Starting to Meditate

How often do you meditate?  Every day?  Most days?  Every so often?  Never?

If you answered "every so often", let me ask you another couple of questions.  How often do you clean your teeth?  How often do you bath or shower?  Every so often?  When you have the time?  If so, remind me to keep my distance!  You need to clean your teeth at least once a day (most dentists will tell you at least twice a day) to maintain healthy teeth.  If you don't have time to clean your teeth you will not only find they gradually decay and fall out, but you end up having to spend more time sitting in the dentist chair perhaps getting fillings (or extractions).  Work out how long you have to sit in that chair and you will realize not cleaning your teeth because you don't have time is a false economy.  As for not having time to wash every day, hopefully you don't fall into that category!

If you answered "every day", then congratulations!  Although each time you meditate you gain some benefits, you will find the major benefits of meditation are cumulative.  The more you meditate the greater the benefits - although if you only meditate every so often you won't find much of a cumulative effect.  You should aim to meditate daily (or even more than once a day) to start really building up the benefits.

When I ask people the question about meditating, most tell me they don't really have time to do it.  Many recognize the benefits (or at least say they do) but say they don't have time to meditate regularly.  There is an old Zen saying "You should meditate for 20 minutes a day - unless you are too busy, in which case you should meditate for an hour a day."  This is so true!  Never say you don't have time to meditate.  If your excuse is that you do not have time I can guarantee that if you only took the time to meditate you would find it would actually create more time for you.  You might find something that took you an hour to do only took you half an hour.  The time you sat thinking, trying to find an answer to a problem, might no longer be required, as you could find the answer simply comes to you during or after your meditation.

Others answer that they don't know what to meditate on.  That should never be a problem.  In fact, simply answering the question this way indicates they don't really understand what meditation is!  It doesn't matter what you meditate on!  Just meditate!

Ok, it can be good to have something concrete to meditate on, I agree.  But don't think that is essential.  First learn the skill and habit of meditation itself.  Then you can use it as a tool to meditate on something specific.

Try this simple meditation exercise.  Sit quietly and focus on your breathing.  Don't think about your breathing, just focus on it.  Just be aware of it.  If you can sit there even for just 5 or 10 minutes focussed on your breathing you will have had a powerful meditation session.  Do this daily.  I suggest you do it at roughly the same time every day.  If you do this regularly enough it will become a habit.  My suggestion is you do it when you first get up in the morning.  Make it part of your morning routine, just like cleaning your teeth (or if you have dentures, just like the routine you used to have when you had teeth).

When you do the "breathing meditation" you will probably find lots of stray thoughts appear.  You may find yourself thinking "I mustn't think about anything other than my breathing", and then thinking "Oh, I shouldn't have thought that, as that is really something different from just focussing on my breathing" and it becomes a vicious circle.  The answer is just relax and listen to your breathing and don't worry at all about any thoughts that arise.  There is certainly something within you that doesn't want you to succeed, and it will generate lots of different thoughts to distract you from your meditation.  But those thoughts can only distract you if you choose to allow them.  Those thoughts will arise, but don't add to them by analysing them or trying to stop them.  You will find just that switch in emphasis is so powerful.  Once you realize that it simply doesn't matter, those thoughts lose their power to distract you.  The part of you that doesn't want you to succeed will, of course, keep trying.  Sometimes you will realize that you have been following a trail of thoughts without initially recognizing it was happening.  But when you realize that, simply focus on the breathing again.  Don't berate yourself.  Don't even say to yourself "I mustn't think about anything else".  Just focus on the breathing.

You will probably be surprised by all the tricks the "negative you" uses to try to stop you meditating.  I once found myself trying to calculate how many minutes I had stopped focusing on my breathing so I could add them to the time I would sit there meditating.  And then I realized that just thinking that through was also a distraction from my meditation!  The answer is that it doesn't matter how much you have been distracted.  Don't try to increase your meditation time to allow for the distraction.  If you do, you will make it virtually impossible to meditate properly, which is exactly what the "negative you" wanted!

Practise this breathing meditation every day.  When you feel it is working well, try using your newly acquired skill to meditate on something else.  Something very simple.  Maybe just one word.  Or a phrase.  If you are a Christian, take one of your favourite Bible verses and meditate on it.  If you are a Muslim, meditate on a phrase from the Qu'ran.  If you are a Sikh, choose a phrase from the Guru Granth Sahib.  Or take a quotation from someone you really respect.  Whatever you choose, be very careful.  Don't start trying to analyse it.  Simply hold it in your mind.  Treat it in the same way as you treated the focus on your breathing.  If a train of thought arises, simply be aware of that train of thought, but don't follow it, and don't tell yourself NOT to follow it.  Just hold the phrase in your mind.

What you will find is that the benefits of this focussed meditation will arise later.  After you have finished your meditation.

If you are new to meditation, try the approach I have just given.  If you have tried to meditate in the past but have found it too difficult, try the approach I have just given.  If you regularly meditate anyway, but worry that you are not doing it right, try the approach I have just given.  Do this, and I guarantee there will be positive benefits which will grow as you turn this daily meditation into an ingrained habit.