I have always had a difficult time falling asleep, especially when I was younger. My mind races and its hard to shut it off. As I’m writing this its 4:30 AM, and I still might be up for a while!
When I was about 8 and fed up with laying in bed for hours, just waiting for exhaust to overcome me and allow me to sleep, I developed a simple technique to help me fall asleep easier. I would breathe slowly and focus on my heart rate. It would often be difficult to focus on my heart rate without feeling an artery, or I’d get fed up with not falling asleep yet. However, if I laid still and was intent on focusing on my heart rate, it would always eventually slow, and eventually I would drift off into sleep.
Over a decade later I realized I had, at a very young age, taught myself how to meditate.
I still use the technique on nights where sleep is difficult, but I learned how to improve it. Noah Rasheta of SecularBuddhism.com, who has been a key influence in my Buddhist practice, developed the more refined version. He details how in his podcast episode entitled “How to Meditate“. He asked free divers about how they would be able to hold their breath much loner than normal, and they told him about the mammalian reflex. The mammalian reflex is when you hold your breath for short bursts of time and release the air longer than you held it. This activates an instinct telling your body that it may be going underwater soon, and that it needs to focus the mind and slow the heart rate in order to conserve oxygen. Noah simply took the technique and instead of applying it to freediving, applied it to meditation. I took the instructions that Noah gives and made it into this easy to understand graphic:
Meditation is the act of focusing on only one thing at a time. There is no need for it to be seated.Alan Watts, in his brilliant “Lecture on Zen“, said that there are 3 kinds of meditation besides sitting: standing, walking, and lying. He said
when you sit, just sit. When you walk, just walk. But whatever you do, don’t wobble. In fact, of course, you can wobble, if you really wobble well. When the old master Hiakajo was asked ‘What is Zen?’ he said ‘When hungry, eat, when tired, sleep,’ and they said, ‘Well isn’t that what everybody does? Aren’t you just like ordinary people?’ ‘Oh no,’ he said, ‘they don’t do anything of the kind. When they’re hungry, they don’t just eat, they think of all sorts of things. When they’re tired, they don’t just sleep, but dream all sorts of dreams.’
In this way, meditation could be anything. It could be washing the dishes, singing, or anything else just as long as you are truly focusing on what you’re doing.