Meditation is the path to yourself. L. Kaganov

Introduction.
My acquaintance with meditative states of consciousness took place about two decades before I first heard the word “meditation”. But I'll tell you in order.
In my youth, my biggest passion was sports, or rather long-distance running. There were reasons for that. Due to various circumstances of my biography, since childhood I experienced various “complexes”, I was tormented by disbelief in my own strength. The successes to which I went through overcoming colossal difficulties on the treadmill made me in my own eyes better, more courageous.
I usually trained alone, running along the paths and clearings of Sokolniki Park. From time to time I arranged for myself “estimates” at the stadium: holding a stopwatch in my hand, I tried to run 5 or ten km in a record time for myself. Afraid of losing count of circles, he kept repeating to himself in time with his breathing: “I’m running the first lap”, “I’m running the first”, “I’m running the first”. The circle ended and I started again: “running the second circle”, “running the second”, “running the second”. And so all twelve and a half circles, if he ran 5 km, or twenty-five, if ten.
And these “guesses” unexpectedly opened the door for me to the world of special mental states. Even if I didn’t manage to set a personal record, after the run I was overcome by an inexpressible feeling. Disappeared physical, and then mental constraint, tension, and at the finish I felt like a new, free, self-confident person, able to cope with all life's difficulties, free from anxiety, dense.
The new consciousness made it possible to take a different look at one's life situation, evaluate it in a new way, not by the standards that were taken in the past, before running, gave greater freedom of choice and decision-making, and this, in turn, opened the way to harmony in relationships with oneself and others. There was a special courage that allows you to make fuller use of your capabilities, life was felt as an intensive development. In myself, and not in something external, accidental, I acquired the ability to find support, to draw strength from myself, to rely on myself.
No, what I experienced at the finish line was not a quickly passing euphoria, intoxication. The sense of reality is not only not

was lost, but even aggravated, like other feelings. The colors of the flowers became brighter, their fragrance stronger, the shapes - more beautiful. Attitude towards people acquired a special warmth and sincerity. The feeling of fatigue quickly passed and was replaced by an irresistible desire to act, to work. And the melody of happiness did not stop in my soul.
The usual training run, especially in the bosom of nature - in the forest, the park also gave me good health and mood, but I was clearly aware that the state that occurred during the “estimations” was qualitatively different, and since then I have constantly used “estimations” not only for control over their sports form, but also to gain the desired state of mind.
Much later, while abroad, I once found myself in a cozy mansion called the Meditation Center. Here the dark-faced instructor began to teach me the art of entering an altered state of consciousness, which some call "satori", others "samadhi", and still others "kensho". Following his instructions, I isolate myself from extraneous thoughts, repeating a special word to myself over and over again - mentru and was surprised to see the return of the sensations experienced for the first time at the CSKA stadium in Sokolniki. Then I learned that my "estimations", which required the full concentration of mind and will on the goal and counting circles, were, in addition to everything else, a kind of meditation, and that the acquisition of an altered state of consciousness is available to almost everyone, and not just thosewho is able to run ten kilometers at full speed.
What I learned about meditation and what I learned, I began to share with others. This had to be done almost conspiratorially, because until recently, the attitude towards meditation on the part of those in power was, to put it mildly, disapproving. To please them, one of the scientists, forced to recognize the therapeutic and preventive effectiveness of meditation methods, nevertheless wrote three years ago that “they are unacceptable,” because, allegedly, “the care underlying such methods into itself ... leads to the exclusion of a person from the life of society, the desocialization of the individual, and, consequently, is alien to the socialist way of life.
It was believed that any meditation is necessarily associated with one or another mystical teaching or religion as a way of uniting with God, merging with the Universe, comprehending the truth through illumination. But today it is already well known that meditation classes to overcome internal discords and expand knowledge about oneself are possible without any military connection with any religious or philosophical beliefs. For thousands of years, representatives of almost all human cultures have used one form or another
meditation to find peace of mind and harmony. Good-
The creative effect of meditation is determined not by the focus on religion, but by the properties of the human nervous system.
Experience testifies to meditation as an effective auto-psychotechnique, that is, a way for a person to influence his psyche and control it in order to
- prevention of mental breakdowns,
- Gaining self-confidence
- improving performance,
— development and improvement of personality.
In many countries of the world, both in the West and in the East, meditation is successfully used for the prevention and treatment of hypertension and other cardiovascular diseases. It helps to get rid of obsessive states, anxiety, depression and increased aggressiveness. Improves concentration, improves performance. Meditation can also be used in finding ways to solve difficult life problems. Under its influence, a person's ability to use creative potential and make his life more purposeful increases.

Part 1
BIRD EYE MEDITATION
Meditation Strategy
The state achieved as a result of meditation is sometimes called the "fourth state", thus emphasizing that it is neither awake nor REM (dreaming) or slow (restful) sleep.
Meditation exercises are many and varied. Most of them require practitioners to stay in a non-moving vine, but there are some that involve movement to a greater or lesser extent. In one case, the student closely examines an object, in another he closes his eyes and repeats certain sounds over and over again, in the third he is completely absorbed in observing his own breathing, in the fourth he listens to the noise of the wind in the branches trees, on the heels of trying to find the answer to a puzzling question, etc.
What is common between these very different methods? What gives reason to consider each of them as meditation?
Before answering this question, one should try to define meditation: it is a method of self-regulation based on the management of attention to change mental processes with the ultimate goal of improving well-being and health, empowering mind control, personal development.
By accepting that attentional control is at the heart of meditation, we can understand why the term meditation encompasses such a wide range of seemingly dissimilar exercises.
The basis of many exercises in yoga and Zen is the concentration of attention on any one object or process. This can be observation of "one's own breathing, examination of various objects, images, drawings ("yantras" in yoga), movements, repeated repetition aloud or silently of words or sound combinations ("mantras"). 6

In all these cases, during the duration of a meditation session, attention is directed to a single, unchanging source of stimulation (object, sound, process).
In all these cases, attention during a meditation session is directed to a single, unchanging source of stimulation (object, sound, process).
This is the first type of meditation exercises, which provides for a cessation for a certain period of time of processing all information entering the consciousness, with the exception of a pre-selected one, on which all attention is concentrated. That is why this strategy of meditation is called "concentrated" or concentration.
It is diametrically opposed, at first glance, to another strategy used in one of the schools of Zen (“soto”) and is called “shikan-taza”, which in Japanese means “just sit”. Here, the student tries to capture with his attention, to perceive all the sensations experienced without exception. The second strategy of meditation is called "receptive" from the word "reception" - perception. When using the second strategy, the meditator's consciousness is deprived of support in the form of counting breaths, images, etc., and therefore it is easy to get distracted, start wandering, return to the past, run into the future. Therefore, here the task facing attention is especially difficult. It must be stable, motionless, like a rock, but at the same time sensitive, flexible, ready to determine any detail of what is happening, every nuance. So "shikan-taza" is, in essence, the highest form of concentration, excluding both tension and, of course, any lack of concentration, lethargy. Turning to the second meditation strategy is recommended after the practitioner has mastered the methods of the first group, such as focusing on breathing.
It is this kind of concentration, as in "shikan-taza", that is necessary, in particular, in various martial arts. It is no coincidence that the basis of one of the most ancient systems of hand-to-hand combat in the Far East, known as "Shaolin-su-juan-fa" or "Shaolin boxing", was the system of exercises "Shi Pa Lo Han Sho" or "the system of eighteen hands", created by the Indian monk Bodhidrama, who arrived in China at the end of the 5th or the beginning of the 6th century to teach meditation.
And today meditation is an integral part of training in karate, aikido and other