Bas-relief in Sukhothai, Thailand depicting monks during walking meditation.

The practice of meditation is aimed at developing mindfulness sati and concentration samadhi. It is one of the three pillars of the Eightfold Noble Path. Development of the qualities of the heart: Kindness, Compassion, Sypathetic Joy and Equanimity can also be developed through specific meditation practices.

As Meditation has been widely practiced from Asian countries as part of religions such as  Hindus , Jain and even the Australian aborigines,  Buddhism played main role in nourishing and cultivating the different style of meditation called tradition.

 All these traditions are based  on specific form of body positioning, Time and place, Awareness of the body and controll (mindfulness) of breathing. 

 
The benefits of Meditation are not fully articulated.

“Calmness is the ideal state in which we should receive all life’s experience” writes the Paramahansa Yogananda (1983-1952), founder of the self-realization fellowship, in the book of “Inner peace”.  

 I thought I can start this thread to discuss about meditation.

11 Steps to start with meditation

• Choose a place which is quite, calm and filled with very dim light.
• Apply some cloth/rug thin, soft and foamy on the floor  so you can sit.
• Lit a candle keep it in front of your seat, say 3-4 feet away from the seat. Make sure you keep the candle below you’re  eyes height from the sitting position. (From sitting position you need to look downward to watch the flame of candle).
• Sit comfortable on seat, no need to worry about how to fold and keep your legs. ( I always think that I should keep my legs folder like Buddha lotus position, but cant maintain that position for more than 30 mins)
• But make sure your back bone is straight, bit harder for couple days but after a week you will enjoy every moments.
• Relax your hands on respective knees.
• Now watch the candle flame. Please feel free to blink your eyes. But make sure you are watching. Just watching..
• Initially you might be just watching with wandering thoughts.. Don’t control the thoughts,  just keep watching the flame as well as the thoughts... Trust me you enjoy watching the un sequence thoughts being generated by your outer mind.. Please Keep watching the both.
• After a while you see every thing disappear except the flame dancing with view full of eyes …. Awesome, Now just close your eyes. Can you  see the same dancing flame in between your closed eyes and  your nose. Keep watching….
• You will be surprised that view full of flame between the closed eyes gradually diminish to small lighted dot surrounded by thick black.. Keep your eyes closed till flame disappear.  Now open again to star the flame to repeat from step  7…
• Continue this for not less than 30 minutes everyday,   you concentration slowly increase in order to keep the flame between your closed eyes for longer period.

Will post you more...