beginners

There are soooooo many styles of meditation out there, and so many people promoting them! (Including me! 🙂 )

If you’re just starting to explore meditation as a new thing in your life, it can be overwhelming — particularly when some people can be VERY didactic! (Errr…. INCLUDING ME!!)

If you’ve only recently become interested in meditation, then the very best meditation technique that you can do is the one that you feel like you can do.

By this I mean, if you stumble across some style of meditation in your everyday life, then try it out and see if you feel like you can do it.

Some meditations are a little bit complicated.

Some practices are a little strict in how much they say you need to engage.

Some techniques may feel awkward or weird.

Or some may even feel too simple.

If, for example, you hear about a meditation where you just sit there and watch your thoughts, that may be a very effective technique, but it’s also one that can be difficult to actually do. It may feel like you don’t know what you’re doing, or you just keep getting distracted. It may feel a little bit pointless, or if your mind is very busy, you may feel like you’re out of control, that you can’t be successful with it.

That’s fine! Those reactions are normal! But if it ends up being discouraging, or you just don’t see where you’re going with it, then it may not be the very best meditation to start with.

Other so-called “meditations” aren’t exactly what I would define as meditation. These can be things like guided visualizations, that take you to a very dreamy state and cause you to engage in storytelling in the mind. These could be helpful as relaxation, perhaps, but if you don’t come out the other side feeling more awake and energized, then they’re probably not meditation (at least not in the way that I use the word!). HOWEVER: If you’re just starting out, then there’s no reason not to do this type of practice, if it gets you hooked into the happy habit of sitting with yourself!

I definitely suggest doing them sitting up, though, if that’s what you choose; if you’re laying down, you’re too likely to drift into sleep, and that’s simply not meditating!!

One idea, if you like the guided thing, is use the audio to walk you through the steps for the first few days, but then try doing it on your own. That way, you’ll stay engaged with it. Otherwise, there’s a real risk that you’ll put the audio on, and then immediately space out — particularly after you’ve heard it a few times. It’ll be like watching the same-exact movie every day for a week. The first time you see it, and the second, and probably the third, you’re still engaged, but then after that, you’re bored, and you tune out and start fantasizing. You lose your ability to stay present with it. So instead, if you enjoy the guided thing, then do it a few times and after that, try guiding yourself!

Most important, when trying out any meditation practice, IS TO TRY IT!

It takes many back-to-back days of intentional planning to get a new habit started — or, for many of us, many more back-to-backs of unconscious action that led us into the ruts of our lives that we have trouble breaking out of!

With something like meditation, where the benefits reveal themselves more slowly, it’ll require some concerted effort on your part to simply get started.

So, do whatever type of meditation you feel can work for you — don’t get distracted by the hunt for the “perfect” technique or the “right” way to do it.

When you’re starting out, ANY meditation is a good meditation!

(Oh hey: That’s actually true at any stage of the path!!)

Find a style or a practice or a technique that seems interesting, and just do it! It doesn’t need to be long. You don’t have to have extended sessions of torment meditation to get the good stuff flowing into your life.

You just have to do it!

The Universe will naturally lead you to the very best next step, when the time is right for you to take it.

So just pick a technique – and get started!

One problem that may cause issues for you in at least the beginning phases of meditation is mismatched expectations. This is related to the problem discussed recently, “I’m thinking MORE, now that I’m meditating!”

If you believe that meditation is about not thinking, and that you should be sitting there with pure silence in your head when you’re meditating, like our little contemplating bunny-friend at the top of this post, or like this other very seriously-minded friend:
 

 
Then it’s sure to set you up for disappointment.

Especially if your actual experience when you sit down to meditate is, ahem, a bit more chaotic than that.

If you’re like almost everyone else on the planet, when you try to meditate the experience is more like these guys:

When your actual experience of meditation looks less like the contemplating bunny, and more like the crazy bunnies — but you think you should be like the cute quiet calm bunny — then you’re going to have issues.

