I started meditating about one year ago. I never thought I would have the stillness or mind or body to be able to, but also didn’t realise that was the whole point: to cultivate that! At first 10 minutes was painful with my back hurting, my knees hurting and my eyes wandering over to the clock every minute. A year on I can see and feel differences, yet nothing miraculous happens either. Gil Fronsdal and other Buddhist monks have said that some people have all sorts of experiences in meditation, while others, nothing. However those that have nothing often find other parts of their life transforming. I can definitely see I fit this category and have to remind myself of that when I get up early to meditate for nothing to happen!
I’ve noticed a few things which I attribute to training my mind through meditation:
- My concentration is much better
- I can create flow much easier in writing and other parts of my daily life
- My memory is sharper
- Multi-tasking is a thing of the past, which at first I thought detrimental but now I relish single-tasking’s quality
- I am more present and generally less distracted
What have you noticed? I am curious to know of your experiences.
I haven’t meditated in a long time, but your blog has inspired me to do so again. I’ll let you know once I have an experience, and if I happen to be the ones who experience nothing, I’ll relay the awesome new abilities I get =D
Let me know your results!
Totally off topic (so much for concentration), but, what kind of slide scanner are you using?
I get my photo shop who processes the film to also put them into digital format, so I don’t know sorry!
When I’m regular in my meditation, I’ve noticed many of the same things you mention – easier focus, awareness, presence, gratitude … Usually other people notice it before I do and point it out to me. Uh, others also seem to notice when I haven’t been regularly meditating.
Knowing how great it is for me, I still wonder why I ever stop meditating regularly. Maybe I’m reminding myself what it’s like without it??