A wonderful client of mine once said to me in frustration,

"I need to learn to meditate but I keep getting distracted. I just can't seem to empty my mind."
She pleaded with me to write out a meditation we had done during one of our appointments together. She felt that she must be getting it all wrong on her own and wanted some guidelines to keep with her.

Here's the thing though; written guidelines aren't really going to help. It only gives us something else to think about when we would like NOT to think at all. Knowing what to do is the simplest part, it's the doing of it that is hard. It is, in fact, our minds that we need to tame if we are ever to find that inner peace. And, actually that is the point of meditation, the quieting of the mind. This reminds me of the no-win riddle about the chicken and the egg. Nevertheless, it simply isn't an effective tactic (for most of us anyway) to ignore the mind. It is used to enjoying most of our attention; it has spent all its life convincing us that we need it, and so it will vehemently protest being ignored.

You know the question, "Have you gone and lost your mind?"

Well, it was someone's mind that came up with it, and that particular mind was probably petrified at the time that its host might entertain doing the same to it. Our minds are terrified we will abandon them. So when we decide to quiet them for meditation they get worried and often very loud. They tell you of all the things you should be doing instead, and remind you of all the other things you hadn't thought of yet.

This is incredibly common. Most people I know experience this distracting chatter when they try to meditate. I can certainly add my name to that list.

So, I'd like you to meet Martha. I call the mind Martha, (or Ned if you are a man). To make this simple I’m going to just use Martha. Martha is a metaphor for the over active, talkative, well-meaning and somewhat pedantic mind. I like to think of her being from a small, one-dimensional town. Now Martha is very set in her ways and she is the biggest know-it-all you'll ever meet. But please, don't judge her harshly for this because as you well know she has been a good friend to you. It is her job to know everything. She is absolutely convinced that your very life depends on all that she knows. In other words, she doesn't like NOT knowing what she doesn't know. (Maybe she has met Rumsfeld, do you think?) Anyway, she can tell you what's good for you, warn you of dangers and the like, and she makes no bones about doing so when she feels you need her too. She is a kind of blend between your classic mother type, your best friend, and an annoying re-occurring dream. She will especially focus all those aspects of herself on you when she feels her position in your esteem is threatened by something as deaf and dumb (literally) as meditation.

Here are some guidelines for meditating:

Before you begin-

1. Plan on 20 minutes (minimum and maximum). This isn't so long that it can't fit into a ½ an hour with minutes to spare, and it isn't so short that you feel like you haven't made a real effort. You may even find that it feels a little long at first.

2. Equip yourself with a gentle sounding timer that you can set-and-forget. That way you do not have to keep opening one eye to check the time.

Posture & Creature Comforts-

1. Find a quiet place, away from any distraction (even away from Kitty if you can ...or with him if he settles down easily and without constant attention).
It just depends on how much time you want to spend urging your Kitty to settle down.

2. Get comfortable. Sitting is better than lying down as you are less likely to fall asleep.

3. I recommend using a small, soft blanket to increase the feeling of comfort and safety. Make sure you are warm enough before you settle down.

4. Your back should sit at a comfortable angle (straight yet relaxed). If are sitting on the floor you can place a cushion just under your sit-bones. This will allow your lower back to feel more relaxed.

Please use a comfortable chair if you would prefer and be sure to prop yourself in such a way that your back is still a nice balance between straight and comfortable. Experiment with this and discover what is best for you.

What do you do while meditating?

The key word is ‘nothing’... naturally! But, exactly how does one do nothing?

It is difficult for humans to do nothing. Even the phrase itself, 'doing nothing', seems to fundamentally disagree with itself.

It's better perhaps to lead into beginning your meditation with the phrase...

Notice your breath.

And then the next obvious objection that the active mind throws at us is Okay, so I'm doing noticing-the-breath, but... FOR TWENTY MINUTES? it yells confoundedly.

Just smile at your wonderful, comically desperate Martha and acknowledge that sure, it's going to be a challenge for both of you. But you're willing to be with the challenge if she's willing to stay open, and go along with you. The thing is, Martha will constantly begin conversations with you right when you think you've managed to achieve a moment’s peace. She will, not maliciously, worry that you won't be able to sit for that long; that you will fail and feel bad about yourself, or that you really WILL be able to stop talking to her... she won’t like being muted or ignored so you may as well know that from the beginning.

She will chatter at you the whole time especially at first, because she is afraid that without her one of you will die. Literally, this is what she worries about beneath all the chatter. It is her sole purpose in life to keep you out of harm’s way. But like all well intentioned souls, she needs to learn when to let go, just as you are learning to let go of her (at least a little).

Do what you would with a dear friend who, bless their little heart, just doesn't see the big picture as you do. Know that she has the best of intentions but she just cannot help herself. And now you are telling her to be quiet and NOT do what she does best... talk!

Here's how you want to be with Martha and succeed :

Go ahead and invite her into your meditation room. Let her talk, and simply do not respond... it's only for 20 minutes (actually it's more like 15 minutes once you settle down).

Let her know you can answer all her questions when it’s over... And here’s the other thing, please let go of her questions. Don't try to remember them because guess what? If you do that, well then, she's got you paying attention to her doesn't she? Pretty sneaky, huh!
She will look for something that will get you hooked back into interacting with her. That is her goal. If you understand this before you begin your practice you will find it easier to smile at her and let whatever she says go. She will make you laugh sometimes when you witness what she says out of exasperation, trying to get your attention.

In Summary :

Simply practice being with Martha in the same room and NOT answering her, ever! In other words become aware of any follow-up thoughts you have to those she may throw at you, and then let them go. Just let her ramblings pass by you. Notice them and let them flow past you like a babbling river that chatters and chatters while you continue to casually notice your breath. Let her become back-ground noise. Let her be herself, without attempting to control her, and know that you are not Martha. You can choose to just relax and disengage while noticing the sound of her constant chatter as she learns to entertain herself.

The point of this first stage is to train Martha to trust that she isn’t going to cease to be if you take a mental break. Continue to gently notice your breath and little by little allow this noticing to fall more on your breath than on Martha...

Eventually she won't mind so much that you aren't paying attention to her for 20 minutes. Once this feels comfortable you can try for 30, and so on. But please, do yourself a favor and make sure that the meditation schedule you have chosen works into all your other priorities. By all means make room for it AND make sure you still have wiggle room around all your other commitments as well. Don't set yourself up for giving-up only because you’re trying to compete against yourself and win a meditation-marathon in the middle of an already full day. Martha will have made her point if you do that, and she'd use it against you next time, so don't give her the opportunity. Remember, she likes to think she is in complete charge of you, so let her have her say, you can handle that, because you know it just isn’t true.

Then the second stage of meditation will begin to reveal itself to you spontaneously... because you will already sense how much quieter it has become in your head.

A tool that helps me is to become aware of the space that holds all sounds and all thoughts. Like outer space holds the stars, inner space has its own humming frequency, and everything I hear and everything I think becomes an event that occurs in that space.

So I try to lean into BEING the space between thoughts, and into the space between random noises. It is actually easier to notice this still space when there are noise-events. So now when there is a noise that you might have become agitated at hearing before, be grateful, because what precedes it and what follows is a space, an impression of silence like the empty foot-prints of something that passed by.

Perhaps it is in the minute eternity of these spaces that we can most witness that nameless state where each of us, along with all things past and present, melt into one essential being.

Let me know how you do with this.