Thread: Need abit of help quieting my mind during Mindfullness meditation?

This probably isn't the answer you are looking for considering how to quiet your mind, but really, it just takes practice. In our fast paced society today we are entirely not used to doing this, but it can be done with practice. The trick is to not take hold of any thoughts when meditating. You're just supposed to let the thoughts that arise pass without getting involved with them.
Everyone has something that works for them. So I don't find it odd that you have to focus on the back of your eye lids as well as your breath. I might end up giving that a try considering I always fall into unconsciousness so easily regardless of the fact that I blast music in my ears every time I sleep for the purpose of keeping me awake.
Anyways, practice man. As they say, it makes perfect.

It seems that a lot of people are confused by awareness meditations because they think they have to eliminate all thoughts. That's not true. The point is to be present, limiting your thoughts to those that are relevant in each moment. This means you're not thinking about the future or past like usual, but just relaxing and focusing on your senses. Feeling how it feels to be alive in your reality right now and moment by moment.
Just spend time focusing on each sense. It doesn't matter how you breathe. Think about how you are breathing but don't try to change it and don't analyze it. What does it feel like in your nose..your chest..your stomach? What do the back of your eyelids look like? Then similarly shift your attention to what each part of your body feels like. Then shift your attention to what you hear. Try and hear as many noises in your environment as you can. Don't analyze what you're hearing or feeling, only notice it. If you have a hard time I would recommend trying guided awareness meditations on youtube.

It really depends on what your description of "meditation" is. If you are choosing mindfulness of breathing (which is excellent for developing mental stability, which eventually help with lucid dreaming), then as others have said, you want to be aware of the breath, and when you realize you are following thoughts, just return to the breath. It neither necessary nor desirable to alter the breath in any way. Let the breath do its thing. Just be mindful of it in relaxed way. Even if you are having a lot of thoughts, each time you return to the breath is a success, and teaches your mind to remain in one place, as opposed to doing whatever it wants. Each return to the breath weakens the mind's tendency to stray. True story

Some other helpful practices:

1. Don't meditate when you are sleepy. Lie down for a bit, then meditate when you are fresh. Better yet, meditate in the morning before doing anything else.
2. If you feel you are nodding off, raise your gaze and visualize a beautiful white pearl of light at your solar plexus. Then imagine that light rising up through your body and illuminating the space of your mind. This is very effective for "waking up" a bit while sitting. Once you feel awake, you can drop the visualization.
3. If you feel the opposite, that your mind is too active, then visualize a black pearl, with dark energy pushing down, all the way to your root chakra, or your groin--or even to the center of the earth, if you want. This will help still thoughts.
4. Have a purpose for meditating. If you sit down with a very vague purpose ("I'm going to meditate because I hear it's a good thing to do") then you won't have as much success. This morning I sat down, and thought, "I am building concentration and stability." I then proceeded to follow the breath. Each time I drifted, I remembered my purpose and returned to the meditation. I would give this a try.
5. Don't be agitated by thoughts. They are going to happen regardless, so no sense in worrying over them. If you recognize you have drifted from the breath (or your object of meditation, whatever it is) then note that you've drifted, and return to your breathing.
6. Meditate every day. Make time.

Finally, I would just say to give it time. No one is stable on the first try, or on the fiftieth try. It takes time. At first I found I needed to sit for a while (sometimes 40 minutes or more) in order to reach a place of calm stability. And even then thoughts came up. Now it takes less time. And then there are days when I still need more time.

7. ENJOY

You can realise that the peace of mind you have when meditating can be enjoyable.

Before sitting down to meditate, you can spend a short while writing in a journal. Sometimes, thoughts just want out of your head. When they are unformed and interrupted in your mind, they tend to repeat. But if you formulate them into a complete sentence and put them to paper, the thought will dissolve and not bother you again. So write in a journal. Paper or electronic. It's doesn't have to be intensely personal. It can just be a summary of what you did that day so far. Let the thoughts flow out until you reach the point where you don't know what to think or write next. You can throw the entry away afterward, or keep it. Then sit down to meditate.

