Frequently asked questions

About Meditation

 What is meditation?

Meditation is a way of engaging with inner experience.

It is connecting up with the ground of our being, our true nature.

It is noticing that thoughts, feelings, sensations - indeed all phenomena - happen in awareness.

A focused meditation, like we practise in Isshinkai, allows the swirl of internal phenomena to settle and the quietness, relaxation and peace (which are fundamental 'qualities' of awareness) to shine through more obviously.

Our meditation gives our mind a task to focus on: imagining a ball at the centre of our being concentrating and expanding. If our hips formed a basket, this ball (let's say tennis ball in size) would settle naturally in the centre of this basket. We imagine this ball becoming half as big, then half as big, then half as big - and so on infinitely. We imagine this ball as our vital energy, so every time the ball halves in size, the energy doesn't reduce - rather it concentrates in intensity. After a minute or so, we imagine this ball reaching such a level of concentration that the energy thus concentrated starts naturally to expand out and radiate - like electricity being converted from one medium to another (light) in a lightbulb.

So meditation is a mental exercise, but one that helps ground us in our bodies and settle us into a place where mind and body meet and become unified.

The essence of Aikido is in not fighting and not resisting - and so of course this applies to meditation. Although there is a task at hand, we will become distracted, bored, sleepy, lost in thought etc. This is fine, and a natural part of the process.

We bring our mind back to imagining this ball concentrating and then radiating. And when we lose our place and become disconnected from the exercise we gently but purposefully bring our engagement back to that task.

Repeat this for the time we have allotted e.g. 5-10mins to start with.

Where did meditation originate?

One answer to this would be to say Asia, more specifically India. Certainly the first documentation of it's existence (from about 7,000 years ago) is in cave painting found in that region.

Another way of thinking about it would be to look at what the word 'Meditation' means: to meditate or contemplate. In that sense, perhaps asking where meditation originated is inseparable from questions about humans and our capacity for self-reflection and indeed the very gift of consciousness.

Perhaps asking 'where did meditation originate?' is a bit like asking 'where did exercise originate?' Both are functions of being human and completely natural to us - they have been around as long as we have. Perhaps meditation is not something esoteric at all, but rather the ability to turn our mind to a particular task or idea and to stay with that.

This is the nature of having a mind - of being conscious. We can introspect and use our mind to engage with the reality of having a mind. Meditation takes manifold forms, but perhaps at root it's most helpful to think about it as a very ordinary and inbuilt capability open to every human. Yet a capability that, if one commits to harnessing, can produce extra-ordinary and life-changing results.

Which meditation app is best?

Any of the apps that offer you something that you can learn remotely, but then have a means by which you can have actual human contact with someone who is a senior meditator. Someone who can refine broad instructions to fit what is happening in your unique and individual experience when you try and put those broad instructions into practice.

Another way of putting this is that you cannot learn meditation to any depth from an app. Or at least no more than you could safely learn from scratch to drive a car to a standard where you'd feel safe on a motorway - without ever having input from an experienced driver. At it's essence, you could argue meditation is simply channelling attention. That can be easily shown by any of the many apps on the market.

To get the full benefits from meditation one comes up against many obstacles. No FAQ on an app can ever meet and satisfactorily answer the particular and nuanced questions that will arise from trying to practise something as seemingly simple as, for example, following your breath. An app or video demonstration can be an extremely useful gateway to unlocking the potential of meditation - but past a certain point they are all of pretty similar value.

Nothing is a substitute for tailor made input from a human who has walked a long distance down the road one is trying to travel oneself. It is incredibly easy to go down dead ends, into cul-de-sacs and off chasing red herrings (potentially for years) if one tries to learn meditation without live specific feedback.

If there aren't questions, you're not doing it right! Be kind to yourself and put yourself in a situation where you can really reap the benefits of learning the profound skill of meditation. Our founder at Isshinkai has over 40 years’ experience of meditation, and one of his teachers spent many years in a Zen monastery dedicated to meditation.

Are Meditation and Mindfulness the same?

Mindfulness is a type of meditation. Meditation is like alcohol, it takes many forms. Mindfulness is a bit like beer - a very popular form of alcohol, but by no means the only form.

