wassup..as im onli 15, ive herdalot about meditating, and how it can mke most martial artists better..how does it really wrk and how do you actually do it..coz ive based all my training on the pyhsical aspect of martial arts.20 mins stretching..1/2hr hand wrk..1/2hr leg wrk..1/2hr foot wrk and sum cardio...but ive nevr left a time space for any silent mediationpartly coz i dunt kno how to do it..so id be grateful for any info on how to do it and how it can make me a better martial artist..bless

Yeah look into Zen Buddhism, you'll find a wealth of resources. You gotta do it seriously though, and it takes a long time for a big difference to make itself felt. Still highly reccommended though, its made me get on a long way.

A better martial artist? I guess it does, if you think about it.... meditation raises your spiritual awareness and is good for the soul, but don't expect it to make you any stronger or anything, unless you want be spiritually strong (being a martial artist means both, so meditation is good). I suggest that you meditate if you want to be a better than you already are, not in terms of martial arts, but also in terms of being a human being. I meditate every day for 20 minutes, so it isn't very time consuming, besides, I don't have much else to do :P Ah, enough talking, let me teach you how to meditate. As a beginner, I suggest you go somewhere quiet when doing this. Sit down in either Native American style or Lotus if you can (in case you don't know, Lotus is like an upside down Native American style sitting... sort of. If you see any movie with meditation in it, you usually see the person meditating in the Lotus), anyways, you close your eyes and you do something much harder than it sounds: think about nothing. If a thought ocmes into your head, label it as thinking and push it away. You will notice after you start to think nothing, you think "I got it!", but that's thinking, too. It'll be pretty hard, so try not to get frustrated. Continue doing this every day and your spiritual awareness will grow greatly. If you have any other questions, just ask.

First of all, I recommend you stop using the internet/chatting dialect or whatever its called; all the shortened words. It is actually difficult and rather annoying for some of us to read!

I look at meditating from a practical perspective. From my experience, it helps one to establish effective breath rythm, and a calm mind. In beginning stages, it is more important to have a single thing to focus on, rather than focus on focusing on nothing! This single thing should be the rythm of your breath.

Don't think that meditating will automatically increase your "spiritual awareness", in the same way that practicing budo doesn't automatically make you a virtuous and honorable person. Its confusing the medium with the message. If you utilize meditation as a way to analyze yourself, your faults, then it can be "spiritually" beneficial. It is useful to reflect on yourself for awhile, see inside. You must want to do this though; its illogical to think that sitting quietly will automatically make you a better person, it must be strived for.

Anyway, you should explore the Meditation/Zen forum for great info.

-Al