A beginner to meditation practices is just like a tiny seedling. Once it grows and becomes a tree having strong branches and roots, it can withstand any difficult situation. This is how it is for beginners before they become proficient. You start small, follow simple meditation techniques and know the basics. Once you start getting used to it, you can now move on to the more advanced meditation techniques. As you read on, you will discover how one learns to meditate, how to learn concentration and focus and some simple meditation techniques you can start off with. This will help to set you on the right track of meditating.
How Does One Learn to Meditate?
When you want to learn how to meditate, you need to get certain things in order when starting out. To begin with, you must ensure that you maintain a particular meditating place so that the atmosphere of that meditating environment will help you be conditioned to start meditating. Secondly, you must select an area that is free from noise or distractions. Thirdly, you must not meditate when you are feeling sleepy, tired or hungry. These will definitely distract you.
You should also learn the correct meditating posture, sitting with crossed legs, spine straight and with your eyes half closed. You should try to wear loose clothing when you meditate. Tight clothing can make you uncomfortable. Maintaining a particular time and place daily is also another plus when learning to meditate. As you get deeper into your practice, you can change things slightly to suite any situation you like; but a beginner must observe these steps. After doing the above, the next thing is to learn concentration and focus.
How do you Learn Concentration and Focus?
Concentration in meditation is the basis for all the other meditation techniques. By developing our ability to concentrate, we increase our capacity for connecting thoughts and information and solving problems. Developing strong concentration is similar to developing physical strength. Once this strength is developed, you will be able to focus on any activity, leading to deeper understanding and greater success. The best way to learn concentration and focus is to observe the following.
1. You need to focus on one object at a time. The object can be a certain virtue or entity which you want to emulate. It can also mean simply focusing on the sensations as the breath flows in and out, or on the sensations of the abdomen rising and falling with each breath.
2. As soon as your thoughts start to wander, you must slowly bring them back to your focus object.
3. During meditation, you must try to ignore all sorts of distractions, irrelevant thoughts and sensations that your body feels.
Some people prefer to play music that is calm, repetitive and gentle, so as not to break their concentration and focus. These things should be practiced regularly to make it a habit. Once you learn concentration and focus, you need to know about some simple meditation techniques.
What are Some Simple Meditation Techniques?
You can learn most simple meditation techniques in five minutes. You need to know what some of them are and how they are done. Many people call them many names, but the most common ones are sweeping the body, focusing on breathing, choiceless awareness, loving kindness and working with emotions.
Sweeping the body is just that. It simply means observing your body from your head to your feet. As you observe, you feel the sensations on each part you are observing. This also applies to focusing on breathing. You will also observe how you breathe air in and out of your body. In choiceless awareness, you allow thoughts to come to your mind. They can be past or future thoughts. Yours is just to observe them as they come and go without attaching emotions to it.
Loving kindness is just about loving and accepting yourself for whom you are and for feeling loving kindness towards those who have hurt you. When it comes to working with emotions, you need to observe whatever emotions you may have like fear, guilt, anger, envy, frustration or whatever and try to subdue it. This will help you to feel better towards it.
Meditating is not something that beginners should worry about. By simply learning how to meditate, how to learn concentration and focus and some simple meditation techniques, any beginner can start meditating in no time at all.
I can certify from my experience over the last 9 years that ‘Focusing on breathing’ is a simple and doable technique to reduce the wandering of the mind and make the meditation more enjoyable and fruitful. After a few months of this practice, the mind becomes remarkably more obedient and focused. I found that the focus on breathing can be dramatically enhanced, by using the fingers to track the breaths. One such mode using the tips of the fingers described below.
**** TIP MODE: Touch the tip of the thumb to the tip of the little finger. Breathe in and out three times, counting in the mind, every time you breathe out. During the first out breath count ‘one’, second out breath ‘two’ and during the third out breath ‘three’. Repeat the same steps at each of the next three finger tips. When you are at the thumb, place the tip of the index finger at the base of the thumb and breathe three times. Then switch to the other hand and repeat the same process. Continue practicing, switching the hands. You will feel its calming effect, by the time you complete 4 to 6 hands, which takes 2 to 3 minutes. You can use this mode, anywhere and anytime to avert potential stress or dissolve built up stress!****
Five other modes of ‘focusing on breathing’ – Segment mode, Counting mode, Feeling mode, Staring mode and 911 modes, can be seen in this page http://countingbreaths.com/fob/relax/how-can-i-do-it/
I have been using ‘focusing on breathing’ technique throughout the day, using one or more of the modes. During my daily meditation, initially, I count my breaths in sets of three and when the mind becomes less distracted I switch to my mantra. After about 9 years of meditation, and simple stretching, I now feel like I have a new mind and body!