What is meditation anyway?
Many people think meditation is the same thing as relaxation. Not exactly. It’s more than that. Some people think you have to clear your mind and stop thinking. News flash! You can’t. Your mind is made to think and it will keep going, no matter what.
Types of meditation?
There are several types of meditation from different parts of the world and from different religions. However, scientists at Harvard University found that you only need four things to really meditate.
- You need a quiet place. That means nothing distracting.
- You need to be comfortable.
- You need the right attitude. Don’t try too hard. Just let it happen.
- You need something to really focus on. Hint: a guitar.
The type of meditation we use is mindfulness meditation. Let me tell you a story….
How I Learned about Mindfulness
Over twenty years ago, I went to a two-day workshop with Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn, but I have never forgotten it. He explained mindfulness in a very clever way; he passed out raisins.
We were sitting on yoga mats in a large room and we each got a raisin. He said, “I want you to look at this raisin from the perspective of a Martian scientist”. Of course, if you pretend to be a Martian scientist, you don’t know what a raisin is. You are curious, intelligent, and ignorant.
After a while, Dr. Kabat-Zinn said, “How would you describe this object?” We were calling out words like “brown, sticky, soft, aromatic, glistening”, etc. It’s amazing what you can say about a raisin if you really look at it. After all, if you are a Martian scientist, you might be thinking that it could blow up at any minute!
Then he said, “Put it in your mouth, but don’t chew it”. After a while, he said, “Chew it, but don’t swallow it.” Finally, he said, “Swallow it.” We were completely focused on the feel and taste of that raisin.
The moral of the story
We took fifteen minutes to eat that little raisin. Afterwards he asked, “How did you put that raisin in your mouth? Did you flick it in, drop it behind your teeth? Did your tongue come out and get it?” Nobody could remember because nobody was paying attention to that. Which brings us to the moral of the story: slow down, pay close attention to details, and keep a beginner’s mind. As one of my students summarized it, “Play dumb, slow down, pay attention to what you’re doing.” When we took such a long time to eat that raisin, in a quiet place and in a comfortable position, we discovered details about raisins we’d never noticed before. It was a wonderful illustration of mindfulness. When we bring that mindfulness to guitar playing, wonderful things happen. To be continued…
