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Why I Fell in Love With Vedic Meditation: My Secret Weapon of Well-Being
How I finally found an absurdly easy form of meditation that hooks you immediately, and that you’ll want to do every day.
I first found out about meditation when I was 19. I was a college sophomore who had broken free of the chains of Midwestern white Christianity and ventured into the realm of Eastern thought. That’s when I discovered Buddhism in particular, and meditation in general.
As I read about meditation, and why Buddhists promoted it as a central part of their religion, I loved the idea of it. And that’s about as far as it went: I loved the idea of meditating, but the practice — not so much.
I can remember the first time I tried to do Zazen meditation (the preferred mode of Soto Zen practitioners). I sat down, closed my eyes, focused on my breathing, and attempted to not think of anything. It didn’t work. Then I remembered that I shouldn’t try to not think; I should simply not think — but not think about not thinking. Immediately, I found myself sweating, in pain, and anxious with self-criticism. I was pretty sure that’s not what Dogen (the founder of Zen) had in mind for meditators.
The Various Flavors of Disappointment
So Zazen didn’t go well for me. But there are so many types of meditation under the Buddhist umbrella; one of them had to be non-anxiety-inducing, and bring me the benefits that I had heard so much about.
I moved on to Vipassana, Metta, Walking Meditation, Mindfulness Meditation, and even some (admittedly bumbling) work with koans (where you meditate while mulling over an esoteric and paradoxical statement or question from a classical Zen text). It was basically one disappointment after another.
I then tried some of the secularized meditation apps, with guided meditations and breathing exercises. Some did help me feel a bit better, but the effects were neither profound nor lasting. I also didn’t see them as doing much more than harnessing the power of breathing to trigger a physiological response.
For all of the forms of meditation I’ve tried over the past 15 years — both spiritual and clinical —…