(This is true in all of life, isn’t it? When you expect your partner to be a certain way, then it’s only going to cause frustration for you and potentially conflict with your partner.)

It’s highly unlikely that your experience of meditation will be ANYTHING like what you expect it to be.

It’s definitely unrealistic to expect that the practice of meditation will cease the thoughts from coming.

The thoughts never cease. Over years of practice you will be able to calm yourself, and find stillness, and through that it’s common that the thoughts slow down.

And over time, the velocity of mental activity natural finds a new resting spot, whether you’re meditating or going about your day. All of these things will happen, and more, if you keep up with your practice.

But it’s really not possible that when you first sit down to meditate (meaning, anytime in the first like ten years of your practice!!) that your mind will go completely still and all thoughts fall away.

Yes you may be blessed with incredible moments of quiet and clarity, and these may happen often.

But it’s probably not going to happen right away, and it’s not going to happen unless you devote yourself to a regular practice of meditating every day for an extended period of time. Where you focus. Where you exert effort to concentrate.

If you’re experiencing a bliss or an ecstasy in meditation and there is an absence of thought, then that’s AWESOME!

But it’s also important to examine the meditation state and be honest.

Are you actually just sleeping? Spacing out? Going into a dream-like fugue state?

If so, that’s not meditating. It’s zoning out. It may be an altered state of consciousness, different from your day-to-day, and you may experience things very differently. But be circumspect, and make sure that you’re not fooling yourself. Drifting is not meditation.

If you go into the learning of meditation with the expectation that you should be able to stop your thought and still the mind, you’re setting yourself up for disappointment. That’s just not how it works. The brain is a thought generating machine. It’s what it does. It’s just like how the lungs breathe in air and the heart pumps the blood: The brain thinks thoughts.

Those thoughts will definitely change, both the nature of them and their quality and also their quantity. But this is a natural byproduct of spiritual evolution, as you improve your ability to concentrate, and you spend more time intentionally accepting What Is to be present, in the Now, without escaping.

It’s important to be kind to yourself and understand that this is a process, and thoughts will be thought, and that’s totally OK. Just keep going with your practice and you will discover what happens to your life when you are a meditator.

Being without expectation, and welcoming whatever experiences are presented to you, will help you stick with it and enjoy the ride.

This graphic vividly shows the realities of the learning process – not specific to meditation, but a reality that is even more pronounced with meditation.

Because meditation is entirely internal, then it’s even more important than it is with intellectual subjects to learn how to do it from a qualified teacher.

An inexact analogy is this: You can’t learn math simply by reading a book.

You can read a book to learn a technique, but in order to know how to apply that technique, you must work through some math problems.

I think anyone reading this has had the experience of doing math wrong and getting stuck – and that’s when it is infinitely helpful to have a real live person around to get some help from.

The parallels with meditation are there, but meditation is actually totally different because of this “internal” aspect that I mentioned. In meditation, you’re using the mind in a specific way – a way that most people have little to no prior experience in. It’s very common for people to feel frustrated and confused when starting out. “Am I doing this right?” is such a typical thought when trying to meditate for the first (or first thousandth!) time. If someone has that experience when attempting to meditate on their own, after reading about it in a book, I’m not sure how probable it is that he or she will persevere through and figure out how it works. I think it’s too easy to stay frustrated and just give up.

When you meditate with a qualified teacher who has extensive experience both with meditating and with teaching then you’re setting yourself up for success – because that person is communicating with you in real time, mind to mind, looking you in the eye and transmitting the instruction set to you, so that it’s easier to “get” it. And, that person should be able to sense whether you are in fact getting it or not, based on how the room feels when you meditate together (and the look of joy or befuddlement on your face when you are done!).

Reading books about meditation can be inspiring. However in order to “know” what meditation is, most people need to experience the stillness of meditating with someone who knows how to be still. That provides a map to the end state of meditation which you can then better trace on your own, when you’re practicing by yourself.

Otherwise, it’s likely that you’ll be just chasing your tail when you sit down to meditate – which may be entertaining, but it’s not the fastest path to stopping your thoughts.

