I meditate in the morning for 5 to 30 minutes. I even don’t know if it is officially called meditation but it seems working to me.
I wake up about 30 to 15 minutes earlier than everyone else. I go to the kitchen and turn the kettle on. While I am waiting for the water boiling, I tidy up the counter a little bit. Then I go to my chair with a cup of hot water. I put my foot rest up, wrap myself up with a blanket and make it comfortable and cozy. Close my eyes and start breathing out slowly. After a few deep breaths I just let myself do whatever I feel like. Sometimes I keep deep breathing for a while. Sometimes I hold my cup and enjoy the warmness. Sometimes ideas pop up in my mind one after another. Whatever happens, I just let it go until my daughter’s alarm clock starts beeping.
Sometimes I can’t get up so quickly that I only have 5 minutes to sit, but it still is worth it to me. Although my brain feels like half sleeping, that 5 minutes are somehow different from the same length of time I drowse in the bed.
I got interested in meditation when I was 18 or so. I studied about Buddhism, Zen and how to meditate by reading books. I sat with my legs crossed, back straight and eyes lightly closed. I imagined the chi of my body flow with my breathing and energy stored up just below my belly button. I tried not to focus on anything. And so on. I practiced time to time for a while. It was more a serious training than something relaxing and enjoyable. Gradually I dropped that practice.
Since then, I had an occasion to meditate here and there, but it had never become a routine or habit to me. In the meantime, I had noticed that meditation was getting quite popular and not necessarily considered something associated with a religion these days. That made me interested in the positive effect of mediation on human, yet I didn’t have the strong motivation to try it seriously.
I read an article about a lady’s daily routine years ago. She meditates after she wakes up, takes a lot of time for breakfast, and does Yoga or something like that before she really starts the day. I felt it would be luxurious if you had so much time in the morning. Remind you I was a fulltime working mother with 2 young children at that time. There was no time for myself, or I didn’t have energy and mentality to make such time.
After I moved in Digby, I started to take some quiet time in the morning. I was confused with some things in my life and I thought once again I would try to meditate.
You often see the instruction of meditation saying ‘choose a quiet room and time, put relaxing music if you would like, close your eyes and breath slowly, etc’. They commonly make you feel that you have to relax to meditate. But, as soon as you try to relax, you are not really relaxed. It’s a paradox.
One day I was focusing on meditation so hard that I left the cup of hot water beside me without touching. Then I realized I forced myself to give up the cup in spite of the fact that I was really enjoying the warmth in that morning. If I didn’t enjoy the hot water at that time, it would soon get cold. The warmth would be gone when I finally got ready for it. So I took the cup and enjoyed it instead of wasting it. That was my ‘Ah ha!’ moment.
If you want to enjoy the cup of hot tea, enjoy it fully. That becomes your meditation.
You don’t need to try to relax. You just make time to listen to yourself, be sensitive with what you really want at that time and let it be.
I now find myself being like the lady in the article although I neither do Yoga nor take a lot of time for breakfast. I wake up, meditate as much time as I have then start the day. Still life is busy but the quite time in the morning, even just 5 minutes, makes me feel I have the control over myself. I intentionally make time to listen to myself, which seems making a difference in my life.