Meditation

Meditation is commonly recognised as an effective way to reduce stress, making it much-needed in our current climate. Other benefits include calming the mind, improving the general emotional state and promoting overall wellbeing.

Benefits of meditation

For most people, beginning meditation is a revelation about how busy the mind tends to be. Observing an endless stream of thoughts, jumping wildly from this to that, is a common experience! Practising meditation helps us to find a sense of space within; to quieten our thoughts, and to enjoy a more peaceful way of being. Beyond that, meditation can be used to focus on self-healing. It has a balancing effect on the nervous system.

Dr Shen's meditation system

Dr Shen’s method of meditation emphasizes the following

Body

First, we try to create a good posture. The classic image of meditation is a person seated cross-legged on the floor. Dr Shen recognised that most people in the Western world are not used to this position, and that it’s more helpful to be comfortable. So, we tend to sit on a chair, with feet flat on the ground. This is because your body posture, both while you meditate and in daily life, is crucial to your health. When a person is too tired or unwell to maintain an upright spine while sitting, meditation is better practised lying down. We also practise standing and walking meditations.

Breath

We then use breathing exercises to create inner calm and clarity. There are various breathing exercises, some done silently while others use sound vibration. Repetition of specific sounds can be an effective way to help find inner peace.

Mind

Becoming aware of the posture and the breath can immediately change the focus of the mind. The focus of Dr Shen’s style of meditation is to find the ‘centre of the mind’, not a physical location, but the place where thoughts arise. By learning to find the centre of the mind, we find a state in which we can rest in stillness, free of mental clutter. A journey then begins in exploring a more conscious way of thinking, which serves us better and supports our wellbeing on every level.