Success!

Tried meditating for the first time today, just for 10minutes. I thought it would be a bit difficult to stay sitting still. But time actually seemed to go fairly fast, before I knew it the beeper went off and the 10minutes was over. It was quite relaxing, no one else was home at the time which was good. I did have to concentrate on my posture a bit to make sure I kept sitting straight though, I really need to improve that. I haven't been home by myself in a while, it was nice. So yes, my first meditating experience went well which I was happy with :) I am going to try and do it everyday, slowly I will increase the time I do it for.

"As we begin to develop awareness of the mind, the mind itself appears to divide into two. A new aspect of the mind arises. This is referred to variously as the witness, the seer, the knower, or the observer. It witnesses without judgment and without comment. Along with the arrival of the witness, a space appears within the mind. This enables us to see thoughts and emotions as mere thoughts and emotions, rather than as 'me' and 'mine.' When the thoughts and emotions are no longer seen as 'me' or 'mine', we begin to have choices. Certain thoughts and emotions are helpful, so we encourage them. Others are not so helpful, so we just let them go. All the thoughts and emotions are recognized and accepted. Nothing is suppressed. But now we have a choice about how to react. We can give energy to the ones, which are useful and skillful and withdraw energy from those which are not."
-From Ani Tenzin Palmo

Thats pretty much what I wish to achieve through meditation. It seems like a very good ability to learn to control :) and that's what I would like to achieve. I want to not try to avoid things that hurt me, I want to confront them and learn to deal with them in a way which is going to have positive effects. By not confronting a problem, we never solve it. I know problems will always be here, it's just part of life. So I want to be able to control my thoughts, even though this takes a lot of practice and apparently some people when they start meditation feel as though they are getting no where. But it takes patience, just like learning an instrument. You can't play perfectly the very first time, it takes practice and patience. Meditation isn't about ignoreing what hurts us or blocking out thoughts, they should come freely and go freely. It's about confronting our inner selves, realising our faults, understanding why things hurt/bother us. Accepting them and moving on from them. Teaching ourselves to think clearer in difficult situations, to control our emotions more easily. And maybe meditation could mean different things for different people and everyone would want to achieve different things through meditation :) but these things are what it means to me, what I want to achieve. And I know which things I want to focus on achieving as well. And I don't have a lot of things that hurt me, I am a happy person overall :) I always have been. But when things happen, I want to be able to deal with them well and to deal with my thoughts better.

"The purpose of cultivation is not to seek anything, but to discover the faults in our character and behavior. By opening ourselves to self-investigation, we hope to find out where our problems lie, and if, after searching within ourselves, we can see these faults and problems, this in itself is the fruit of the practice. " - Master Shen-Yen