How to Meditate with Ease

21 tips for a more relaxed yet alert mindfulness meditation

Photo by Mitchell Griest on Unsplash

This article is for paid subscribers, but the first ten tips are free for everyone.

Learning to meditate can feel like a battle, with one part of your mind pitted against the other. Every time your mind wanders, you feel like a loser. The sheer volume of thoughts you encounter can make meditation seem more stress-inducing than stress-relieving.

I understand!

I’ve meditated for several decades. I’ve also taught meditation to hundreds of people and watched them progress over a year.

I'll share my best meditation tips with you.

My insider tips will help you start a practice of mindfulness meditation and show you how to skirt the roadblocks you might encounter a few months in. If you already have the basics down, they can help you transition from one level of meditation to the next.

A Tiny History Lesson on Mindfulness

Mindfulness meditation originated with the Buddha and is known as “shamatha” in Sanskrit and “shiné” in Tibetan. Those words are often translated as “calm abiding” or “peacefully remaining.”

Sounds nice, doesn’t it?

Similar techniques are taught in secular settings today, such as the Center for Mindfulness at the University of Massachusetts Memorial Health and the UCLA Mindfulness Awareness Research Center.

Over twenty years of research have shown mindfulness meditation's many benefits, including less stress, anxiety, and depression and enhanced attention, productivity, and resilience.

Ready? Let’s get started.

My Best Tips on Mindfulness Meditation

Many different forms of meditation exist. The tips I share below apply only to mindfulness meditation.

I learned mindfulness meditation from years of study with a Tibetan Buddhist meditation master. I’ve also studied Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR).

As you read through my tips, remember meditation is simple but not necessarily easy.

Why? Because you’ve been conditioned your entire life to think, feel, and react in specific ways. So when you begin to learn meditation, your habitual patterns will happily join you and try to interfere with the process.

It’s easy to get frustrated and drop mindfulness meditation before you experience its benefits. But if you know what to expect, you can learn to ride the waves more easily.

Don’t try to implement every tip at once. Start with just a few. When you have them under your belt, come back for more.

You can also browse my suggestions to find ones that will help you overcome any stumbling blocks you’ve encountered in meditation.

1. Relax

Many people contract when they’re learning something new and different. You might find there are so many details to remember about how to meditate that you tense up.

However, relaxation is the foundation of meditation. In mindfulness meditation, you want to achieve a delicate balance of alertness and relaxation. If you’re too tight, you can’t experience a spacious state of mind, essential in meditation. If you’re too loose, you’ll space out or fall asleep.

When you find yourself tensing up in meditation, take a moment to relax consciously. Bring your mind home to your body, take a few breaths, and let your muscles soften. Do this as often as needed, and you’ll be more relaxed as you practice.

Tension can also come from trying too hard. It might not be easy at first, but whenever you catch yourself trying too hard, use it as a reminder to relax. That itself will strengthen your mindfulness.

2. The mind and body are interconnected

Posture matters, but don’t get uptight about it.

Sit comfortably on a cushion, chair, couch, or bed. You can cross your legs sitting on a cushion or place your feet flat on the floor if seated in a chair.

Your back should be straight but not rigid. Allow for its natural curve. When the back is straight, the inner air or energy (“prana”) will flow more easily through the body's subtle channels, helping your mind relax.

This is the most critical point of the posture: Straight but not rigid.

Place your palms on your knees or one on top of the other, facing upwards, on your lap.

I learned to meditate with my eyes open, which is common in many Buddhist traditions. Keeping your eyes open can help to calm your mind because of how the subtle channels are constructed.

Either look downward, along the tip of your nose, at an angle of about 45 degrees, or place your gaze softly in the space directly in front of you.

If you find it challenging to keep your eyes open, try it for a few moments at a time until you get used to it.

Breathe naturally. Don’t force your breath in any way.

More could be said about posture, but this will get you started.

3. Give the mind something to do

In the first stage of mindfulness meditation, we gently place our attention on an object. The mind likes to be busy, so this gives it something to do. By using an object, you gradually gain the ability to direct your mind instead of having it constantly control you.

People often begin with an awareness of the breath as an object. Alternatively, you could use a physical form like a rock, a flower, or a sacred image. Or you could use one of the senses by focusing on sound, bodily sensations, or taste.

These are all excellent options for beginners. Later on, once you have stability in mindfulness meditation, you can use thoughts and emotions as objects. Eventually, you’ll learn to rest your mind in the present moment without the support of an object.

The key is to rest your attention lightly on whatever physical object you use—not too tight or loose.

You can start your session by focusing on the breath for a short while and then spend the remainder of the session on the object of your choice. But if you find it difficult or claustrophobic to use the breath, use another object for your entire session.

Aside from that initial transition from the breath to your main object, don’t jump from one object to another in the same session. That will facilitate stability.

4. Your mind will wander

When you try to meditate, naturally, your mind will wander off and become distracted. You’ll suddenly find yourself thinking about a problem at work, remembering your last vacation, or spacing out.

When that happens, return your mind to the object and begin again.

Don’t reprimand yourself. When you realize you’re distracted, it’s a moment of awareness. That’s what you want to cultivate in meditation!

Beginning meditators often express frustration because they cannot remain undistracted for long. At this stage of the practice, what’s important isn’t how long you can stay undistracted but how often you realize you’re distracted and bring your mind back.

Those moments of awareness will start to add up so that awareness, rather than distraction, becomes your natural way of being.

5. Too many thoughts?

At first, when you try to meditate, it will probably seem like you’re having a million more thoughts than usual. You’re just noticing your usual volume for the first time.

Don’t lose heart!

