The five basic steps of traditional meditation generally use five steps to describe or guide the practice of meditation as a basic process, the beginning of which is: | Step 1 | Focus Beginners must take a fixed posture, relax their bodies and concentrate on something. Relaxation and concentration are particularly important, and some meditation techniques will focus on relaxation-the more relaxed, the easier it is to concentrate. When you want to concentrate more, you can focus on anything. Here are some common examples: ▼ One activity: Breathing is the most commonly used activity, as well as dancing or meditation activities, such as Tai Chi. ▼ An object (such as a candle or a painting): The most commonly used images are all kinds of images, such as mandala or more complicated and symbolic pictures. ▼ A voice: This voice can be repeated repeatedly. It can be chanting aloud, or repeating prayers or chanting in a low voice. Spells are words that are repeated repeatedly when practicing transcendental meditation. ▼ An idea: usually focus on a special idea. Truth, honesty, love and enthusiasm are common examples. This special exercise is called meditation or analytical meditation. No matter what you use, when you pay attention to the focus, you can only think about this thing, and you can't think about anything else, so that your attention won't wander around or wander, and then you will be more focused. As long as you succeed once, you can enter the door of meditation. | Step 2 | Sit quietly here, which means to concentrate on one thing and have no other thoughts. This is a dynamic process of the mind, which needs strength to do. Traditionally, meditation is absolute concentration. As long as we practice for a long time, it will lead us to the next step-meditation. | Step 3 | Meditation The process of concentration often produces meditation naturally and effortlessly, just as the mind is suddenly driven. When you are in meditation, your mind is no longer rational, but a state of high awareness, which leads to intuition, creativity and wisdom. You know, the mind has two different functions: one is rational and conscious, and the other is abstract, intuitive and intelligent. We are familiar with the rational operation of the brain every day. It keeps thinking, analyzing and evaluating every day-we go to bed together, and all kinds of different ideas always flow in our brains until we go to sleep at night. This rational and psychological activity is usually related to the left brain. Under normal circumstances, you don't think when you sleep, but you are unconscious. However, sometimes we have a short and unthought fantasy of happiness before going to sleep. That kind of calm is very similar to the brilliant sunshine or great works of art that touch our hearts and make us in a state of quiet ecstasy. At this time, we will have a more abstract irrational brain activity, which is related to the right brain. Usually in this silent ecstasy, we will get useful and even profound insights. Many people will laugh that human wisdom is actually flawed, because we are extremely rational animals, using only half of our brains! Meditation supplements the deficiency of rational thinking and operates the other half of the brain. By doing so, we will gain new insights and new meaning in life. During meditation, the brain is still active, but it doesn't work in a commonly known way during meditation. Prolonging meditation time can lead us to unity. | Step 4 | Unification This is a very abstract state. Unity will make us aware of the existence of things in daily life and notice their duality. Please put this book in front of you. Part of you should focus on this book. You can naturally feel that the two are separated: one is you and the other is this book-this is also the process of realizing the existence of this book. Now, something more interesting and exciting has appeared! Through meditation, you, as a meditator, are combined with what you are meditating, even the act of meditation itself, and there is no problem of separation or duality. This is a kind of unity. Take the example discussed above as an example: you no longer feel separated from this book, but feel yourself in it. This kind of integration, this feeling of being one, can be achieved by focusing on anything. This is the unity that mystics have been keen to pursue for thousands of years, and they write the feeling of unity into poetry. This will bring us to the last state-enlightenment. | Step 5 | Enlightenment This can be interpreted as "acquiring knowledge by understanding everything". In this state, we will have a brand-new experience of the facts, which will make people feel directly, quickly and completely satisfied; We will know what truth is-absolute truth will be presented clearly and unmistakably. In some cultures, this experience is called enlightenment. Practice demonstration If we focus on a candle according to the example, we can understand that the five-step process is really useful. First, you must sit still and concentrate on the candle. At first, your mind may be easily distracted-what to eat at night, what to do tomorrow, whether to scratch your nose and so on. Then through perseverance and hard work, we can focus on candles effortlessly without any interference from thoughts. This is meditation, an inseparable awareness. Soon, we will start meditation, just like starting another period of thinking. The abstract ideas about candles, including its shape, light and flame, will be reflected, which will give you a new level of understanding of candles. For example, you may feel that the light of a candle is a symbol of your own spiritual essence, and you will feel very satisfied through this awareness. As such thoughts fade away, all awareness and time will also disappear. Only when we look back, will we find that we were in a state of integration with candles, which is unity. This feeling of unity transcends candles and the present environment, making you feel integrated with everything around you. This mysterious experience will make people feel happy for a long time! Finally, we will have a new clarity. From the process of meditating on candles, we feel our inner essence. After being inspired, you may experience the truth of your inner nature and understand that all this exists in yourself and everyone around you. This is an undeniable fact, not learned from reading or hearsay, but personally experienced. Such a fact may not be proved by reason, but don't worry, we know it is a fact. This article is taken from "14 days, live 40 years longer, self-clean cancer cells: a must-read classic for cancer self-help from Gershon therapy to detoxification meditation". Author: Ian Geller (founder of the world's first "life therapy" cancer support group)/Publisher: persimmon culture.