At its simplest, meditation is just a time of quiet contemplation. You can meditate almost any time, any place. Take a look at this easy meditation technique to see just how easy it is to begin meditating.
Sitting meditation
Find a quiet place to do this. Whilst you can do this whilst sitting in a chair, a lot of people prefer to use a meditation cushion to sit on. If you're just starting out, a bean bag or some cushions from around your home will work fine as well. Make yourself comfortable - cross legged in a "lotus" position is a good start. But don't get hung up on the precise position or whether you're sitting correctly. Just sit and you'll be fine!!
Then take a few deep breaths to help yourself relax. Once you've started to relax, pay attention to each part of your body in turn and relax it. You can work from your head downwards or your toes upwards, it doesn't matter. Just work through gradually until your body is totally relaxed.
Then focus your attention. This may sound slightly weird to start with - after all, what does it mean? Put simply, it means focus on something. Anything will do although it's usual for people to use something like a candle flame to use as a focus or some other object that you can literally just stare at. Other people will repeat a mantra time and time again - this is usually a single word such as "Om", which in this instance is a bit like a deep humming noise.
The reason for setting your focus is to get your mind to concentrate. Not the kind of concentration that you did in hard tests at school, just the idea of having a single point of concentration.
In turn, this lets your mind clear out all the other stuff that clutters it up on any given occasion. Instead, when you concentrate your attention on one thing, you can free your mind up and allow any distractions that pop into your mind to simply flow out again.
Ultimately, your aim is to actually focus on nothing at all. This isn't always easy and there's a good chance that you won't achieve it the first few times you meditate. But you'll almost certainly notice that the "chatter" that is always going on in your mind reduces. This is also known as quietening your mind and is the ultimate aim of this type of meditation.
