Practitioners say meditation makes them feel more peaceful, real and authentic. Studies have found it lowers blood pressure and enhances your mood.

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John Milton wrote the mind is its own place, and can make a heaven out of hell, or a hell out of heaven.

Social scientists tell us we think about 60,000 thoughts every day. So if you buy into the above premise, and believe we dont see the world as it is, but as we are, wouldnt you want to control your mind as much as you could?

Meditation can help you do that.

Meditation is very practical, you get to know your mind, all the illusions, all the thoughts you think, because the mind is untamed, said Heather Ferris, who is currently teaching a meditation class at the Duncan library.

Ferris upbringing was a little unusual; both parents meditated when she was a child. This was before The Beatles visited India in 1968 and put transcendental meditation in the Western media spotlight.

The therapist, who has been meditating twice a day now for the past 16 years, said she first began in her 20s, as a way of dealing with nursing her dying husband at home.

She stopped practising for a while and at 46, faced with a relationship crisis, a friend suggested it might help to start meditating again. She did and it helped.

It would be nice if more people had it as a life skill at the start and didnt have to take it up when a crisis happens, Ferris said. Through meditation, you start to recognize habitual tendencies, and begin to live consciously. Im a whole lot more conscious than I was.

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Getting your zen on at the library