An essential part of Buddhist practice is meditation. It’s they key to a better life, practice, and eventually Enlightenment. There are several ways and practices of different meditations, some simply, other very difficult, but one thing that almost all types of meditations have in common is an object of concentration.
The most common Buddhist meditation practice is Anapanasati, mindful breathing. The exercise of watching and being mindful of your in and out breaths. It’s common that most people get bored with this repetitive watching of their breath, but there are different ways to watch it.
The “usual” way is just being mindful that you’re breathing in and breathing out. Another way is keeping your concentration on the tip of your nose (your nostrils) being feeing the air go in and out; is it cold air, warm air, hot air? Feel it touch your skin and feel it go in and out of your nose. The third way is to feel the air go in your nose, to the back of your throat (tongue), down your neck, and into your lungs. You can do this all in one step, or one by one (i.e. feel the air through your nose for 3 breaths, feel it in the back of your throat for 3 breaths, etc. until the end and then move backwards and repeat). The final way is feeling the breath in your lungs or abdomen (in and out for the lungs, rising and falling for the abdomen).
Reciting mantras is another way to keep concentration during meditation. It’s common after a while, though, to just be saying it and have little thoughts sneak in. However, it’s important that when you’re reciting a mantra that you’re listening to the words, visualizing the words, know what the words are and mean. Otherwise, you’re just saying a bunch of random words and that’s not going to get you anywhere. Om Mani Padme Hum is a great mantra to use, or simply just saying Om.
Being mindful of your body is a great exercise, both for meditation and just learning about yourself. So when meditating, relax yourself as much as you can. Take a few deep breaths and relax your muscles starting from your head all the way down to your toes (you can tense up each “part” for about 3 seconds each to help manually relax). Then, just feel your body; are there any tense parts, pain anywhere, discomfort, can you feel your heart beat, tummy growling, etc. Any feelings your body makes be mindful of it. If you have any pain or discomfort because of your sitting position, (e.g. if you’re sitting cross-legged), just be mindful of it and let it be, it’ll eventually go away once your body realizes you’re not going to do anything about it. Don’t engage with any feelings or discomfort, just be mindful that it’s there. If a bruise is bothering you, only be mindful that the bruise is bother you, don’t think about when or where it happened or engage in it.
Finally, being mindful of thoughts and noises. If you live in the city or in an apartment, there’s bound to be some outside noise, so this is a good way to practice mindful listening. Usually living in the city and/or apartment we can tune out certain noises, but now you want to be aware of everything and note them. So sit down and relax and open up your ears. Listen to everything. When a sound is made, note it (car, honking, air plane, bird, foot steps, etc.), again, don’t engage with the note, don’t wonder who/what it is, where’s it’s coming from, or when it’s going to stop, just be mindful and aware of the sound and note it. The same goes with thoughts, when a thought arises, just be mindful of it and let it go and go back to whatever you were doing (reciting a mantra, mindful breathing/listening, etc.). Thoughts are always going to arise, but with time and practice you’ll be able to discipline your mind and the thoughts will lessen.
A big factor for all of these practice, and I’ll repeat it for the tenth time, is to not engage with arising thoughts. The point of your practice is to keep concentration on one thing and work on attaining higher levels of concentration/meditation. Keeping concentration on one thing for more than a minute is difficult, but with time and lots of practice, you’ll be able to discipline your mind and tame those thoughts. You might not be able to completely calm your mind anytime soon or ever, but even if you just learn to lessen the arising of thoughts and hold concentration for a minute or two, you’ve made a tremendous accomplishment.
Smile and be well!