by DELIA TOMINO NAKAYAMA

I am breathing slowly, in and out. I enjoy relative silence — intermittent chirping of birds or traffic can be heard, but I am not talking or busy doing. The phone is on mute, and the cat sits near me in her usual meditative state.

It is morning and the day hasn’t quite begun yet. Lists of things run through my mind, appointments to be kept, people to talk to and details to remember.

I could settle on any one of these items and consider all implications thoroughly, but instead I choose to leave it all behind.

A daily vacation is what I call it. A moment, not having to think or feel anything.
But how to do that? How to quiet the mind and quell all of the worries of the day and not think? Impossible.

* * *

I used to meditate fairly regularly about 10 years ago. As the Bay Area is burgeoning with opportunities to learn to meditate or to meditate, and within all different kinds of disciplines, I was lucky enough to experience meditation with all kinds of people and in varied environments.

But it was always hard for me. I found that while other people seemed to be effectively getting “in the zone,” I was still mentally wandering around, quietly “cheating” by thinking. I found it relaxing, though, and though it wasn’t official meditation, it certainly slowed my thoughts down, and that was a relief in itself.

After a while, I began to get the hang of it and finally understood why people bother at all with meditation. For neutrality is something kind of rare in this world. Human beings are naturally quite emotional and tend toward extremes, in perspective and otherwise ...

But when we meditate, all judgments and ideas about what is “good” or “bad” fall away, as do emotions. Just an uneventful sort of contentment remains.

When I first tried to meditate (with very little success at all) I was in my early 20s, during a time of development when there is much to learn, see and do. Uneventful contentment seemed like a real waste of time to me at that point, although the thought of peace seemed like a good idea to pursue at some later date. I wanted excitement and frankly, meditation is not particularly exciting..! ;)

* * *

Recently, after years of not meditating, I began to attempt it once again. I think the vision I have of my Japanese ancestors in eternal meditation (“Learning Silence,” July 14) renewed my interest in it.

I was also recently confronted with having to memorize lines for a play and deliver them, fully committed to a character I couldn’t really relate to. Meditation was a life-saver. I could empty my mind of all details related to the play and of any anxiety about doing a good job. Most of all, I could focus.

The days I meditated, my character came out of her shell. The days I didn’t, I was less focused and couldn’t commit to the character as well.

It was an invaluable tool and served me well. I was forced to turn to meditation for calm preparation before performing, and along the way I noticed the benefits of it aside from helping me act and took it more seriously.

I’ve been meditating pretty consistently every morning since, and it has made a big difference in my life. I find that my days run more smoothly now, that my mind is less cluttered, and I feel less worried in general. In fact, after meditating, I often remember things I would have otherwise forgotten.

The other aspect of meditation that I have noticed is that it makes me feel physically better. I have a leg injury that precludes me from walking more than about five blocks at a time, and often my muscles get sore and tense from the little walking that I do. But when I meditate and finally get to that blessed point where I am not thinking, just sort of floating, I can feel my muscles relax, expand and settle down.

The pain lessens, and somehow every part of my body feels united as one again, supple and fluid.

It is as if the thinking that we innocently do as we go about our day does cause us stress. And that stress can permeate our bodies, too. Meditation is an effective way to flush out stress and replenish the mind and body.

* * *

The other thing that meditation is good for is regulating our emotions. As an artist, emotions can be important fodder for subject matter. And without some sort of emotional charge it is difficult to create, but it becomes exhausting to be so highly sensitized to feelings.

Whether we are artists or not, emotions can get the best of us at times and render us helpless, overcome by their power.

Daily meditation builds up a dependable tranquility cushion within us. So if and when we become upset, we have something to fall back on: stopping, sitting or lying down quietly and emptying ourselves of whatever it is that is bothering us. By becoming used to neutrality through daily meditation, it is not difficult to go back to it, and uneventful contentment, despite how we may feel.

* * *

Going back to that quiet part of the morning when I’ve chosen to meditate... I pick something to look at and focus on specifically.

Today it is long lines in the faux wood-grain on the wall. I study the lines. I’ve picked the spot because I don’t see a face or any other image in the lines, and they aren’t distracting to me.

I begin to breathe slowly, acknowledging the fairly rapid beating of my heart. I am lying still and comfortably, just studying the lines, perhaps even counting and sorting through them. Slowly (and it can take time, so meditation is often an exercise in patience at first) my heart starts to stop beating as fast, and my breath is not artificially slow; I am beginning to relax.

When I start to think about something, I go back to studying the lines, watching their curves, considering their thinness and thickness. As I continue to stare, I notice I start to “space out” and that there are no specific thoughts in my mind. But I am still noticing that I am not thinking, and want to get past that...

I blink a couple of times and resolve for more emptiness and take some deep breaths. I stare and stare and stare at the wood-grain and pretty soon it becomes meaningless. The wood-grain could be water or snow or a blue sky, for what it looks like becomes arbitrary. It just is. It is brown, but I associate no feeling with the color or the shape.

Again, I “space out,” but this time I keep spacing out, feel my muscles soften and I can feel my breath, slow and gentle, waving through my whole body... finally, there’s only silence and emptiness.