Starting a Meditation Practice: Part 3.

Zen?! Vipassana?! Transcendental?! 

Before getting into the details of actually sitting for a session (I will in the next post), it’s important to first discuss that there are many different types of meditation.

The countless styles span a multitude of historical, religious, and new-age traditions - Zen, Vipassana, Yogic, Christian Devotional are four examples of literally hundreds. To make navigating this a bit easier, folks typically divide styles into two categories - calming and insight. 

A calming meditation is exactly as it sounds with the intended goal of creating a more peaceful mind and relaxed body. During a session, you might be focusing on your breath, an object, a visualization, physical sensations, or just bringing awareness to the space around you. 

Insight meditation incorporates similar techniques as those used in calming, but include an additional layer of mental/emotional/spiritual transformation. Insight meditation practices typically involve an intention - these can vary from trying to increase compassion for others, elevating our own consciousness, or deepening our connection to God/Source/Self. 

For folks new to meditation I would recommend framing the early days of your practice as just dedicated time for stillness - meaning, before telling people that you are going to start a “wisdom-centered Vipassana practice”, first prove to yourself that you can just sit quietly for a few minutes without fidgeting or grabbing your phone. As you progress in your practice and you want to add additional meaning/intention to each session, then deep-dive the nuances of particular traditions (or find a teacher). 

As I mentioned, in the next post I’ll provide some guidance for during a session - your breathing, wrangling your monkey mind, etc. The tips I provide will incorporate basic principles from both calming and insight styles of meditation. 

Until then! 

“Do not be afraid of spending quality time by yourself. Find meaning or don’t find meaning but ‘steal’ some time and give it freely and exclusively to your own self. Opt for privacy and solitude. That doesn’t make you antisocial or cause you to reject the rest of the world. But you need to breathe. And you need to be.” - Camus