How to Meditate: The Easiest Way to Get into The Meditative State (Alan Watts Guided Meditation) Your Youniverse Meditations
the easiest way to get into the meditative state
is to begin by listening if you simply close your eyes
and allow yourself to hear all the sounds that are going on around you
just listen to the general hum and buzz of the world as if you were listening to music
don't try to identify the sounds you're hearing
don't put names on them
simply allow them to play with your
eardrums and let them
go in other words you could put it let your ears hear whatever they want to hear
don't judge the sounds there are no as it were proper sounds or improper sounds
and it doesn't matter if somebody coughs or sneezes or drops something it's all just sound
and if i am talking to you right now and you're doing this i want you to listen to the sound of
my voice just as if it were noise don't try to make any sense out of what i'm saying because
your brain will take care of that automatically you don't have to try to understand anything just
listen to the sound as you pursue that experiment you will very naturally find that you can't help
naming sounds identifying them that you will go on thinking that is to say talking to yourself inside
your head automatically but it's important that you don't try to repress those thoughts
by forcing them out of your mind because that will have precisely the same effect
as if you were trying to smooth rough water with a flat iron you're just going to disturb it all the
"how to meditate" The Easiest Way to Get into The Meditative State (Alan Watts Guided Meditation) Your Youniverse Meditations
more what you do is this as you hear sounds coming up in your head thoughts you simply listen to them
as part of the general noise going on just as you would be listening to the sound of my voice
or just as you would be listening to cars going by or to birds chattering outside the window
so look at your own thoughts as just noises
and soon you will find that the so-called outside world and the so-called inside world come
together they are a happening your thoughts are happening just like the sounds going on outside
and everything is simply a happening and all you're doing is watching it
now in this process another thing that is happening that is very important
is that you're breathing and as you start meditation you allow your breath to run
just as it wills in other words don't do at first any breathing exercise but just
watch your breath breathing the way it wants to breathe and notice the curious thing about this
you say in the ordinary way i breathe because you feel that breathing is something that you
are doing voluntarily just in the same way as you might be walking or talking but you will
also notice that when you are not thinking about breathing your breathing goes on just the same
so the curious thing about breath is that it can be looked at both as a
voluntary and an involuntary action you can feel on the one hand i am doing it
and on the other hand it is happening to me and that is why breathing is the most important part
of meditation because it is going to show you as you become aware of your breath that the hard and
fast division that we make between what we do on the one hand and what happens to us on the other
is arbitrary so that as you watch your breathing you will become aware
that both the voluntary and the involuntary aspects of your experience are all one happening
now that may at first seem a little scary because you may think well am i just the puppet of a
happening the mere passive witness of something that's going on completely beyond my control
or on the other hand am i really doing everything that's going along
well if i were i should be god that would be very embarrassing because
i would be in charge of everything that would be terribly responsible position
the truth of the matter as you will see it is that both things are true
you can see it that everything is happening to you
and on the other hand you're doing everything for example
it's your eyes that are turning the sun into light it's the nerve ends in your skin that are turning
electric vibrations in the air into heat and temperature it's your eardrums that
are turning vibrations in the air into sound and in that way you are creating the world
but when we're not talking about it when we're not full of philosophizing about it then there is just
How to Meditate: The Easiest Way to Get into The Meditative State Alan Watts "Guided Meditation" Your Youniverse Meditations
this happening this uh
and we won't give it a name
now then when you breathe for a while
just letting it happen and not forcing it in any way you will discover a curious thing
that without making any effort you can breathe more and more deeply
in other words supposing you simply are breathing out
and breathing out is important because it's the breath of relaxation that's when we say
and heave a sigh of relief so when you are breathing out
you get the sensation that your breath is falling out
dropping dropping dropping out with the same sort of feeling you have
as if you were settling down into an extremely comfortable bed and you just get as heavy as
possible and let yourself go and you let your breath go out in just that way
and when it's thoroughly comfortably out and it feels like coming back again you don't pull
it back in you let it fall back in letting your lungs expand expand expand until they feel very
comfortably full and you wait a moment to let it stay there and then once again you let it fall out
and so in this way you will discover that your breath gets quite naturally easier and easier
and slower and slower and more and more powerful so that with these various aids listening to sound
listening to your own interior feelings and thoughts just as if they were something going
on not something you are doing but just happenings and watching your breath as a happening that is
neither voluntary nor involuntary you are simply aware of these basic sensations then you begin
to be in the state of meditation but don't hurry anything don't worry about the future
don't worry about what progress you're making just be entirely content to be aware of what is
How to Meditate: The Easiest Way to Get into The Meditative State (Alan Watts Guided Meditation) Your Youniverse Meditations