Many years ago when I was teaching in NYC, I finished explaining the meditation technique we use in an intro class, when a brand-new person said, “Yeah, that’s what I do when I play guitar.”

This meditation technique – like any “real” meditation technique – is a practice of focused concentration. It’s an active use of the mind, focusing it in on itself with determination. When you apply yourself to it, you will soon have the experience of the world going away. Disappearing. You will be immersed in the meditation. The meditation will be all that you are.

These are just words of course. A description of an experience. So we can understand when new people mistake that description for something else.

After all, when this new student played guitar, I’m certain that he applied himself to it. I’m certain that he was focused on it. I’m certain that it’s all-consuming when he does it.

Whenever we focus on anything, it brings up energy. When we push hard to do something physical, like long-distance running, there’s a particular concentration, and endorphins are released. All of these side effects are beneficial and good. Playing guitar and long-distance running are happy activities that can bring joy to your life.

But they are not meditating.

Meditating is using the mind in a specific way. It’s unlike ANYTHING else. Meditation is turning the mind in on itself. It’s using the mental muscle in a way that’s different from every other practice.

One obvious proof of this is, if the guitar player, or long-distance runner, were actually meditating during those activities, and they had been pursuing them for some time, then it would be a trivial task for them to learn how to meditate. It would be super simple for these people to go within and quiet the mind. But it’s not. They’re starting from scratch when they first learn to meditate, just like everyone else.

Certain activities are definitely complementary to meditation – things like programming a computer, planning an architectural drawing, writing music, these sorts of structural activities are super conducive to developing the skill of meditation. Someone interested in these other things who is also pursuing a habit of meditation will find both activities reinforcing the other. Yet none are replacements for meditation.

So please don’t fool yourself. The only way that you’re practicing meditation is if you are practicing meditation. That means, sitting your butt down and doing it.

And keep going with the guitar, and the running – and see how things start to open up for you in those realms, once you add meditation to the mix!

At our Intro to Meditation classes, the recommendation is to start with baby steps: Begin with a short meditation every morning, just 10 or 15 minutes tops, and focus on building the habit of meditation into your life. It’s not necessary to do massive long meditations at the beginning. The most important thing at the beginning is to be like Nike and just do it. For most people, it’s a big deal to establish the habit of meditation and that’s much (much much much) more important than trying to be some kind of superstar and do extended meditations right away.

I got a question from someone after attending her first Intro class asking if it’s OK to meditate twice a day.

And the answer to that is OF COURSE!

It’s fine to meditate twice a day and in fact is the preferred structure over time, but it’s also possible to overdo it at the beginning and burn out. Sometimes people go into “overachiever mode” and try to do too much, and then get frustrated or have expectations that are too high or whatever, and give up on meditation before giving it a chance to work in their lives. Meditation is subtle and the effects build over time. The best way to ensure that you give it the time needed to see those effects is to make it easy to get started. Meditation feels foreign to many people and it’s sometimes hard to stick with it at first.

That being said, it can be a lot easier to build up the initial skills if you do it more frequently. Twice a day is fine, and two shorter sessions can even be better than doing one marathon meditation in the morning. Personally, I wouldn’t suggest doing more than 20 minutes at a time to begin; most people end up just spacing out if they try to push for longer, and spacing out is the exact opposite to meditation – it can do more damage than good. The trick is to stay focused and work it, and if you’re able to maintain that for 20 minutes with concentration, it will actually do more benefit than floundering around for 30 minutes or more.

Again, the most important part of meditation is doing it. If you’re inspired to do it twice a day, then go for it! Take advantage of your inspiration and see where you can go with it – that’s an exciting place to be and you can see results come quickly when you dive in.

For many people however, carving out time for just one meditation can be a big enough task to deal with. So don’t feel pressured to do more than necessary.

Just 10 minutes a day at the beginning is really enough. You can build up the time once you’ve got the practice of meditation ingrained as part of your life.