Mindfulness itself takes many forms e.g. movement (e.g. walking or tai chi) meditation, (Mindfulness of) Breathing or Mindfulness body scans. Mindfulness is about purposeful curiosity towards experiencing - noticing what is happening. This aspect of attending to what's happening is there in all meditation; but other meditations have different emphasis or add other considerations.

You can divide and classify meditation in lots of different ways e.g. Meditations that aim at either (a) taking you somewhere else e.g. imaginatively or to different states of consciousness, or (b) to bring you very much into the present. Buddhist traditions tend to divide Meditation into that which aims at a) relaxation and settling the mind, and b) that aiming at penetrating, with insight, into the nature of Mind itself. And so on.

Meditation in Isshinkai is very much about connecting one up with the present - which is the same broad category that Mindfulness falls into. To practise Aikido one needs to be here, with what's happening now. This type of meditation allows one to become more attuned to everything that is going on around us. It helps develop a groundedness and sense of peace that comes from not being subject to influences that were affecting us without us knowing - because of disconnection from our embodied environment.

When meditation doesn't work? Why and when can it be harmful?

There's two ways of approaching this question - and they depend on what one considers something not working or being harmful. It takes one back to questions about what the purpose of Meditation is.

At face value, meditation can not work if you don't use the tool in the right way. It is not the fault of the exercise regime of 'Jogging' if one collapses from running for 8 hours everyday. Similarly diving in to lots of intensive meditation can be a very powerful experience. If one is not ready to absorb the truths that may appear in the mirror it can become destabilising in a psychological or emotional way. 

Meditation can radically change the way we experience and perceive the world and ourselves and so it is not to be taken lightly. Thus the importance of having an instructor who's walked the walked and sat on the proverbial meditation mat for many hundreds and even thousands of hours. They can therefore help with ensuring one finds the middle way between all the extremes (too much / too little; too hard / too soft etc) one encounters.

The other way of approaching this question is that it may not work if you have a particular assumption about what working looks like. If you think meditation is about stopping thoughts then you are going to suffer, and depending on how hard you try, maybe suffer hard! So sometimes it doesn't work because we don't quite understand what we're aiming for, or we apply our understanding in a subtly erroneous way. Again: thus the importance of a teacher.

This idea about how we understand what working looks like can also apply in a different way. Maybe when we meditate, we start to notice that we feel really anxious. "Help! meditation is making me mentally unwell" we cry. The problem is that it may just be that far from not working, it is actually working too well; in that it is showing us what our baseline feeling is and putting us in touch with what our embodied experience is actually like.

Deep meditation, especially if there's a commitment to it over a sustained period, acts a bit like psychotherapy - lots of things buried in our unconscious start to emerge up into the light of meditative awareness. This is why it is important to choose a meditation that fits with what one hopes to achieve.

Intensive Vipassana meditation retreats are not a good choice if one is wanting to learn how to relax. That's not the fault of the meditation, it's about choosing a tool fit for purpose. At Isshinkai our meditation is about grounding us in the present and connecting us up with the energetic core of peace in the centre of ourselves.

How meditation helps - how does meditation help?

What meditation does - what does meditation do?

What meditation does to the brain - what does meditation do to the brain?

There are different ways of approaching assessing meditation. 'Evidence-base' is a current buzzword, and people want to know 'what the science is'. This has pluses and minuses. It is great to engage with things that actually work and that are demonstrable. At the same time science is geared towards certain data - and that data is only ever part of the picture.

The full, qualitative, benefits of Meditation cannot be captured by science - it is not equipped for that. Only personal engagement with the art of meditation (for it is both art and science) from the inside out can take one to a full appreciation of what it does.

That said, if researching the quantitative scientific base for Meditation helps give one confidence that it has a solid base (which it certainly does) and is not just a load of wishy-washy superstition - if it helps with that, and therefore encourages one to give it a try, then it is worth it. 

Further information on what is written below can be found in the below link to an article with detailed information from a neuroscientist, Sara Lazar.

The 'Left Hippocampus' is an area of the brain that helps us with learning. The tools that we use for cognitive ability and memory are located in the spot, as well as emotional regulators associated with self-awareness and empathy. Research shows that as the cortical thickness of the hippocampus grows in volume through meditation, brain grey-matter density increases and all of these important functions are strengthened and nurtured.

