The Vipasana Meditation Technique

This is a very easy meditation technique and is called Vipasana. It does not require you to believe in any God or Guru. It can be done at any time of the day. It acts directly act on your mind and makes it more sensitive. It brings our minds under our complete awareness so that we can use it at any time to its fullest capacity.

This technique in a nutshell is - 'watching your breath'. Our breath and mind are closely related. Scientists say that we use only 2 percent of our mind power. In order to use it fully, we need to meditate. Our mind power is wasted when we harbour thousands of thoughts in it. This Vipasana technique steadies our minds.

If you watch the elephant when it is walking, you will see that it sways its trunk from one side to the other continuously. If you give it a log of wood to hold, it will stop swaying its trunk while walking. Likewise, to steady our mind that is swaying all the time, we need something. That is the Vipasana technique. When our mind stops swaying, it becomes more powerful. When hundred thoughts rise in our mind, only 2 of them materialize because our mind is exhausted in creating and harbouring these 100 thoughts. If only 10 thoughts rise in our mind, at least 8 of them will materialize because the energy that was earlier used in creating the remaining 90 thoughts can now be used to materialize these 8 thoughts. We will be able to
use the energy to scrutinize these 8 thoughts and implement them.

Our breath is entwined with our mind. The elephant’s tusk that is seen outside as big and long is present inside the elephant’s mouth as teeth. It is actually the same bone. The tusk
outside is nothing but the teeth inside and the teeth inside is nothing but the tusk outside. Similarly, our breath when it goes inside, is our mind and the mind when it comes outside, is our breath. If you get angry, you will see that your breath is more aggressive. If you control your breath, you will see that your mind calms down. As you calm your mind, your breath will regularize and as your breath regularizes, your mind will calm down. Bringing this cycle under our complete awareness is what this technique does.

Now for the technique:

Sit in arthapadmasana posture. This is an easy Buddha-posture where you simply squat on the floor keeping your back straight. Balance your body. Let us see how to balance your body. Close your eyes and slowly move your upper body forwards, you will feel the weight of you body. Now, slowly push your body backwards until you reach a point where your centre of gravity falls in a straight line and you feel weightless. Now from this position, move further backwards and you again feel the weight of your body. Now move forwards until you reach the same point of weightlessness again. This position is your position for meditation. Each one has his own position for meditation and he has to identify it by this simple method.

When we breathe, four things happen and they are as follows: The air goes in, it returns to come out, it comes out and returns to go in. All you have to do is, keep your eyes closed and watch these four activities closely without missing any of them. Watch like how you watch television; watch like a witness these four stages of your breath. When you do this, don’t suppress or resist any thought that surfaces, just look at them with friendship. This technique was founded by Buddha and is said to have created most number of enlightened people.

Practice this technique for 20 minutes everyday. It will bring in increasing clarity into your life. Your mind and body will come under your complete awareness. Currently, your mind and body are on their own. You are going behind them. When you get into a car and start the vehicle, you should be able to stop it when you wish to, only then you are in control of the car, else the car is controlling you! It is the same case with our minds also. We have started our minds but we are not able to stop it. Our minds are driving us now. Anything done with awareness will bring about a big change in our lives. This technique increases our awareness of our mind and body.

My love and blessings to you.