Thread by @paraschopra

1/ A short thread on meditation.

This doodle summarises my experience of a 20-30 minute meditation session.

2/ I used to give up early as early on when you’re meditating ‘nothing seems to be happening’

Mind is full of chatter for the first 10 minutes and it’s frustrating because meditation is supposed to calm you down.

3/ But the magic happens around 15 minute mark where there’s a sudden phase change to calmness.

Non-meditators assume that mind is gradually calmed but (for me at least) it’s sudden.

A moment ago mind is full of thoughts and a moment later sudden calmness.

4/ That experience of camlness and peace is hard to describe but it’s beautiful.

I highly recommend increasing your meditation sessions as a longer session is substantially different from a short one.

5/ Other sensations that come and go: spinning, involuntary movement of muscles, feeling of a light source inside the head, tingling wave across the body, feeling of floating.

6/ Thoughts remain in the head continuously but you sort of become blissfully unperturbed by them.

Breath becomes the go to place anytime you get distracted. And that feels *safe*. That is, you can always return to breath and find it there.

7/ Things I find surprising: flashes from long forgotten (childhood) memories, gratitude towards people and understanding of ordinaryness of death.

I love observing memories that pop up from no where. Sometimes it’s like watching a movie.

8/ Whenever you sit for meditation, have no goal except observation.

The goal of ‘I need to calm down’ works against calming.

The goal of ‘I’ll simply observe whatever happens in my mind in next 30 minutes’ works wonders.

9/ That’s it. Hope that was useful.

If you meditate, please share your experience. I’d love to know

If you don’t meditate, start with 2 mins and gradually increase to 5, 10, 15, 20 and 30 minutes. Don’t start a 30 min session right away. But do it daily to make it into a habit