What is Meditation?

Is it sitting still? Is it letting your thoughts go? Is it focusing? Or, as the Dalai Lama would say, "The best meditation is sleep". I find that it is a variety of practices,postures and positions. None of which will guarantee results because these are the manifestations of that which our mind conjures and that by definition is thinking.Thinking is either constructive or destructive.Meditation is neither.As I write this, I think about the times I've meditated and how it has been practiced (not unlike weight-lifting or even losing weight for that matter). Meditation requires an entry and an exit. Like prayer it requires a conscious attempt to engage. Listening to sounds and sensations as a way of entering into a meditative state, just as breathing slowly and releasing tension helps us to drop down into our experience.

Today I am looking at what meditation is not.Distraction is not meditation.It will misalign us.Distraction has to be allowed though,as it can be incorporated into the body of the meditation. Otherwise, resistance ensues. Resistance will persist to the degree that we resist it.Acceptance is the key,and ultimately the essence of a regulated meditative practice.Acceptance then becomes the first level of our conscious experience.Meditation is all about experiencing our experience.This experience is beyond belief.