One common myth about meditation is that you shouldn’t have any thoughts while you practice. This is not true. The goal of meditation is to learn how to be at ease no matter what’s happening in your mind. Meditation is training how to be calm and relaxed even when your mind is freaking out.
One of the biggest reasons people fail at meditation is because you think your mind should be completely quiet or that you can’t stop your thoughts. By far the most common thing I hear from new meditators is that they can’t meditate because they have a busy mind that won’t calm down.
So yes, your mind may go silent at different times during your meditation. And that’s a beautiful and important experience. But you’re going to have tons of different experiences when you meditate, and it’s important to remember that meditation isn’t supposed to feel any particular way. It’s all about accepting things as they are without trying to change them.
Here is a simple but powerful metaphor from Deepak Chopra to help you understand the nature of your mind and the process of meditation:
Think of your mind like a flowing river. On the surface, a river flows the fastest and is broken up by waves and currents. But if you dive deeper, the waves disappear and the current is slower. Finally, at the bottom, where the water meets the riverbed, the current may be nearly motionless. The mind is like that, yet we identify only with its active, fast-moving surface. What lies deeper can’t be accessed by thought. You must allow your mind to seek its own quiet, to return to its own source.
When you start meditating, it’s going to take a little while for you to learn how to swim in the deeper currents of that river.
Two Fundamental Approaches To Meditation
In general, every meditation technique falls into one of two camps. Whatever type of meditation you practice, it’s either a focused awareness meditation or a free awareness meditation.
Traditionally, focused awareness meditation is called “meditation with seed.” That means that you are focusing your mind on something like a mantra (think Transcendental Meditation), your body sensations (Vipassana), or maybe you’re just counting your breath.
Free awareness meditation is referred to as “meditation without seed.” In this approach to meditation, you put your attention on the wide-open space of awareness itself. This is often considered an advanced approach to meditation.
The trick with free awareness is this: you resist the temptation to focus on anything in particular. In response to everything, you do nothing. You accept and let go of everything that passes across the movie screen of your mind. It’s subtle and hard to master. At the same time, this practice yields rich rewards.
Focused and free awareness both lead to the same goal—equanimity, focus, relaxation, clarity, confidence, and deep ease. Whether you are practicing one or the other, your end game is a mind that’s grounded in the deepest part of you, independent of the trauma and drama of daily life.
Below you’ll find a guided meditation of the Free and Focused Awareness Technique
If you liked this audio, you’ll love our free How To Meditate Mini Course.
Focused & Free Awareness Meditation Techniques
There are many different free and focused awareness techniques, the important thing is to find one that works for you. Here is a breakdown of common techniques to get you started.
Mantra Meditation: In this focused awareness practice you silently repeat a word or a phrase over and over again, keeping your mind trained on that one word.
Moving Meditation: Tai Chi and Qigong are two of the most popular forms of moving meditation. In these focused awareness practices, you use a combination of visualization, movement, and focus to draw chi or life force into your body and mind. For many people who easily get into The Zone, running is a form of moving meditation. Yoga and walking can also be forms of moving meditation when you practice them with mindful awareness.
Counting Your Breath: One of the simplest and most effective focused awareness techniques, this practice requires you to simply count each cycle of your breath. You simply stay focused and relaxed while you count each breath to 10, 50, or 100, and then start over again.
Vipassana Meditation: Vipassana is a free awareness practice in which you observe all the sensations that arise in your body and the thoughts that emerge in your mind. You aren’t focused on any one thing, sensation or thought, rather you’re letting everything pass across the screen of your awareness without reacting to it. You simply observe, note, and let it pass on by.
Guided Meditations: Guided meditations are a popular way to start learning meditation. These come in all shapes and sizes—from peaceful music and chanting, to visualizations and gentle relaxation instructions. Guided meditations are a great way to kick start your practice and get used to the experience of meditation. More seasoned guides can give you very deep experiences.
When Should You Practice & For How Long?
Technically, you can practice meditation at any time of day. It largely depends on why you want to meditate to begin with. For example, if you have trouble sleeping, it might make sense to meditate just before bedtime. If you struggle with stress and anxiety during the day, you might try several short meditations throughout the day.
But in general, most experts and teachers agree that the best time of day to meditate is in the morning. After meditating for 20 years, I wholeheartedly agree with this. I feel like meditating in the morning, ideally at the same time every day, grounds and centers me for the rest of the day. I carry the emotional, psychological, and physical benefits with me all day long.
And how long should you meditate to get results? If you’re starting out, I recommend anywhere from 5 to 10 minutes a day. You can start with even less. Maybe try it for 2 minutes in the morning. And when you can sit still and relax for that long, move to 3 minutes. And then increase your time every day as you get comfortable with the practice.
The most important thing is to just start. The next most important thing is to be consistent. You are trying to set a new groove. So simplicity is ideal. The way I think about it, 5 minutes is 100% more than no minutes. And so is 1 minute. You just need to do it. You need to start and you need to keep going. Pick the amount of time that works for you and do it every day.
After a few weeks, then you can start to evaluate the impact and results of the meditation. Because we are all different, there isn’t a right amount of time to meditate. But it’s also like learning any new skill or practicing an instrument. The more time you invest in practice, the more results you’re going to see.