When you meditate, you go into the light that is inside of you. That light is inside of everyone and everything, and it cannot be owned by any culture, country, religion, lineage or gender. Anyone can slow their mind down and experience that light. It doesn’t matter if you’re fat or skinny, young or old, mediocre or extraordinary, a gal or a guy—anyone can meditate!
If watching a romantic comedy makes you pine for the perfect relationship and you didn’t feel this painful longing before watching, then don’t watch that kind of movie. If a song makes you miss an old lover or makes you sad in some way, then don’t listen to it.
It’s so simple. There’s no rule written anywhere that you have to feel sad or suffer over the past. If a song, movie, book, TV show, etc. makes you feel unhappy, turn it off. Although it’s true that some people love their pain and love to indulge in sadness, you don’t have to.
Our incessant internal dialogue—all of the strategizing, defending, regurgitating and worrying that we do—covers our true nature. When you stop thought, you directly experience that you are made of light, Consciousness, God (you choose your favorite word).
Keeping the mind quiet won’t make you unconscious or an idiot. Rather you become wiser as you begin to see the vast wisdom that is at your core. You’ll find that you begin to understand things without having to think them through and that you have access to greater knowledge that isn’t available to you when your mind is a cyclone of thoughts and concerns.
But keeping your mind quiet is hard to do in our digital, socially-networked world, where we are constantly bombarded with information and never out of reach from…anyone! How do you do it? The answer is simple—you meditate. For instruction on how to meditate, download the free eBook on How to Meditate.
Please note I’m not receiving payment for any of these recommendations; these are simply things I like and use.
A Great Cushion Set. I like the ones from DharmaCrafts, and particularly like the zafus filled with buckwheat hulls. If you sit in half-lotus or cross-legged, the cushions with buckwheat hulls are great because they conform to your shape and prevent your legs from falling asleep. They also have a quiz to help you find which kind of cushion or bench is right for you. I love how many fabrics and patterns are available these days.
An iPod or other music player. You may say what the heck, why not just use my phone?! The deal is our phones have so much crap energy with apps, news, emails, texts…yuck! I don’t want any of that noise near my meditation, so I have a specific music player I use just for meditating. A fun extra with the iPod is you can have the back engraved with your favorite mantra, like om mani padme hum, which means the jewel in the lotus, and is a poetic way of saying that enlightenment is inside you, and indeed, inside everyone and everything!
A Great Pair of Headphones (or Earbuds) that you use just for meditation. I personally prefer headphones over earbuds. The sound quality of headphones is superior to earbuds, plus I don’t like having anything in my ears while I meditate. It’s similar to how jewelry you wear throughout the day becomes almost unbearable to have on while you’re meditating. That said, this is definitely an instance of personal preference (see the A-frame story)! Indeed, one of my best friends can’t believe I want those heavy old things on my head while I meditate. You can find extensive recommendations on Wirecutter for all kinds of great headphones and earbuds.
A Bell. My dear friend Ben says that if he walks into another room and forgets what he was about to do, he just walks back to the place where he was thinking the thought and picks it back up. Our thoughts leave impressions, so walking back into his old thought bubble, he picks the thread back up. But what if you don’t want all your old thoughts and dreams around? A bell is a great (and fascinating) way to clear them out of your space and mind. When you first ring a bell in a space, it will warble, but as you continue to clear the space, the ring becomes clearer and clearer until it rings precisely with no warble. At that point, you’ll find your room sparkles, and your mind is emptier and brighter. A good bell won’t make you enlightened, but it will make your life much easier! Check out Karen Kingston to learn more on this topic.
Lying, cheating or stealing for personal gain may give you a short-term feeling of happiness, but over the long run these actions will make you very unhappy. While these actions may not always hurt others, they will always hurt you. When you act without integrity, you end up spending an enormous amount of energy denying the actions were wrong—either by constantly pushing them out of your mind or by thinking things like, “They can afford it,” “She won’t really notice,” or “They deserve it.” The problem is when an action doesn’t have integrity, it will continually rise to the surface and niggle at you and prevent you from having a happy, peaceful mind.
Several years ago I was driving in northern New Mexico with a friend and as we passed an A-frame house she exclaimed, “There’s just something *so wrong* with A-frames! The energy of them is all wrong.” And while I didn’t feel as strongly as she did, I did agree. As a kid, I’d spent the night in an A-frame and felt weird the entire time. Something about the roof line felt oppressive and I couldn’t wait for our family to leave.
Not long thereafter, another friend of mine mentioned how A-frames have such great energy, and that they are *perfect* for people who meditate. I chuckled that people could have such strong feelings about A-frames (who knew?), but what really struck me was that these meditators, both of whom had been on the spiritual path for many years, had such contrasting perceptions. It highlighted that neither was right, rather the feeling created by the architecture worked for one of them, but not the other.
The value of this story is to not extrapolate that what works for you, works for everyone. There’s not one way to approach the spiritual path, and the truth is you don’t know what is best for others on their journey! So don’t waste your energy inflicting your opinions on others, instead, enjoy the emptiness of not knowing. Right now, as an experiment, say, “I don’t know.” Can you feel the bliss of letting go of ideas and agendas, and not knowing?
When you meditate, you go into the light that is inside of you. That light is inside of everyone and everything, and it cannot be owned by any culture, country, religion, lineage or gender. Anyone can slow their mind down and experience that light. It doesn’t matter if you’re fat or skinny, young or old, mediocre or extraordinary, a gal or a guy—anyone can meditate!
How to Be Happy NOW 
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