I’ve finished my second week of meditation using the book “8 Minute Meditation” and I am starting to get into the meditation habit. I meditated every past week using the “Naked Sound” technique.

The Naked Sound method of meditation is based on using the sounds around you as the focal point of your meditation. You are supposed to “just hear the sound and note whether it is rising or falling”. While I did the meditations exactly as explained I had a couple of problems with this method:

  1. My house is really quiet- I never really noticed it before, but my house is pretty darn quiet, especially at night which is when I meditate. Other than the occasional plane flying over, there is not much sound to focus on. Sometimes one of our cats meows or my wife forgets I am meditating and turns the TV on, but other than that it is quiet. I tried my best but found it hard to focus on the sounds (or lack of) around me.
  2. Even if it was noisy I found it hard to focus- I think the whole focusing on sound thing is just wrong for me. I couldn’t really focus on the sound, even if it was there. Instead, I found myself going back to my breathing as the center point for my meditation.

On the positive side, I am really beginning to look forward to my eight minutes of meditation. I feel relaxed and refreshed after meditating. It seems to work well for me to meditate at night, right before bed. It sets me in a good mood for sleep. I can’t scientifically document it, but I feels like I am falling asleep faster and sleeping better now that I am meditating.

I’m on to week 3 which is based on “Noting Body Sensations”. I’ll let you know how it goes next week.