From Dr. Jay Kumar - Meditation: Flexing the Muscle of Your Mind
Jul-21-2011

A wealth of medical research now exists that adequately demonstrates the benefits of meditation to relax and alleviate stress. If you're like most people, maybe you have this image of meditation having to sit cross-legged with a straight back chanting the sound OM. Perhaps you'd be surprised to know that almost anything in your daily life can be used as a meditation, as long as you focus your mind to the action you're currently doing. In this way, swimming, running, knitting, tai-chi, Yoga, walking in nature, gardening, washing the dishes, or even making love can be a meditation. What these activities all have in common is their ability to keep your thoughts focused on the present moment.

I regularly tell many of my private clients that meditation is simply about being present! I personally have discovered, from my nearly 20 years of meditation, that it enables me to be present in the "here and now" of my life. Dr. John Kabat-Zinn, the renowned professor of medicine and meditation teacher, says, "Meditation is simply about being yourself and knowing about who that is. It is about coming to realize that you are on a path whether you like it or not, namely the path that is your life."Therefore, I say that another word for meditation is MINDFULNESS. Meditation allows you to live more consciously and mindfully in every moment of your life.

However, there is one thing that prevents us to stay focused and mindful in the moment. That one thing in the eastern spiritual traditions is called the "monkey mind." Like the proverbial monkey jumping from one branch to the other, our monkey-mind incessantly hops from one thought to the next without ever being still. Meditation, or mindfulness training, allows the incessant chatter of our monkey mind to become calm and quiet so we can finally reconnect to our true self, the ever-present nature of who we are that gets obscured and drowned out by the noise of our everyday thoughts.

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