Meditating At Home Vs. A Meditation Center

This talk will cover the differences between meditating at home compared to meditating at a meditation center. I personally go to a Zen meditation center (called a Zendo) to practice. I really like the straightforward approach to meditation, however, there are other options you can explore such as MBSR, classical Buddhist, Yoga, etc. based meditation centers to see which ones you like the best!

Transcript

Hey,

This is Ish and today I'll be talking about the differences between meditating at a meditation center and at home for your personal practice.

So if you're new to meditation centers,

They actually range from anywhere from a really small studio to a really large monastery,

A meditation hall.

And in these areas you have a lot of the cushions,

Meditation cushions and props that you need to conduct a full meditation practice.

And if you're really new to meditation,

This can actually be a really great way to ease into the practice because typically they have teachers who have been doing the practice for a couple of decades and often times have formal transmission and training required to conduct this.

So they can actually guide you through the practice if you're new to it.

So I currently live in the United States and there are a lot of great meditation centers,

A lot of the major cities and even the smaller ones as well.

And these meditation centers can range in different lineages and styles.

So you could find one in Zen Buddhism for example,

You can find one in Mahayana or Theravada Buddhism.

You can also find secular ones as well,

So you can find mindfulness meditation centers.

And this is complete void of any kind of religious influences as well.

So you can actually pick and choose the types of centers you want to go to.

So it can be fun.

So meditation centers are really great for beginners because typically there are teachers there who have been practicing meditation and also been teaching it for a couple of decades.

And if this is in a particular style of meditation,

Style of practice and lineage,

They often times have the training and the lineage,

Official transmission to teach.

So they're very knowledgeable and they can,

As a beginner,

They can tell you certain things like how to hold your hand a certain way or how far forward your head should be in relation to your shoulders.

There's a lot of cool different tweaks that you probably wouldn't have even thought of.

I know for me for example,

I've been going to a Zen center and we hold our hands in cosmic mudra and this is where you'd bring your left hand on top of the right and you have your thumbs lightly touching.

And I started off just putting my hands in that mudra by my lap when I sit and one of the head monks over there actually looked at me and said,

Hey,

You want to keep your hands just an inch below your navel.

And that's something I would have never thought of.

And apparently if you do that as opposed to dropping your hands by your lap,

It will actually affect your practice and your posture.

And likewise if your posture is affected,

So is your mind.

So there's a lot of cool little tricks that you wouldn't have thought of doing if you just practiced it by yourself.

And you'd also learn a lot of cool things as well.

So I learned how to walk in Kinhen,

Which is a walking meditation.

And that's not something I would have probably looked up or found out about on my own.

So that's one of the great advantages of going to a meditation center.

And another great pro as well is that there's more social pressure.

So basically in these centers you'll be meditating with other people as well as monks as well.

So you have less of a chance to slouch or maybe check your phone.

I mean you should definitely never check your phone,

But if you're meditating at home you do have a tendency to maybe look at your phone here and there or get up or move a lot more.

So when you're meditating in a space where there's other people involved,

You are more focused and dedicated to your practice.

And that's a very huge pro right there.

The next thing is that you do stay more focused in a meditation center.

There's something just about the atmosphere.

The huge statues of Buddhas,

If you go to a Buddhism influenced one,

And just the whole layout in general,

The atmosphere,

Makes you really focused I find and you go deeper into your practice.

And another great thing is having a great community or Sangha.

So when I used to live in San Francisco,

I used to go to the San Francisco Zen Center,

And they actually had a,

I wouldn't say a class,

But they had a whole group of people in their 20s that would actually meet up.

And we'd meditate together and afterwards we'd go out for dinner and get drinks maybe,

And it was a really great time meeting other people who were around my age and were able to talk about Buddhism or other things in general and make a lot of great friends.

I mean,

That's a huge plus.

And they were also able to help me be centered on my practice going forward.

And last great benefit of meditating at a meditation center would be there's no distractions.

So like I mentioned,

You can't really pull out your phone,

You can't really walk around or make tea when you feel like it.

There's a strict process and you have to adhere to it.

And likewise,

That actually helps you go deeper into your practice.

So maybe what are some of the benefits of meditating at home as opposed to a meditation center?

So the first thing is,

Meditation in general is a very intimate practice.

So oftentimes when you're sitting,

A lot of emotions just bubble up out of nowhere.

So when I did a 10 hour meditation retreat or a 12 hour meditation retreat a couple of months ago,

All these emotions would just store up and they'd just bubble up.

And people would express emotions such as laughter or crying just from out of nowhere.

They would just be sitting and all of a sudden they would start crying or laughing.

And when you're in this environment,

Like I mentioned,

There's more pressure,

Right?

And you don't really feel comfortable if,

You kind of don't really feel comfortable just letting that emotion out in front of a bunch of strangers.

So having a home practice could be really great because you can just let that out in your own house and no one really is going to hear you.

Maybe your neighbors,

But that's something a little bit different from meditation,

Meditating next to someone right next to you.

And if you really know how to set up your meditation center the right way,

It can actually be quite a blessing.

So in my place,

In my house,

I have my favorite incense right here next to me.

I have some candles.

I have my favorite plant next to me,

A buddha statue.

So I have all these things in place that can really make my meditation practice feel more at home.

And especially if you have the right,

If you know where to get the right meditation cushions and the proper things,

Once maybe you're more advanced,

Then this could actually be a really great way to find a nice rhythm and groove to your practice.

And another thing also I would say is a really great benefit of meditating at your house would be just commute-wise.

So if you have to meditate,

Let's say you're short on time and you want to meditate for an hour a day,

Right?

You could do that at your meditation just at your house because you don't have to travel or leave your house.

So if you're driving to a meditation center that's 20 minutes away,

Then you got to drive 20 minutes back,

That's already 40 minutes right there.

And then on top of that,

You're going to meditate at the center itself.

So you're really adding more time to your schedule and if you're really busy and you need to get your practice in,

Meditating at home can cut away from that commute time.

So that's something I just noticed here but again,

Your mileage may vary so sometimes if you feel that you're not getting that focus that you need,

Going to a meditation center can be really great because a teacher can guide you and show you the way.

Even today,

I've been meditating for a couple of years and I still need to go to a center at times because there's a lot of little things that I wouldn't have thought of that my meditation teacher can show me.

So,

And then also again,

Meditating at home for me personally is a great practice because sometimes at times when I have more emotions coming up,

I can sit and observe it and it just releases itself.

But then on the other side,

When I go to a center,

I feel that since I have all the social pressure myself,

I'm less distracted.

So both sides has its pros and cons but I hope this talk right here can help you really decide what you need more of at this time.

And if you have any questions or any suggestions for future talks,

You can feel free to reach out to me.

Thanks.