The 'Posterior Cingulate' is connected with wandering thoughts and self-relevance, i.e. the degree of referral to oneself when processing information. The larger and stronger this part of the brain, the less the mind wanders and the more realistic our sense of self can be.

Two crucial effects of meditation on the mind, are the ability to remain attuned to the present moment without judgement, regret or anticipation; and the ability to observe sensations and emotions without identifying with them, or that identification being less strong or lasting for less time. Research suggests meditation seems to increase the density of the 'Posterior Cingulate'.

The 'Pons' is a very busy and important part of the brain where many of the neurotransmitters that help regulate brain activity are produced. It is involved in a great number of essential functions such as: sleep, facial expressions, processing sensory input, and basic physical functioning. Meditation strengthens the 'Pons'.

Empathy and compassion are associated with the Temporo-Parietal Junction of the brain, or TPJ, as is our sense of perspective. We might say that the 'Posterior Cingulate' focuses on 'me, myself & I' while the TPJ shines a light on everything else. For example the TPJ becomes more active when we put ourselves in someone else’s shoes. A stronger TPJ—combined with other benefits of meditation like lower stress and present moment awareness—can help us manifest or potential and become the good people we aspire to being.

Another area of the brain that is changed through meditation is the 'Amygdala'. But it doesn’t grow; it shrinks. It is the part of the brain that produces feelings of anxiety, fear and general stress. The 'Amygdala' is physically smaller in the brains of expert meditators. Yet even an eight-week course in mindfulness-based stress reduction leads to a measurable decrease in the size of the 'Amygdala'. The smaller it is, the less apt it is to dictate our emotional responses, particularly that core survival trio of 'Fight/Flight/Freeze' so often over-stimulated in trauma.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/inspired-life/wp/2015/05/26/harvard-neuroscientist-meditation-not-only-reduces-stress-it-literally-changes-your-brain/

Will Meditation help or cure my: anxiety, weight loss, depression, OCD, cancer? 

Meditation is not a panacea. Yet it is an activity of the mind which has tangible effects on the material plane and in the working of our body-mind. Our body and mind are inter-woven and connected in ways I think we will never fully fathom. Therefore if the working of the mind is changed that can have an effect on the way in which the body operates. This can be seen in the way in which stress is such a critical factor in health, illness and recovery. And stress is primarily a mental factor.

Meditation may not help in the way in which think it will though. If, fundamentally, one is depressed because one is in a work environment or relationship which is toxic and where one is not respected - then meditation will not make that disappear. Rather it may show us that our avoidance and denial is the root cause of our affliction. Meditation does not make things which are real vanish, though that is one of the main traps, of trying to bypass, which people get into.

Often our minds are like a snow globe, shaken up to such an extent that we can't see the landscape for all of the stuff whirling around. One popular image in our Isshinkai meditation is to imagine ourselves as like a container with water and sand mixed up, swirling - and to allow the sand to slowly settle on the underside of all the surfaces. When this happens there is a sense of core strength and also lightness.

When that water is clear, we may well see more clearly - and it is not always comfortable what we see. At the same time, the first step to resolving an issue is acknowledging that there is one in the first place. If we see a doctor they may well ask "Where does it hurt?" and it so much easier to find remedy if we can be specific and detailed in our awareness of what is really troubling us. Meditation helps with this.

Sometimes we are ignoring or fighting with what is going on, and Meditation helps us get real about this. What can also happen is that we are embroiled in our own stuff, stuck in our heads, our narrative, our thoughts and analysis. Meditation helps lower our centre of gravity and uncover a source of strength and stability outside and beneath our troubles - something untouched by them.

If you jump into a lake trying to save someone from drowning, it is very easy to also drown. Better if possible to try and engage from firmer ground. The same is also true for ourselves. Sometimes our attempts to solve our emotional difficulties just perpetuate, feed or exacerbate them. It is easy to lose the wood for the trees.

Meditation helps us connect with that steady base which can be a strong enough platform from which to address our trauma, unresolved emotions and negative beliefs. At the same time we can discover that that core strength and peace is the solution, and that the more we live from that place the more our difficulties can potentially change in shape and size - no longer dominating our perspective. Deeper and deeper levels of our true identity can be discovered.