If, while journaling or meditating, the thoughts arise from a strong emotion, try to focus on the immediate feeling of the emotion rather than the backstory. So don't write: "I'm angry that Jane didn't like my ... blah blah blah." Instead write: "I feel anger. I feel a tightness in my chest and my face feels hot and flushed." And so on. Emotions, like thoughts, just need to run their course.

In addition or alternatively, you can meditate first thing in the morning. The mind tends to be quieter then because sleep and dreams have the similar effect of releasing the pent up mental churn.

People most often misunderstand meditation as I did when I started trying meditation few years ago. Probably everyone meditates incorrectly when starting. I'll sound a bit contradictory because there is no "incorrect" practice, because "correct" practice exists only in relation with "incorrect" practice. But lets say there is correct and incorrect and everyone, when they start meditating, they meditate incorrectly. When I started I too asked such questions as "how should I breath?" or "how can I make my thoughts go away?" "how to stop thinking?" "how can I feel my breath better?" but with practice AND A GOOD MANUAL BOOK (such as "Mindfulness in Plain English") you realize that this is not the way one should meditate. Then you instantly change the way you meditate. But it's not easy. To stay a daily meditator one must be disciplined. Very disciplined.

So how to breath? Breath however. It doesn't really matter. You shouldn't make any decisions during meditation. The only thing you must do during it is absolutely NOTHING. Just experience everything. Experience your breath. Don't control it. Let it go. When you let go your breath for the first time you will realize that you just let go of your breath. But after that you will realize that you are immediately controlling it again without the ability to let go. Then you think "shit. I can't let go" then you think "but I need to let go" then "but I first must let go of my thoughts" and so on until you realize that you need to let go thoughts about letting go. And layer by layer you let go of layers of thoughts. After the layers are gone one experiences samadhi. A state with no thoughts. Just pure, direct experience. It's a very blissful, strange and trippy state from which you can learn many things. But if you do meditation just to get to that state, you won't get there. You don't really need to get to that state. There is no point in being in that state, but if it happens, it happens. And if you TRY to get there, you won't, but if you just meditate, and let go, you may or may not get there.

In conclusion, meditation is a process of letting go of yourself. Not suppresing, but letting go your thoughts, your ego, your emotions, letting go of the experience. You must realize that everything is a movement. Everything moves, and if you try to stop it, you feel bad, but if you let it move, you are at peace.

And often I stumble upon an idea, that meditation is a way or a practice of being here and now. I don't think it's a good way for beginners to explain it. It isn't really possible to NOT be here and now. All the time, everyone is here and now. Even if they are thinking about the future or past, they are thinking now and because all experience is relative, that past or future they are thinking about is their now. And often "being now" is explained in terms as if it's a rigid, permanent state. It's really not. Being here and now is more a movement rather than a fixed state of mind.

I have quite the same question as EarthToKepler but didn't find the answer here (and don't want to open a new thread whereas I have quite the same question as EarthToKepler).

When I concentrate on breathing;
Do I concentrate on the feeling of air coming in my nose and getting out my nose??
Or I need to concentrate on my belly (blowing up and blowing down) ??

On what are you(people who meditate everyday) concentrate when you're meditating???
PLEASE answer directly to the question and please NOT general answer(only on the breathing).

Originally Posted by Rockefeller

I have quite the same question as EarthToKepler but didn't find the answer here (and don't want to open a new thread whereas I have quite the same question as EarthToKepler).

When I concentrate on breathing;
Do I concentrate on the feeling of air coming in my nose and getting out my nose??
Or I need to concentrate on my belly (blowing up and blowing down) ??

On what are you(people who meditate everyday) concentrate when you're meditating???
PLEASE answer directly to the question and please NOT general answer(only on the breathing).

There is no different between concentrating on your belly and concentrating on the feeling of air coming in and out of your nose. Just do whatever is easier. I personally like concentrating on my belly. It seemed easier when I began meditating.
You can also concentrate on the variety of things like sound, body feelings, even mental images. In this forum there is a great meditation tutorial, or rather a class. You can find it in DV academy (Sivason's Dream Yoga).

Thanks bro