Clerical Meditation

I wonder what has gotten into me recently that I keep coming up with these cryptic titles for my blogposts. Anyway, do not look it up, 'clerical meditation' is a term that will be defined for the first time in this blogpost.

Many people (me included) find it hard to sit and meditate. Our minds keep wandering. I am a compulsive thinker. I cannot therefore keep the thoughts in my mind still. Maybe I have not yet understood how to meditate. However, what I do know is the after-effects of meditation. The mind becomes clearer and the body feels energetic, yet relaxed.

Even though I do not meditate in the conventional way, my mind and body do experience the after effects I talked about. How does that happen? Answer: By doing mundane tasks which do not require much expertise. For example, making lists, rearranging my desk, organizing files in my PC, separating jigsaw pieces based on their colour before starting a jigsaw puzzle, removing dirt out of wheat grains, etc. I realized recently that doing such clerical tasks is also a type of meditation. I also understood the basic principle of concentration that is required in any form of meditation. Here, instead of concentrating withing yourself which I think is the conventional form, you concentrate on the task at hand but without exercising your brain a lot. The brain is still active but not stressed out in any way.

Therefore, clerical meditation can be defined as: "A modified form of meditation adapted to suit people who cannot focus within themselves but can focus outside themselves to perform tasks at hand that are mundane in nature and do not require mental energy or expertise".