A Meditation on Meditating

I’ve never been the type of person to sit down and think. Most of my days consist of constant stimulation and activities, so I never have the urge to drop everything and just think about my life. When I have nothing to do, I sit down and scroll mindlessly through social media, listen to music, or watch TV shows, because I am bored by my own thoughts. It is terrifying for me to go anywhere without my phone, because that offers the chance of a thought occurring. Recently, though, following the advice of my brother, I have tried to start meditating.

My brother used to be in a similar position I am in when he was in college. Although he didn’t have the same technology I have now, since he is almost 10 years older, he also spent his days distracting himself with whatever he could. Whether it was video games, basketball, YouTube videos, girls, alcohol, or music, he too did whatever he could to avoid thinking. It was only last year when he began to follow some new Buddhist ideologies. One of these is the concept of oneness, which is the belief that we are all “one” in the sense that we are all conscious. Basically, our consciousness is the one thing that every human being shares, so we should try to get closer to that by meditating. This has seemed to make my brother a much happier, more relaxed person, so I tried it out for myself. 

About a week after Thanksgiving break, I went to the prayer and reflection room in Xavier and sat down to meditate. I thought about everything that had happened that day. Then I started to think about schoolwork I had due that week, but I tried to not let that bother me. The longer I sat, the more things I thought about. Some of these thoughts were things I was anxious about, but I tried to mostly think about things I was grateful or excited about. Someone walked in after about five minutes of this and started talking loudly in the lounge, so I left soon after. 

After this meditation, I called my brother to let him know how it went. He was happy and surprised that I found time to sit down and meditate, but he let me know that I wasn’t doing it exactly the way he does. Although a lot of people do meditate exactly the way I did, he said the goal of Buddhist meditation is basically to have no thoughts. I thought this was a bit ironic, since that was always my goal when I distracted myself with technology, but my brother said it is different when you are doing it yourself. If you can completely empty your own mind without the help of distractions, then you have reached a higher level of consciousness. Although I have not yet reached this level, I am still actively trying by meditating whenever I can.