Practical Meditation Tips Setting Up Your Own Meditation Space
Shane Magee
For those interested in taking up a daily meditation practice, setting up some little corner of their house reserved for meditation will be of enormous benefit. After all, our home has a kitchen for the purpose of eating and a bedroom for the purpose of sleeping, so why cant we create some little space for our self discovery? Choose an area of your house that is not well-trafficked and where you are unlikely to be disturbed. For many people, a corner of their bedroom fits that purpose, although you could also use a study. Many people in big houses have rooms dedicated to storage or 'junk rooms' - why not clear them out and use the space for something constructive? In that space most meditators have some kind of table or platform where they can decorate with things that help bring about a meditative atmosphere. The height of the table will depend on whether you sit using a chair or cushions, as the objects you will place on this table should be at eye level. When sitting on cushions, one idea is to use cardboard boxes to construct your table; when they are covered, no-one will know the difference! Sitting on a chair will most likely require a table. Don't let the immediate lack of the 'perfect' table deter you from building your space - it is much better to just start and then change things as time and opportunity allows. Now we can start decorating with objects that evoke a meditative mood. The first thing, of course, is the tablecloth. Bright colours in particular evoke the qualities we are looking for in meditation: white suggests the quality of purity and freedom from all the baggage of daily life, light blue suggests the vastness of the sea and the sky, and gold evokes a sense of victory over our vacillating mind and restless emotions. Now we can fill the space with objects that will evoke at atmosphere of silence and tranquility. Placing fresh flowers in your space evokes the qualities of beauty and innocence, whereas a candle evokes the inner flame in our hearts. Both flower and candle in addition serve as excellent objects for concentration. If you are the outdoor type and easily inspired by scenes from nature, then photographs of inspiring scenery such as mountains or sunsets. If you are religious, you can add a statue of Christ or the Buddha or whatever spiritual figure inspires you most. Also, since the advent of photography over a hundred years ago, many students of spiritual teachers have kept a photograph of their teacher in their meditation space for inspiration. You can place your cushion or chair on a small rug - this helps to further separate your special space from the rest of the room. As with the cloth, you can choose the colour of the rug. I actually know some friends who meditate seated on an artificial tiger skin; since ancient times in India, sitting on a tiger skin has been a potent symbol of the way meditation can conquer the 'inner tiger' of stress and restlessness. Burning incense helps cleanse the atmosphere around your space and create a special vibration for meditation. Also it helps considerably if you have to hand a shelf of books on meditation written by genuine meditation teachers or advanced seekers of truth. Reading their accounts of meditation and the journey of self-discovery can be of tremendous inspiration to you in your own practice. You can rearrange your space every so often, adding new and inspiring things; this will help create a sense of newness in your meditation. Meditation is often seen as dry and serious, but you can definitely add an element of childlike spontaneity by doing things like this. Experiment and see what works for you!
The author, Shane Magee, studies meditation with the help of noted teacher Sri Chinmoy, and also teaches free courses on meditation and spirituality in Dublin, Ireland.
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