I absolutely love meditating! I have been meditating for half my life now and every single time I sit down to enjoy the moment of now, it always surprises me. With so many people preoccupied with their careers, family, daily activities and living life, most don’t know the benefit of slowing down long enough to hear your own thoughts and soak in all the wonderful things that are part of their world. While I am not a meditation instructor, and I do not claim to be an expert, I thought sharing my personal findings and lessons taught to me throughout the years would help those looking to start their meditation practice.
I remember early on when I first started taking Buddhism seriously. I would visit the local temple in Boston and meet up with my mentor monk, Venerable Sawaii. Though he didn’t speak much English, the universal search for truth didn’t require words, and quickly I found myself sitting in meditation with him. Early on, in one of our first couple meditation sessions, I remember sneaking a peak during the sitting to check if I was positioned right, and I noticed that Ven. Sawaii was nodding off. I thought, “OMG, please don’t fall asleep on me because I can’t sit like this much longer!!”. To my surprise, he knew exactly what was going on, and called “time” perfectly.
The point of the story is that no matter how novice or mastered you are in meditation, everyone has their own personal experience, struggles, successes and failures. Meditation is not about overcoming fear, stress, anger, love, or compassion. Meditation is about experiencing those emotions directly and very personally.
As a beginner, there are a few things you should keep in mind when trying your next meditation session.
Monkey Mind
The monkey mind is a saying that refers to the mind and it’s ability to jump from topic to topic, emotion to emotion, and grab onto any distraction possible. The goal of meditation is to learn to manage your monkey mind so that you can truly experience the moment without mental distractions.
Sit
The first stage of meditation is simply sitting. So many people can’t fathom the idea of sitting still for even 5 minutes much less in an actual sitting position, aware of your body and surroundings for 15 minutes or more. The biggest challenge by far when getting started with meditation is learning to be with yourself in the form of sitting.
Count
Once you have started to overcome the challenge of literally sitting and doing nothing, the next bit of advice is to start a rhythm practice to give yourself something to easily focus on, without requiring actual focus. This can be in the form of counting to 5 and repeating, using a small chant, or other simple repetitive reminders.
Return
During your meditation session, you will undoubtedly find yourself chasing that monkey again, not once but sometimes hundreds of times depending on your stress level. The important thing to remember is that when you do, it is okay. Simply remind yourself that you are chasing yourself, go back to your counting, and start over.
Meditation is a wonderful tool to learning more about your own personal mentality, obsessions, and neurosis. 
But, meditation is always a beautiful way to simply experience life in a way most people are unable to enjoy in today’s fast, modern and distracting world. So next time you want to take a moment and “smell the roses”, do it sitting down.
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