Meditate for Beginners - What is meditation and what is it not?

INTRO

Meditation is a simple but life-transforming skill that can help you to relax, enhance understanding about yourself and the world and develop your inherent potential.  How to meditate for beginners on the contrary is without guidance not that simple to start with. Therefore I searched for a good guided program (yes, it is an affiliate link) which can help you out in the beginning starting the right way.

Everyone knows how frustrating it can be at the beginning. You can’t get comfortable. Your mind gets distracted with the smallest irritation but overtime you will obtain a mind that will be focused and not be troubled by environmental and internal disturbances.

4 STEPS TO MEDITATE FOR BEGINNERS TO BEGIN WITH.

ENVIRONMENT

It is of utmost importance to find a quiet space where you can focus solely  on meditation and where all distracting inputs are minimized to the maximum (speaking of paradoxes :-).  

Space could be a space in a room or a specific room that you just keep as "your meditation room" (equipped with all the whistles and bells you would like to add).

Little touches to enhance your meditation experience could be a scented candle, a bouquet of flowers or incense (more about incense later).



BREATHING

You need something to focus. That will be your breath in the beginning. In zen, one of the first instructions we give to a newcomer is to start with counting the breath in sessions from 1 to 10 when you exhale and when you reach 10 to restart from 1 (and repeating this procedure until the end of the predefined time).
POSTURE

Let your body determine what's the best way to sit.  You have to choose a position that makes you comfortable for the time that you determined to sit. You have different ways to sit and in the order of gravity, we have: lying down,  a chair,  a meditation bench, Burmese posture, seiza posture, half-lotus posture and full-lotus posture. You even do have standing and walking meditations. 

Most important when sitting is that your both knees should touch the ground. I see a lot of pictures where often one of the knees is not touching the floor. Your sitting posture should be stable and remain stable so that you can obtain an erected backbone.


SCHEDULE AND TIMING

Practice daily. Make for yourself a commitment you can keep. I think that in the beginning it's best to meditate 5 minutes on a predetermined time during the day. Look at a baby. It first needs to crawl and then to stumble and then to learn to walk. 

Don't fall into the trap to try to run before you can walk. It needs time. Slowly you can enlarge the time to 10 minutes and up and up until you will have a time that suits you best. It's not the quantity but the quality that counts and consistency is far more important than intensity.

A fundamental saying is that meditation is NOT a method but a DISCIPLINE. Don't forget this for the rest of your quest because thinking that it is a method to reach something is going astray (spritually).

So far so good. Now you have your first steps to start your meditation path. Feel free to add comments and/or questions.

Thanks for reading and Namaste (meaning: "I greet the light within you").