Easy Meditation Techniques
Contents List for this page on Easy Meditation Techniques: A Common Spiritual Pitfall When Learning Meditation Easy Meditation Techniques:
A Common Spiritual Pitfall When Learning Meditation
There is a common spiritual pitfall when learning meditation: we tell ourselves we are not meditating the right way. Actually that thought really is fine. It’s the next thought that's a problem. The one where we add guilt or self-condemnation. Great! What is the fastest way to make yourself stop wanting to persevere in learning meditation? – Make the experience of learning unpleasant for yourself. We can be rather good at doing this can't we. :-) So if you are setting out to meditate, here are some easy meditation techniques to help you to be more gentle on yourself. If you are a total beginner, follow the link below to Eoin’s site for more instruction on learning meditation, but if you have already got the idea, these techniques will help you to move forward in your meditation practice.
Easy Meditation Techniques, Number 1:
Make Learning Meditation Fun and Rewarding – Focus On What You Are Doing Right Identify what you are doing right in learning meditation and focus on that: If you find it hard to find what you are doing right, imagine what you would say to someone else you wanted to encourage in learning meditation. For example... - Wow, you are setting aside time for a spiritual practice. That’s great.
- You believe there is an experience of Oneness/Connection with God and others/Presence that you can access through this practice. What a great belief to explore and work with.
- Perhaps it is more than belief for you. How great to know yourself as part of All That Is.
- You are taking a time to be silent and to be still. That is so valuable.
- How lovely that you are interested in learning something new.
- How great to learn a skill that nurtures you, energises you, may increase your creativity, your vitality, your depth of spiritual connection. What a loving thing to do for yourself.
- How fantastic to learn a skill that helps you remain more centred and resourced for other people in your life. I’m sure it will help them too.
Easy Meditation Techniques, Number 2:
Meet The Thoughts: I Am No Good At Meditating. I Just Can't MeditateYou may know how it is. We sit down to meditate. Our thoughts go to something else and we say: I’m just no good at meditating.
What can you do then to bring the mind back to stillness? Notice the thought.
Step back from it in your mind.
Replace the thought gently with the thought:
“I am good at meditating and getting better all the time.” Then return your focus to the breath, the mantra, the candle, the flower, or whatever means you using to still your thoughts. This can be a easy meditation technique to regain our sense of humour and bring us back to our meditation.
To give you some more easy meditation techniques, I am sharing this extract from an article by Eoin Meegan. I love the way it expresses a very human, compassionate and patient approach to learning meditation. With Eoin’s kind permission, there are a few minor changes. You can see the full, original version at unscripted-self.com.
Easy Meditation Techniques, by Eoin Meegan
It’s Normal That Your Mind Wanders “I tried to meditate but my mind kept wandering. . .”
You were obviously doing it wrong, then!!
Well, no you weren’t, but this can be a big obstacle for many when they start out. It’s the monkey mind syndrome. But often battling with these thoughts only adds to the problem. You’ve probably noticed that you have a gazillion thoughts running through your mind all at same time. Yes.... That’s called being alive! So, then how do we deal with these wretched thoughts?
Well, there have many techniques developed for this very purpose.
Easy Meditation Techniques, Number 3:
Watch the BreathThe most commonly taught meditation technique is to watch the breath. To do this simply breathe smoothly and evenly through the nose.
Observe each breath as you inhale and as you exhale.
Some find it helpful to picture the tip of their nose while doing this.
Easy Meditation Techniques, Number 4:
Repeat A MantraAnother meditation technique for stilling the mind is to repeat a mantra. This can be either a single word or a phrase.
For example say om, over and over until it fills your mind and there is no room for anything else. (Note from Katherine: A Christian mantra can be to say “Jesus” over and over, matching the word with your breath. Also, maranatha – an Aramaic word meaning either “Our Lord, come” or “Our Lord has come”.) OK. Let’s cut to the chase. Some find these exercises very calming. Others find them very boring!! And therein lies the reason why many give up. They think it’s just plain too hard, ‘I’ll never be able to control my thoughts’, they say. But control is not the point of meditation.
Easy Meditation Techniques, Number 5:
See Thoughts As CloudsNow there’s a really cool way around this which you might want to try. And it doesn’t involve mantras or watching the end of your nose. It comes from ancient meditation techniques. It bypasses the need to ‘get rid of our thoughts’. Picture your thoughts as though they were clouds drifting across the sky. See them come and then see them fade into nothing, without engaging with them. Not to engage with the thoughts is important. We can let thoughts lure us away and pull us into their story. For example, a thought will pop up about something urgent you need to do today, or maybe of a pleasant memory from the past.
Often it’s something mundane, like the shopping.
You go: ‘yea I have to get carrots, and broccoli, and I think I need bread.’ No problem, it’s just a thought. You then add another thought: ‘I’m not sure, better check when I get up’.
This is adding to the thought, and making it real in your mind. With this meditation technique of seeing your thoughts as clouds, instead, you gently and silently acknowledge: ‘That’s a shopping-thought cloud’, and watch it drift away. This is a great technique because it doesn’t make your thoughts wrong. Over time, we learn that thoughts are only thoughts, that’s all. We don’t need to get involved in the drama of them, whether we’re meditating or not. |
Easy Meditation Techniques, Number 6:
Whatever You Are Doing, It Is Helping You To Sit In SilenceEven if you end up sitting in silence listening to a chattering brain, you have still achieved something. Many people live such busy and such noisy lives that they don't even hear the chatter. And there can be gifts in the chatter.
If, for now, you find you are not a great meditator (what is a great meditator?), remember that it can be compassionate to simply give yourself time to catch up on the thoughts that are there when you stop.
Easy Meditation Techniques, Number 7:
A Final Tip For Learning Meditation How about setting aside 15 minutes a little while before your designated meditation time. Sit in silence, and any time you think of something you need to do or think about, jot it down on paper. Then close your eyes and return to the silence. If you end up going into meditation, then great. If not, then stop when it feels right. When you come to your meditation time a little later, you may find that you have cleared your mind of many of those things that would pop up to distract you. Here is one of my inspirational poems on the subject of not feeling I am succeeding at meditating! A Poem on Learning Meditation
Small Time of QuietI do attempt to meditate:
I close my eyes and concentrate.
But my mind keeps wandering on
on all the things that must be done. Yet time spent thus is not a waste.
On sitting up I make haste
to write a list of all the things
I may have missed, if not for this
small time of quiet. Though not the Buddha I would be,
I gain in some efficiency
from quiet times with only me.
Well done for spending time quietly on your own. “We practice coming nearer to the light in us today.
We take our wandering thoughts, and gently bring them back to where they fall in line with all the thoughts we share with God. We will not let them stray.
We let the light within our minds direct them to come home.”
(W-188.9, ACIM) Other spiritual poems on this site For an explanation of the release – It’s OK to...
For a discussion on the use of a spiritual quote |
Pages related to easy meditation techniques:
Spiritual Relaxation Techniques
. These can be a good preparation for a time of meditation. The restful words help you accept your thoughts, accept your life as it is, and bring yourself into the present moment.
The spiritual blog -
The Big Silence.
The blog contains some inspiring quotes on the gifts people found when they overcame their fear of silence.
Click here to move from Easy Meditation Techniques to the home page - How To Deepen Our Spirituality
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