Incidental Daily Meditation - Natural Meditation in Everyday Activities

The practice of meditation is, to many people, something mystical, used only by the deeply spiritual in Far Eastern religions, and a few New Age fanatics in the West, for whom it will no doubt be a passing fad. The reality, though, is very different, and there is no reason why any ordinary American or European cannot meditate and benefit from so doing.

While keen meditation practitioners may spend long hours in meditating, and acquire a deep level of relaxation, self hypnosis, and inner awareness, the ordinary person with no training in meditation may, quite incidentally, undertake daily meditation without even being aware of it.

How can any commonly daily activity be an act of meditating? The answer lies in the fact that meditation involves deep focusing of the mind, reaching a state where it is less distracted than usual, allowing your thought to settle on just one thing at a time.

There can be many moments of such focus during the day, and here are just a few examples:

1. You may become so absorbed in admiring something beautiful in nature or art, that the rest of the world is cast aside. That is the same process, achieved incidentally, as when you settle into a meditation session.

2. You may be totally focused on an excellent movie, or a favorite piece of music, so much so that little or nothing else enters your thoughts. Listening to a long piece of classical music, without disturbance, can be a wonderful form of meditation.

3. Prayer is a form of meditation, regardless of the religion with which you may be associated. Carried out correctly, with a deep level of focus on your god or goddess, you will achieve the same beneficial healing process as you do with formal meditation.

4. Some will argue that even exercise can be a form of meditation, as it can have the effect of dispelling other thought as the mind focuses on the exercise.

5. You would not survive for long at all without breathing, so it is something you have to do all day and night. If you can make your breathing more conscious, and through the nose, at regular intervals through the day, you will be able to achieve the benefits of breathing exercises that are so integral to good meditation practice.

6. Yoga is how I personally discovered meditation as a powerful form of relaxation, healing and rejuvenation. It happened as a natural part of my week, so I regard it is a form of meditation that was incidental to my daily life.

Any of the above parts of your daily routine can bring you some of the benefits of formal meditation. Once you realize that is so, there is a good chance you will concentrate on them that much more, increasing those benefits proportionately.