This is a good sign. It means you’re aware of what’s occurring in your mind, which is the whole point of mindfulness meditation.

“In the ancient meditation instructions, it is said that at the beginning thoughts will arrive one on top of another, uninterrupted, like a steep mountain waterfall. Gradually, as you perfect meditation, thoughts become like the water in a deep, narrow gorge; then a great river slowly winding its way down to the sea; finally the mind becomes like a still and placid ocean, ruffled by only the occasional ripple or wave.”—The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying

You're on your way if you notice your thoughts, however many.

6. Meditation is not the absence of thoughts

People often think meditation means trying to rid the mind of thoughts. That single misconception leads to tremendous frustration for people new to meditation. Trying to force your mind to be quiet never works.

“Thinking is the natural activity of the mind. Meditation is not about stopping your thoughts. Meditation is simply a process of resting the mind in its natural state, which is open to and naturally aware of thoughts, emotions, and sensations as they occur.” — Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche, The Joy of Living, Unlocking the Secret and Science of Happiness

Mindfulness means being aware of whatever occurs in the mind — stillness or movement. You may have moments when all your thoughts dissolve. Enjoy the gap and stay present in it. But remember, the absence of thoughts is transitory and not the primary goal of meditation.

Meditation will calm your mind, but it’s not through forcefully trying to stop your thoughts.

Be aware of whatever occurs in your mind without following it. Practice returning your mind to the present moment whenever you find it distracted. In time, your mind will naturally calm down.

In a sense, your thoughts give up when you don’t pay too much attention to them. Gradually, you start to feel more space between you and the thoughts that arise. You feel more relaxed, regardless of whether there’s a thought arising or your mind is empty for a moment.

7. Who is noticing?

There are two aspects of the mind: the awareness of the mind and the projections of the mind, the latter meaning thoughts and emotions.

Your task in meditation is to remain aware rather than go off on a date with a beautiful thought or destructive emotion. When you notice a thought or feeling, you can return your mind to the object of your meditation: the breath, a physical form, sounds, or sensations without further ado.

However, don’t suppress thoughts or emotions. Allow them to appear, stay as long as they remain, and pass on without attaching to them. Through this process, you recognize the transitory nature of thoughts and emotions, and they begin to lose their power over you.

This is when emotional freedom begins.

Most people think they are their thoughts and emotions. When you learn to identify with awareness rather than the projections of the mind, you realize that’s not the case. You become the ruler of your life rather than subject to the whim of any false thought or turbulent emotion that happens to come up.

8. Ego wants to come along!

As soon as you decide to meditate, your ego eagerly wants to come along. It intends to bring all its neurotic and habitual patterns to the meditation cushion (or chair).

The patterns that typically dominate your life will likely appear in your meditation. For example:

• Perfectionism

• Trying too hard

• Feeling afraid your mind will never relax

• Trying to meet the external expectations of a teacher or guide

• Giving up because it’s too hard.

• Resistance.

• Checking out

• Restlessness

I know you thought meditation was about finding a calm, peaceful space where thoughts and emotions aren’t allowed. But even if you could create such a space as a beginner, it wouldn't last long.

Mindfulness meditation will bring calm, but it happens in a different, more sustainable way when you relax with whatever arises.

Because you’re paying attention, you’ll notice when an unhappy pattern tries to take over. Instead of unthinkingly following it, you now have a choice. Whenever you don’t respond in your habitual way, you gradually free yourself from unwise patterns.

Eventually, they melt away, and you feel calmer, clearer, and more centered.

Perfectionism? No problem! You notice it arise but don’t follow its command.

This is how meditation fuels positive change.

9. Painful memories and emotions may rise

When you’re in a state of relaxed awareness, painful memories may arise and trigger complex emotional states.

By now, you know that thoughts and emotions are transitory if you leave them alone. This is how healing can occur.

As best you can, quietly be present to the memory and witness the tug of emotions trying to draw you in. When you acknowledge them but let them be, these memories and feelings will slowly lose their painful hold on you.

The secret is to open up to difficult emotions instead of pulling away from them. Be willing to feel and experience them without ruminating about them.

You won’t heal emotional wounds in one shot. Be prepared for similar emotional themes to surface again and again. If you hold your ground of awareness, in time, each pattern will shift.

At the same time, don’t torture yourself with overwhelming emotions. Apply mindfulness with discernment. End your meditation session if your feelings become too wild or overwhelming. Soothe yourself, do something you enjoy, or seek support.

Meditation can open the door to the unconscious, allowing healing to occur. But you have to be ready for it.

You don’t want to re-traumatize yourself.

If you’re a trauma survivor or live with mental illness, check with your therapist before engaging in mindfulness meditation and exploring emotional wounds. There are essential steps you can take to make mindfulness a safer place for you.

10. Don’t concentrate too intently

Mindfulness meditation is not intense concentration that excludes everything but the selected object. If you concentrate too intently, you’ll burn out.

Mindfulness meditation has three aspects: mindfulness, watchful awareness, and spacious abiding.

• Mindfulness of the object

• Awareness that you’re mindful while also conscious of the environment around you.

• Abiding spaciously, allowing whatever arises to move through your mind without suppressing or indulging it.

For example, as I type these words, the computer screen is my main object, but I can hear the birds cooing in the background. I’m not so fixated on the screen that I’m oblivious to what’s happening around me. I’m also abiding spaciously — relaxed with space in my mind for anything to appear and dissolve, conscious of what’s happening around me while resting my attention on my object.

If you’ve read for free till now, this is your invitation to invest in yourself by becoming a paid subscriber. You’ll receive more in-depth guidance on living with mindfulness and ease and join a community of like-minded people who care about transforming themselves and the world.