Is it about reflecting on what we did recently ? Is it about thinking “positive” ? Or should we be clearing our minds of normal day to day stuff ? I don’t want to hear the “no one really knows what to do” line.
Its easier to do something if we know where we should be heading too… and meditation eludes me. What should we be trying to do during meditation ?
As I understand it, there is no “should”. Rest and abide. Thoughts are just like clouds in the sky. If you find yourself distracted by the clouds, just tell yourself “thinking” and move on.
You can do lots of different things during meditation. The preffered yogic method is to concentrate on your breathing. Concentrating on your breathing is a way to be aware of your body yet still be focused at the same time. This method avoids the sort of busy thoughts such as “i should get the ham out of the freezer to dethaw” and lets you relax. “breath in, breath out, breath in, breath out”
Also, people make the mistake of feeling like they aren’t supposed to be thinking about anything while they meditate, but this just isn’t true. You’ll find that you really can’t be focused or thinking about absolutely nothing. So try just watching your thoughts go by rather than getting carried off by them.
Lots of books have been written on meditation, and there is a wealth of knowledge about it on the Internet. Just find a method that works for you.
Rashak Mani, these guided meditations might help you.
I’m glad somebody asked this. I’ve been meaning to ask the EXACT same question for a couple of days now, but keep forgeting.
Maybe if I meditated I wouldn’t forget so much. ironic…
There are so many different kinds of meditation and they all have different techniques and “objectives.” One form of meditation that is nearly universal is breath counting. You inhale and count “one” (to yourself) and then count “two” on the exhale. Repeat until 10 and then start over. Whenever you find that you’ve wandered off, just start again at one. No need to get frustrated, as the act of bringing your focus back to the task is a “victory” (you’ve got to use a lot of quotes when writing about meditation). Another key aspect is to breathe into your abdomen rather than by lifting your ribcage. You’ll need a good posture for this. Your abdomen should push out on the inhale and relax on the exhale. It will take about a month to get a feel for what aspect of the breath you “should” concentrate on and it is frustrating at first. Some people maintain awareness on the air rushing in and out of the nostrils. The most common area to concentrate on is the hara, which is about 2 inches below your navel. When I meditate I imagine a spherical balloon expanding and contracting in my abdomen/hara. Many meditation “experts” claim that both the inhale and exhale should be completely spontaneous and not at all controlled by the meditator. One zen master maintains that you tend to lose focus on the exhale unless you maintain a slight control. I completely agree. Here is a decent site:
I do Theravada Buddhist medition.
I generally start off paying attention to how my body, or some part of it, feels. This has a calming effect. When I feel I’m ready, I move to concentrating on the breath. I usually don’t count, and I definitely don’t try to influence how I breathe. It’s kind of hard not to somehow influence it when you’re paying attention to it, but you do get to a point where it’s just happening.
You can pay attention to the breath in a number of ways. Most are very consistent in this, but I’m not. Sometimes I pay attention to it entering and leaving my nose, sometimes I pay attention to my chest, sometimes my belly. Depends what feels easy at the time. One should never try to visualize it, though; just experience it.
After about 20 minutes of just watching the breath, I usually move to Vipassana meditation. This is paying attention to what occurs, but not giving any thought to it. When you hear something, you just mentally note “hearing.” When you find yourself thinking, you note “thinking”. Thinking, as an activity, is not given a whole lot of weight; it’s just what the mind does, just as hearing is what the ears do. You also note whether a feeling (physical or emotional, but mainly the former) is pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral. When nothing seems to be going on, go back to the breath.
Sometimes I do meditate on an idea. For example, there’s a classic meditation that revolves around the idea that I will die, the time of my death is unknown, so what do I do. Or I may meditate on some idea central to Buddhism, like that of impermanence, non-self, and suffering. Another thing to do is a body sweep, concentrating on the parts of your body from the head to the feet, and back up again (slowly or rapidly).
Then there’s walking meditation, where you walk back and forth, just paying attention to the steps you’re taking. Most, including me, have a hard time with this, but I find it very beneficial when I do it.
Meditation works slowly on the individual. You won’t “get it” in a week, or even a month. You can’t really understand it unless you go on a retreat where you do it intensively for a day, or preferably several days. Over time, though, it changes you. It becomes something that you do, to a greater or lesser extent, much of the time, not just when you’re sitting on a cushion or bench.
I think it’s important to get a good teacher to get you started, but stay away from people with grandiose claims (anything having to do with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi is to be avoided, IMO). As mentioned, there are also good books. Joseph Goldstein, Jack Kornfield, and Thich Nhat Hanh are particularly good authors on the subject.
Hope this helps.
“Meditation - it’s not what you think”
Thanks for the tips guys… I’m a bit tired of hearing meditation is something you learn and no one even mentions which way I should be headed ! 
I know there is a lot of mumbo jumbo so I will try to filter through it as best as I can without my skepticism raising barriers.
Skepticism is good. One of the more famous quotes of the Buddha, from the Kalama sutta (Kalama being a town, BTW) is as follows:
"Now, Kalamas, don’t go by reports, by legends, by traditions, by scripture, by logical conjecture, by inference, by analogies, by agreement through pondering views, by probability, or by the thought, ‘This contemplative is our teacher.’ When you know for yourselves that, ‘These qualities are skillful; these qualities are blameless; these qualities are praised by the wise; these qualities, when adopted & carried out, lead to welfare & to happiness’ – then you should enter & remain in them.
Which is a lot like my old sig, from Philippe Geluck’s Le Chat:
That’s true for a number of forms of Buddhist meditation. The thing is, though, that “meditation” means many things and there are many different exercices that have different goals.
In Soto Zen, you practice something called shikantaza. You sit still and let your thoughts fade away, while focusing all of your attention on just being. Actually “focusing” is a bad word. It’s extremely hard. 30 minutes of true and intensive shikantaza will leave you mentally and physically drained.
In the Rinzai Zen tradition, you practice meditation using koans, or nonsensical riddles. You focus your attention on a single element of the riddle, the “key”. The goal isn’t to “figure out” the riddle, though.
In both traditions, there are also variations on kinhin, which is walking meditation. You walk in a circle and, you guessed it, focus all your attention on “walking”.
The Japanese Shingon sect practices something they call a-ji-kan. You try to visualise a sphere floating in front of you. You place all your attention in that sphere. Allow the sphere to expand and contract depending on whether you can hold your concentration. Eventually (after a few years maybe) you might get good enough that the sphere is so large it engulphs everything.
That’s just a very small subset of the many exercices teached by Buddhist schools. You’ll find many, many more if you look at Taoist, Yogic, Sufi, contemplative Christian, and various secular approaches.
From a strictly materialist perspective the only thing they have in common is that their goal is to bring about some changes in cognitive processes.