Meditation for Beginners

When you are starting out with meditation, it can be difficult to settle or 'empty your mind' as you sometimes may be told. Besides our minds are never really empty.

But one simple meditation exercise which can be used to focus your mind is to count your breath. This helps you to notice when your attention has wandered.

Five-Minute Breathing Exercise

Observe yourself as you breathe.
Don't try to breathe any deeper or slower, just observe your natural breathing cycles.
You may notice that your breathing slows down and deepens all by itself without any effort on your part.

Once you have settled into a rhythm, after the next out-breath say 'One' silently to yourself.
Then after the next out-breath say 'Two'.
Keep doing this until you reach up to the number ten.
Then start all over again.

If your mind is really scattered, you may start thinking about other things by the time you get to five or six. You may even momentarily forget that you are doing this exercise.
If this happens, simply go back to the number 'one' and repeat the exercise again.

If you find this exercise easy, you may wish to prolong the technique for ten or fifteen minutes.

Read about some of the Benefits of Meditation