by Jonathan Evatt

Created on: September 25, 2008   Last Updated: September 30, 2008

The easiest way to learn to meditate is perhaps to simply sit down and give it a try. The following includes some guidelines and instructions that will assist you in doing exactly that, at which point you'll be medtating like a pro!

I've met many people who say they can't meditate, only to discover this is not true after I explain a few key points with them, just as I am explaining these points to you. I ask them what happens when they try to meditate. Typically they tell me that they can't stop thinking. This is the number one reason people tell me they can't meditate, tried meditating and gave up, or simply think meditation is too difficult for them. Here's a little secret which I am sure, like these people, you'll be happy to hear. Meditation is not about stopping your mind from thinking. Whether you are thinking or not is quite irrelevant. In fact your thinking mind is the perfect foundation for developing a very deep and fruitful meditation practice.

What exactly might I mean by the idea that meditation is not about stopping your thoughts? Meditation takes place whether thought is there or not. A state of meditative awareness exists beneath the thinking you experience in the mind. It is always there. The key point of difference between meditation and ordinary waking consciousness is whether or not you give your attention to the actual thoughts or to your awareness that you are thinking. Your awareness of the thinking (as opposed to the thinking itself) is what taps you into this underlying state of meditation. To see how simple this really is, let's look at how this applies in a practical situation.

I sit down to meditate. I get my body comfortable. I may then focus my attention on the flow of breath for a while in order to calm my body and mind. Naturally thoughts arise. I may even get engaged in actively thinking about something, whilst completely forgetting I was intending to meditate. Then I realise "I am here to meditate, and I was busy thinking". In that moment I can ask myself, "who is aware that I was thinking just now?" There is no need to answer this question. Rather you simply feel into the question and the awareness that you were engaged in the act of thinking.

Meditation is all about cultivating awareness. The awareness I am thinking. The awareness I am sitting. The awareness I am breathing. The awareness I am feeling something to do with my partner or my job or whatever, and most significantly simply the awareness that "I Am". A key to cultivating

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