In my opinion, health of the mind is just as important as health of the body — and in my case, probably more important. I’ve always had a hard time focusing on my objectives, and meditation seems to help me with this. It calms me and seems to help put everything into focus.

That’s my number one reason for practicing meditation, but I’m finding from my limited experiences that it’s not the only thing that I enjoy. For me, meditation opens up a whole new reality. It let’s me see things not only more clearly, but from different perspectives. This leads to things like increased creativity and critical thinking. I don’t even have to mention the spiritual benefits that one can attain through meditation.

I used the term “Zen Meditation” to describe my discipline of choice, but that’s not actually the case. I referenced this particular style of meditation because it’s probably the most well known to Westerners. The truth is, I would like to experiment with all kinds of different meditation styles, i.e., Zen, transcendental, Vipassana, Taoist, mindfulness, and Buddhist. I’m sure there are a lot of styles and techniques I have not yet heard of too. It will be fun to discover these new approaches to meditation and I look forward to experiencing each one of them.