Introduction to Meditation

The professional help (Psychologist) was going through the motions well enough and making a lot of sense, but after six months of one Psych and not really getting all that much better I switched to a different one.  Again after about another six months there was only a small improvement. I was starting to think that it would take the rest of my life to 'recover'. I was however in a place where I could start to rationally think about things for myself. (I guess that was a big improvement in itself.)

So I started to have the realisation that I needed to do something else, something with more practical application rather than just sitting and talking about the same old stuff each fortnight.  Talking about the past is OK for a little while, but eventually you need to start to focus on the now.

Enter - Meditation.

I had always been interested in Eastern elements, medicine, martial arts, religion, culture, massage and meditation. So I bit the bullet as they say, and found a place offering a course in Calm Abiding Meditation. Nine weeks for about $90, not a bad deal. Calm Abiding Meditation (or Shamatha Meditation) is Buddhist Meditation and so with this introduction to meditation came my introduction to Buddhism.

The practical meditation really did calm me and almost immediately I could feel some instant benefit from this practice. These benefits didn't last much longer than the individual meditation session but at least I could see that maybe, just maybe there was something more to this meditation thing and that it wouldn't take the rest of my life to heal.

The theory we were learning about also seemed to make a lot of practical sense, while it didn't help immediately, it did seem logical and without a lot of 'just believe me', and that appealed to me. At the start I did need to take it on faith that the meditation would work long term, but I thought that at least it can't do any harm. So after the nine week course I started to meditate every morning. I was still seeing the Psychologist occasionally but I finished this a few months later as I felt it wasn't worth the time.  I looked to meditation and the teachings of Buddha deeply for guidance.

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I'll leave this entry here and go more into the beginning experience of meditation next time.
Thanks for reading.