Meditation

This blog page is intended to introduce the viewers to several meditative practices and then give them a specific step-by-step guide to improve their meditation, concentration, and awareness. There is plenty of neuroscience and psychiatric literature suggesting how meditation can drastically change our brains and hence improve our mental health and cognition. Meditation is associated with emotion regulation, executive functioning, impulse control, higher memory retention, and memory consolidation. All these psychological benefits are secondary to the ultimate goal of meditation which is to be Awakened. When the masters teach meditation, they not only intend for people to gain joy and peace from meditation but also to awaken themselves to the real world. Often times we live in our own perceived worlds, where our habitual patterns of thinking and cognitive biases control our outlook. But through a meditative practice, we can decondition ourselves from such cognitive dispositions and start to look at ourselves and the world in a more accurate manner. 

"Not to commit any sin, to do good, and to purify one's own mind through meditation, that is the teaching of all the Awakened" - Dhammapada, Chapter 14 (Buddha's Teachings)