I have been privileged enough in my life to work with children. Neither child care nor teaching are my life goals but somehow I have ended up teaching, babysitting, nannying and practically mothering kids from all over. I have done so in India, Italy, and America, both in cities and in the countryside. Needless to say the children I’ve known have been of different ethnicity, religious backgrounds, and parenting methods. Though I have learned quite a lot about what to do (or not to do) when I have my own children, the most valuable lesson is the effect I see in children who meditate on a regular basis as opposed to those who do not.
     Around fifty percent of the childcare I’ve done has been with kids who meditate and the benefits I have seen them reap are huge. In groups of non-meditating kids you see two types emerge: leaders and followers. Every child I know who meditates on a regular basis has the confidence of a leader. They are able to face and overcome their fears and weaknesses. These kids also tend to be more balanced and resolve conflicts among each other with surprising ease. Non-meditating kids tend to have trouble paying attention in school, and who can blame them growing up in the age of technological bombardment? The constant over stimulation from the media makes it hard for a lot of kids to focus for any period of time but I have seen that after meditation it is easier for children to sit still and pay attention.
     I have been amazed time after time by the effects that meditation has on a child’s ability to learn, to introspect and to remain peaceful in a world of chaos. I figure if I can give my own children any advantage in the rat race, a few minutes of meditation a day is definitely worth it.

Sophia Joseph (New York, USA)

In high school, I was in special education for English studies. I enjoyed language, but I couldn’t write well or comprehend text as other students could. When I started to meditate on a regular basis, my grades in English classes improved so dramatically that I was the most accomplished student of almost every English or writing class that I attended in college. 

Now that I have graduated college with a B.A. in Writing and Literature, I have written three full-length books of poems, two poetry chapbooks, countless short stories, and a novel. I have been widely published in magazines, journals, newspapers, and books. Recently, I got a hired for a job as a marketer for book publishing companies, writing reviews for upcoming books. 

Through meditation, my love of language transformed into a viable career and fruitful life.

Nicholas Klacsanzky (Seattle, USA)

My parents were meditating on regular basis since I was 4 years old. They noticed how this meditation helped them so they always made meditate as well. As a result I only did this meditation because I had to without understanding the tremendous impact it has on daily lifestyle. When I was attending University, I was put in a situation where I got to truly experience the impact of meditation. I was working full-time on top of my studies and that really stressed me out. At the time I was meditating once every one or two weeks and I noticed that I had become very reactive. My stressful life was making me very irritable and unpleasant around others. I felt that I was not myself and could not control my reactions. At that point I disciplined myself to meditate at least once a day. After only one or two weeks I observed a tremendous change. Situations that normally caused me to react did not bother me as much and I was able to retain a more peaceful character and felt that I was a much more pleasant person and was able to enjoy myself more rather than get irritated. I feel that regular meditation is imperative in our hectic world because it helps to stay cool and balanced even in difficult situations.
Yuri Tsyboukov (Seattle, USA)

When I sit down, it’s like a different world.  On the floor is the best, because it feels like I’m connected to the ground.  In these moments I feel like an extension, and not a part, of everything else.  Putting my hands out is like opening my eyes to behold a beautiful sight.  There’s a time when my body stops fighting itself and becomes smooth, becomes natural….and I look for that moment all the time now.

This meditation is a beautiful thing.  It is so many things, actually; exciting, intense, beautiful, smooth, relaxing, enlightening, natural, silencing… and so much irony, because it contains all of these opposite feelings together, coexisting at the same time!  There is one thing it isn’t for sure, though, and that is easy.  It is a battle, a struggle, a living epic, a modern work of art; it needs constant attention to detail; it is a newborn baby that must always be nurtured and not forgotten.  Don’t leave the room for more than a few minutes, or your baby will start crying!  “Oh what is it now, what do you need?”

But unlike a baby, it needs one thing, and one thing only:  your undivided attention.  Give it that, and it will give you the world in return.  And just when you thought it might have left you again for good, it creeps back in, and reminds you of the peace that exists, the peace that completely envelopes you and gives you everything you need, like your very own mother would as you were a child.  And when you taste that peace, the truth hits hard; that the world can also feel the same peace someday - Clinton Nix (Seattle, USA)

I am currently a student at the University of Washington in Seattle, WA and have an insanely busy schedule. I work at an international preschool thrice a week and volunteer at an international public middle school once a week. In addition to this I am taking four classes, one them being everyday at 8:30 in the morning. I have been meditating my entire life and have felt the benefits in countless ways that I could list for hours, and yet there are so many instances where I take it completely for granted.

For instance, there are many mornings where I simply do not have the time, or to be honest, do not make the time for a short meditation before starting my day. Last week I finally got into a routine of meditating every morning and felt so peaceful as a result. I would wake up, make tea, put on classical music, and sit down for ten minutes or so, trying to empty my mind and find that calmness inside, a detachment from the insignificant dramas of daily life. The week went very smoothly, I had three tests and a paper and did well on all of them and had the attention to actually study, which is not usually the case.

The past week has been a sharp contrast to my “meditation week.” In fact, two days in a row I woke up at the time class starts and had to rush to get there before I was obscenely late. Not only did I wake up later, I woke up very flustered and agitated, not a pleasant feeling in the morning. Later when I was meant to catch the bus to go to the school I volunteer in, I took the wrong bus, leading me completely in the opposite direction. Usually in this type of situation I am calm and would simply resolve the problem by taking the other bus back in the right direction, for example, no harm done. On this particular day, however, I felt myself reacting very badly to it, feeling on the verge of tears. Let’s just say that things were not going smoothly. It was not until the end of the day that I reflected on what I had been through and realized that it all stemmed back to my lack of meditation in the morning and lack of balance within. This is one of many examples, and with the chaos of daily life it is easy to think that there isn’t enough time to meditate, but sooner or later you realize that other things can wait, your spiritual (or mental and emotional?) growth can not. A simple technique that I do use when I do not have time is to play classical music on my way to class and I try to become thoughtless and simply witness everything around me, this little exercise is truly helpful and does make a difference as well!

Helen Shete (Seattle, USA)

The most recent America tour in June and July of 2010 consisted of 23 youths literally from around the world. We had youth from Austria to Australia and countries in between join us for the month-long journey around the southwestern United States. The tour made a clockwise loop around California, Arizona, Utah, Colorado and New Mexico. In each city we gave public programs to teach meditation in libraries, at concert venues, in festivals and in parks.

The experience was new for all of us, even some of the Americans who had never been to these states. We were awed by the blues and tans of the Grand Canyon, the red rocks of Arizona, beautiful wooded hills surrounding Salt Lake City and the cool blue mountains of Denver. The diversity of the region reflected the diversity within our group and united us all in vibrations! One of our most successful and joyous experiences was at a health festival in Salt Lake City where we had a booth and mixed many different colors and religions of people. We gave hundreds of people their first meditation experience in this one day-long event.

In total, we taught around 1,600 people this method of meditation and made many beautiful memories together. We traveled more than 3,000 miles together and forged life-long friendships among one another. The tour was an experience none of us are going to forget.