Meditation Training Overview

For years I recall several nights where I was sitting in easy pose, on the floor, palms placed gently on my knees, and...nothing.  For years I practiced meditation, before I reached a breakthrough.  Finally in 2010, I was practicing yoga, trying to understand all the variations of sun salutations, when I went into my silent meditation.  Easy pose, palms facing down, lights dimmed, eyes closed, and practicing breath discipline, I began to notice my first glimpses of deep meditation.

The system I found that works best for me to enter deep meditation consists of two parts.

1. Yoga postures.
Usually beginning with sun salutations, I move into various yoga postures ranging in time between 25-60 minutes.  In Vinyasa yoga, there is a process to include all the sections of the body, that way the body is balanced with energy.  However, when I focus on meditation, my yoga practice changes, and I shut off my mind and just work on parts of the body that feel stiff, sometimes I focus mostly on my neck.  There are other times where I feel like my hips need more work, and sometimes it's my chest.  I try to let my body lead, not my mind.

2. Breath discipline.
Unusual breathing, or breath discipline has proven to be the most important part of reaching deep meditation.  This could also be considered practicing mindfulness, reaching a state of consciousness where you are totally in the present moment.  There are several systems of breathing, I usually start out by doing the ocean breath.  Keeping the mouth closed, breathing only through the nose, the breath slows down and makes an audible sound on the exhale.  It's like fogging a mirror, but keeping the mouth closed, the exhale can't help but sound like an ocean.

I stopped eating meat that same year, this may have had something to do my progress in meditation.  I recently started eating some fish, and little bits of meat that might just happen to be an ingredient in some meals, as long as it's very minimal, i.e., like 2 tablespoons or so.  Some types of meat however, I still have a 100% aversion to.