When I was around 30 years old, I borrowed and read a book which mentioned meditation. I thought it is cool so I started to mimic. I did feel something. But I took it as a vogue metaphysics and did not attach importance to it. At around 40 years old, when my life was rath messy and full of tension, all of sudden I desired to meditate like an eminent monk to go out of this mess and get into the Integration of heaven and human. I found that meditation and Qigong are closely linked to each other and both are good for health. My wife happened to learn Qigong in China Youth Corps at that time. I started practicing meditation daily since then.
Even though it has been 10 years since I practiced meditation, I don’t have any Kung Fu. What I really have learned is not too much – just some ways to get relaxed and refresh myself like resetting a computer when it runs into problems. But what I learned in meditation has benefited me a lot. I would like to share with you about it.
Please don’t expect me to “teach” you the method of meditation. I believe the effect of meditation is different for different people. If you are interested, you can purchase a well-written book. As to meditation level, I am just a beginner. What I can do now is just making myself relaxed enough to let the Parasympathetic system or instinct to control my body. But this is an important step to determine whether or not you can meditate.
Sitting in stillness for several dozens of minutes or several hours may not be meditation! Actually, meditation is a change in physical and phycological state. If you can get over the things in life, you can get into meditation in less than 10 seconds. What we are trying to do is staying in meditation state for as long as possible. In meditation state, you are somber while your body is given to instinct to control. This is why your health problems can be healed. You will have a lot of body reactions of “promoting meridians” – things like body getting warmer/feeling cold, Qi’s movement or formication.
The first change I could see is the change in my physical body. I did meditation twice a day, 20-30 minutes a time. I moved my bowels frequently in the first 1-2 weeks. If I ate one pound food, I could discharge 2 pounds of the stool! My waistline was reduced by one inch and my weight was reduced by 2 KG. In about 2 months, the problems which had haunted me for more than 10 years, such as constipation, dermatophytosis, and the old knee wounds disappeared! When I was playing basketball actively without kneepads which I had been using for 10 years, I felt really grateful! For me, a basketball fan, running at will is much better than owning a luxury supercar!
It is easy to understand all of these if using my limited biology knowledge to explain it! The evolution history of the human body is several hundreds of million years and indeed there is an immunity system in our DNA to keep our health. But the civilized life makes us in tension when we are awake. This self-healing system runs at a low efficiency during our sleep and cannot run smoothly when we are awake. As time passes, the health will not be in good shape! You can at least partially give your body’s control back to your instinct and the self-healing system when meditating. Broadly speaking, meditation is nothing but a way of rest which is different than sleep!
Actually, I am lazy. I could not keep my regular meditation practice later. My wife did not see I sitting for meditation anymore. The reason for this is that I already grasp the know-how of getting into a meditation state. I could get into meditation state during watching TV, or in a meeting, or when eyes are closed, or even in a long distance driving 【Reprinter note: Do not imitate！】. And I could switch back to somber state any time. No one can do it at the beginning! Switching between meditation state and normal state can hurt Qi. You may feel uncomfortable in some parts of your body for several hours.
I still always get into the meditation state. The most fixed time is when lying in bed before going to sleep. I told my family members that I was practicing: “nine men s power” (a term from a Jin Yong novel). My daughter did not read any Jin Yong’s books thus thought that I meant counting sheep. Indeed, you will never suffer insomnia if your heart is in meditation. If a middle-aged person can sleep well, for sure he will have much fewer health problems. Very seldom I suffered insomnia after practicing this.
My wife likes learning Chinese Medicine, and even metaphysics very much. But she has never master meditation very well. She always wants me to explain it clearly. My honest answer is always “I don’t know what exactly happens and don’t expect that I explain it casually”. But I know one thing for sure: when you think “I know it, or I think I should do this…..” during meditation, you get out of meditation state right away. So-called meditation is nothing but letting go self-consciousness and perception. It is easier to meditate for the people who would like to admit they don’t know it. When your self-consciousness is too strong, it is impossible for you to meditate! Very subtle, isn’t it?
Because temporarily giving up self-consciousness and letting instinct to take over it to do the best body repairing, meditation is good for health. Of course, if you put the troubles in life aside before meditation, you could have a brand new view on them after meditation. The above is all I know about meditation. If you have any other questions, you can purchase some books, or ask a master!
