We all have read that meditation is good for many reasons such as lowering blood pressure, improving sleep, improving clarity of thought. It has even been shown to raise IQ and to slow the aging process. Unfortunately, there are many different schools and styles of meditation, each with a different approach, form, and technique. This is confusing to people who are interested in learning to meditate.
Since we are programmed in the West to believe that learning a new skill requires effort, concentration, and that if we don't succeed, we should "...try, try again," we are almost guaranteed to run into self-defeating thoughts about meditation. Sadly, I have met many frustrated would-be meditators along my path who gave up their meditation practice claiming that it's too arduous, nothing 'happens' when they meditate, they get headaches, they get frustrated because they can't make their thoughts stop, and so on. There is a belief in spiritual circles that all raods lead to Rome. I think this may in part be because we are well aware that it's better not to talk about loaded topics such as religion and politics at the dinner table (and anywhere else, for that matter). These topics are too personal, and it's easy for such topics to lead to arguments. I do this, too. But life is short and I feel like speaking up a bit more about this one particular area of spiritual endeavor.
