The Power of Meditation: Voices of Students (Part Six)

Over the past several weeks I’ve been working with students in a 200-hour Yoga Teacher Training and helping them develop a daily meditation practice. I asked each student to explain, in their own words, their personal motivation for meditating. I’m sharing one student’s response per day. To read the introduction to this series, click here.


STUDENT 6:  “ Listening…like a reverse prayer…”

Meditation for me is a time set apart from the everyday tasks; it’s a time out to tune in, to explore, listen, become aware, feel, pray, look, observe, think, relax the thoughts, try not to think to much and simply be with myself, breathe in quiet contemplation and sit with whatever comes up. Each time is different.

When I meditate I feel like I’m diving into the ocean; its vastness can never be known – just as the vastness of my own mind; and I’m learning to appreciate the process. Sometimes it’s fun to watch thoughts — like oh, where did that thought come from? — and then watch them float away.  I feel a little lighter after meditation as if part of the dense fog in my mind has lifted and I can see a little more clearly and relate to myself and others a bit more wholeheartedly.

Sometimes when I meditate I have the purpose of listening – like a reverse prayer – I don’t ask for anything, I just want to listen and feel my heart beating. Other times during meditation, my mind is a torrent of thoughts and emotion and it feels overwhelming, my breathing becomes more like hyperventilation and it’s in these moments that I become very aware of just how I want to move away from these moments, because they feel like I’m in the middle of storm in the ocean! But, when I allow myself to stay, with tissue box by my side, to hold to my seat and “ride the waves” so to speak, well then I become amazed because at some point I calm.

Meditation helps me to connect to my joy as well as my pain. It offers me the opportunity to find appreciation for life’s ups & downs and helps me to cultivate compassion for myself and for others.

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Dennis Hunter is a writer, yogi and meditation teacher living in New York City. He is the author of You Are Buddha: A Guide to Becoming What You Are. He is a co-founder of Warrior Flow™ with his husband Adrian Molina.