The Key To All Meditation Techniques
Details of an interesting study were released this month, which takes us ever deeper into understanding the true value of meditation and what actually is going on when we meditate.
The study was carried out by researchers at The University of California who took 30 participants away to a retreat for a period of three months.
In that time they were guided in meditation for five hours every day. The researchers then tested the subjects – both before, during and after the retreat.
They utilized several well known tests that are able to determine a person’s concentration by measuring their response to specific monotonous tasks, like spotting things flashing across a screen. What they found was that the focus and concentration of the participants improved substantially during the retreat to reach even higher levels at the end of it.
What this tells us is that the basic effect of meditation is that it helps us filter out the clutter. The truth is that the clutter of life exists as much inside us as anywhere else.
At any one time, our conscious and unconscious mind is focusing on a variety of thoughts and tasks. While some of this is necessary, e.g. the parts of your brain controlling your heart, lungs and gut will need to carry on functioning on these task regardless of whether or not you are driving a car or watching TV – however, a lot of brain activity is superfluous.
Anyone who has ever tried meditating will be aware of the amount of “junk thoughts” that stream through our consciousness; not unlike the junk food that flows through our guts in the modern age.
Meditation does not remove any of these distractions, but instead allows them. This may sound entirely contradictory, but the real benefit of meditation is in preventing us becoming too emotionally entangled in the stream of thoughts that constantly pass through us. T
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