Throughout lunch at work, we focus on our vacation plans. After I’ve advised my colleagues that I’m going on a meditation retreat in the summertime, the dialog turns to meditation. I don’t disclose to them what number of hours I’ll meditate, however inform my colleague, who like me has ‘Supervisor’ in her job title, and two smaller kids, that I meditate on daily basis throughout the remainder of the yr as nicely. As soon as a day for 3 quarters of an hour or twice for half an hour. My colleague says that she additionally tried meditation as soon as a few years in the past, however didn’t succeed.
This brings us to 3 meditation myths that I’ll now focus on:
Fantasy 1: The duty of meditation is to attempt to loosen up
FALSE.
Once I ask my colleague what she particularly tried to do, she says that it was a form of guided joint meditation that occurred on a weekday afternoon. She says she was not in a position to loosen up – she merely couldn’t do what the trainer advised her to. She subsequently concluded she was not in a position to meditate, she merely couldn’t do it.
Right here we encounter some of the widespread misconceptions about meditation: that the duty of meditating is actively to loosen up. Happily, this isn’t the case with Acem Meditation. For what might be extra annoying than having to loosen up for the following half hour? In Acem Meditation, our solely activity is to repeat the meditation sound as simply and effortlessly as we will – each time we will. Leisure comes as a pure response from doing this, whether or not we know it or not.
Fantasy 2: The purpose of meditating is to grow to be senseless
FALSE.
When my colleague says she was unable to meditate, it’s most likely as a result of she had a substantial amount of ideas happening in her thoughts that afternoon. Ideas she was absorbed in, whereas she was attempting to comply with the directions of the one that was guiding the meditation. Not directly there was a mismatch between her precise expertise of her interior self and the interior self that the particular person guiding the meditation was attempting to assist her obtain.
In Acem Meditation, all ideas are permitted. You’re allowed to assume/really feel/daydream something. ANYTHING. Sleep. Goals – something. All the pieces within the meditation that’s not your individual repetition of the meditation sound is named spontaneous exercise, usually abbreviated SPA. The abbreviation is definitely fairly correct, as a result of you possibly can consider SPA because the thoughts’s manner of enjoyable. SPA cleans up the thoughts by processing its unfinished enterprise. SPA is what occurs spontaneously in meditation.
The interplay between what you do (repeating the meditation sound as simply and effortlessly as you possibly can – when you possibly can) and what occurs is what offers meditation its processing impact, and which in the end brings leisure.
Fantasy 3: I want a meditation information or a meditation app each time I meditate
FALSE.
In Acem Meditation you aren’t depending on a meditation information (a human being), or an App in your cellphone for that matter. The battery in your cellphone might occur to be empty.
When you find yourself meditating, it is best to defend your self from sturdy sounds and lightweight, and sit in an excellent snug chair. It is usually potential to meditate in a brilliant and noisy setting (e.g.an airplane) if in case you have earplugs and a sleep masks, and even if you happen to don’t. You possibly can set the alarm on an old school alarm clock if you’d like, or simply merely have a look at a very analogue wristwatch. The underside line this: Upon getting discovered the method, you solely want your self.
After taking the essential course, you possibly can in precept meditate by yourself for the remainder of your life, if you wish to. The overwhelming majority of meditators nonetheless discover it worthwhile to fulfill different meditators to debate their very own meditation, hear about different individuals’s experiences, and be taught extra about meditation psychology, so as to meditate higher themselves.
Abstract
Anybody can do Acem Meditation. With this methodology, leisure comes as a pure results of repeating the meditation sound with out effort, and never as a result of we need to obtain it. Acem Meditation is a non-directive meditation method, the place what’s within the thoughts is allowed to play itself out by itself phrases, it doesn’t matter what it’s. It isn’t a purpose in Acem Meditation to grow to be empty of ideas. Quite the opposite, processing takes place exactly by permitting your ideas to circulate freely and assembly them with a free psychological angle each time we aren’t fully absorbed by them. Upon getting discovered Acem Meditation, you possibly can in precept meditate by yourself for the remainder of your life, and solely want your self and a time piece. Nevertheless, most meditators discover they get extra out of meditation by exchanging and discussing their experiences with different meditators.
To conclude: Based mostly on their very own experiences with different strategies, or on what they assume they find out about meditation, there are fairly just a few who consider that meditation is just not for them. For them, Acem Meditation might very nicely (additionally, and maybe particularly?) be the meditation method that fits them the most effective. Together with my work colleague.
By Elisabeth Heimdal Wærsted – an initiator in Acem
Translated by Eirik Jensen
Picture: From the environment of Acem’s retreat middle Lundsholm, Sweden
