Excuse me, for a minute.

Chances are, if you're reading this at work, you might not have a minute to spare. There's another meeting scheduled in 30 minutes, a report to write in 15 and a dozen emails to address from yesterday. The car battery was playing up this morning, you booked a dental checkup for lunchtime and the school just rang to say your nine-year-old was struck by a cricket ball during physical education. His braces are sticking into his upper lip and should be looked at immediately so come and get him. Now.

It's no secret that the pressures of modern living can slowly strip away a person's inner core of tranquility. That's if it existed in the first place. The stress involved in achieving performance goals in the corporate environment may lead to all sorts of mental and physical health problems.

"Life becomes narrow, intense, imploded," says Barry Fox, 62, a former senior banking executive at the Bank of Melbourne and Westpac. "Creativity goes, mental energy is crushed and life starts to go downhill."

Fox worked a 60-hour week and after 40 years 'mired in a heap of stress' began practising meditation. He'd circled a wide-range of meditation disciplines and techniques for many years before he plunged into a 10-day Buddhist retreat in the Blue Mountains.

"I was so unsure and uncertain about what I was doing," says the father of three. "It was unequivocally the most powerful experience of my life."

Fox now teaches meditation to workers in Melbourne's CBD at lunchtime and at close of business (6pm). He can vouch for what millions before him have experienced, and what modern research has now verified: meditation is good for you.

"Conventional medicine will keep breaking new ground in treatment and prevention, yet often the most effective solutions are found in the medicine cabinet of the mind," says Dr Mehmet Oz, director of Columbia Presbyterian's Heart Institute.

"In one study, meditating 15 minutes twice daily reduced physician visits over a six month period and saved the health-care system $200 a patient. Sometimes, the best things in life are free."

Studies have shown that meditation can help reduce the impact of several Western diseases, such as the hardening of the arteries and high blood pressure. It can have a positive effect on chronic back pain, depression and anxiety as well improving the immune system by suppressing the production of stress hormones like cortisol.

If you're interested in greater mental harmony and clarity, better health, an increased sense of joy and a deeper understanding of what it means to be human, then consider taking up meditation as a daily practice. If nothing else, your productivity is likely to increase and the quality of your work improve.

Where to start?

For some, meditation is a mysterious, 'alternative' ritual involving gurus, special cushions, silk shawls, incense and chanting in foreign tongues.

While it's true that meditation comes in many garments, the basic practice is simple and a reliable instructor will be able to set you on the right path. Once you have acquired a technique that suits, practice it every day for at least 15 minutes. Locate a place at home and/or work where you can sit undisturbed.

Cost

A meditation course lasting six weeks is a good idea to start with to ensure achievement of a basic skill level. It also helps to learn in a group situation, so you understand the issues involved in developing the practice and how your practice stands compared with others. Be suspicious of anyone asking great sums to teach meditation, or of anyone telling you theirs is the only way.

Goals

The goal of meditation is to let go of all baggage from the past and future so you can be fully present in the moment. You can learn the basics in five minutes:

• Sit in a comfortable position
• Straighten your back
• Breathe deeply
• Follow your breath

On The Run Meditations

In the lift

• Take up your spot in the lift, stand tall and close your eyes
• Feel your muscles sink into gravity, becoming loose, slack and heavy
• Feel the touch of your breath with each in-breath and out breath from the nostrils
• Focus 95% on the breath, 5% on 'lift noises'
• When the doors open, tune in to the wider world again

Cooking

• While preparing food for your next meal, listen to each sound you make - crushing the garlic, grating the ginger, slicing the pumpkin
• Focus on the smells - the aroma of onions being diced, the scent of cinnamon, vanilla, curry and so on
• When you notice yourself getting distracted by thoughts, return your focus to these smells and sounds

Red Light

Perth-based meditation teacher Eric Harrison says the Red Light Meditation works best if you are running late, in a hurry and held being up by traffic lights.

• If you feel frustrated, smile at yourself
• Relax: you have been given perhaps a whole minute to stop and do nothing
• Take a deep sigh, lingering on the out breath
• Let your body slow down and relax
• Let your face and belly soften
• Take one whole minute to breathe softly
• Be aware of excess tension in the body. How are you holding the steering wheel? Are your face and neck muscles tighter than they need be?
• Gently shake yourself free as you settle back into the seat
• Look around you slowly
• The light turns green. Devote all your attention to driving and look forward to the next red light.
  

Helpful References

Teach Yourself To Meditate by Eric Harrison (Ulysses 2001)

Meditation for Dummies by Stephan Bodian (John Wiley & Sons 1999)

A Path With Heart by Jack Kornfield. (Bantum 1993)

Healing Into Life and Death…Steven Levine (Anchor 1989)

Non-sectarian courses are held at St Michaels Centre, 120 Collins Street Melbourne,. Designed for city workers, held at lunchtime and after work.
Bookings: 9654 5120 or email: office@stmichaels.org.au

In Sydney, Sahaja Yoga meditation is being taught out of the Royal Women's Hospital. Call 1300 724 252 or go to www.freemeditation.com

Other useful websites

www.buddhanet.net/ozmed.htm

www.buddhanet.net/aus_buds.htm

www.wildmind.org

www.meditationsociety.com