by Sunshine Ross

Created on: April 02, 2009

Meditation is mind training. To someone who is new to the concept, it may seem shrouded in mystery and mysticism, but it need not be so. Learning to meditate can be easy. Listed here are a few ways how to meditate easily. Hopefully as you read along, you will begin to slowly build up an understanding of what meditation is. In the purest form, meditation cannot be explained or condensed into words and the best advise is to practice, practice, practice.

Find a comfortable posture.

Posture in meditation is very significant. The way you position your body has an effect on how your energy flows. When your energy is stable and steady, abiding calmly, then the mind easily follows this stable and steady pattern.

While sitting crossed legged in full lotus posture, eyes half open, hands in meditation mudra (mudra means hand gesture) is a beautiful way to meditate, it can be uncomfortable for most of us.

Any comfortable crossed-legged position will do. Place a cushion on your seat so that your knees can rest lower than your hips. Place your hands on your knees to support your back or rest your right hand on top of the left with thumbs gently touching.

If sitting crossed-legged proves to be quite challenging for you, do not force the issue. Instead, sit on a chair. The most important part of the meditation posture is to keep your spine straight. You can sit with a wall behind you to help you do this.

Keep the eyes half-open and half-closed, with a relaxed gaze looking down about two feet in front of you. As much as possible try not to blink, just relax your eyes. If you feel too distracted, close your eyes lightly but do not shut them tight to avoid mental drowsiness. If you intend to practice meditation for longer periods of time, it is much better to get used to not closing your eyes.

Keep the whole body quiet and relaxed, now begin your practice.

Keep the instruction simple.

One needs a fair amount of concentration and single-pointed focus to be able to meditate successfully. One must first be able to place the mind on its object of meditation without wavering and being distracted. To achieve such focus, it is best to stick to simple meditation instruction rather than jumping to complex visualizations. Your mind needs to relax and be free of thoughts to be able to gain clarity. Sometimes complex visualizations just serve as another distraction.

One very simple practice is mindfulness of breathing. The instruction is simply to watch the breath as it comes in and out of the body.

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