“Meditation” is considered as one of the ways we use to find the balance between relaxation and concentration. To be precise, it’s 50% relaxation and 50% concentration.

“Relaxation” allows the mind to easily let go of thousands of thoughts that come up during the day. While “concentration” helps the mind to stay with one thought so that the mind won’t return to the distractions once again. However, it’s usually easier to begin with the relaxation than the concentration. One reason most people can’t meditate is because they don’t feel relaxed enough.

Before we begin our meditation session, imagine yourself on a vacation where you have nothing in the mind to worry about at all. We relax every part of the body. The feeling is similar to when we lay in our soft cozy bed and we feel so comfortable and free just resting. Maintain and stay with this feeling as long as you can. However, most people can’t maintain the mind free from thoughts because their mind isn’t used to it. Their mind will be distracted again, which is very normal.

Our mind is like a car trying to cross a congested road where vehicles are approaching from different directions. Everything is chaotic and there is no way to stop the traffic. What we do in meditation is to separate ourselves from the traffic and wait on the side of the road.

Instead of paying attention to the approaching cars, we stay patient and pay attention to something else something relaxing. This is the reason why we need to focus on one other thought just one thing. The way we concentrate, we do it in a relaxing way. We observe all movements of vehicles comfortably until all vehicles stop coming in and the road becomes clear. We feel relaxed while observing the traffic. We don’t feel agitated or irritated.

Meditation is not a race so you don’t need to rush. Eventually, there will be no cars approaching and our car can cross the road to the other side. This requires some practice and patience. But once we have mastered it, our life will never be the same.