The course is free , and to quote the website - "There are no charges for the courses - not even to cover the cost of food and accommodation. All expenses are met by donations from people who, having completed a course and experienced the benefits of Vipassana, wish to give others the opportunity to also benefit."

I've been there and I can confirm that it's true. And the usual cross selling or up selling after every "free" introductory course/seminar/workshop? Nope , none of that either. The entire experience , aside from the initial agony of meditating for the whole day , had been nothing but positive for me.

Just remember to read through the code of discipline before you commit yourself. :)

#meditation #Vipassana