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End “Monkey Mind” with This Simple Technique
End “Monkey Mind” with This Simple Technique

Most people experience thoughts all day long and rarely discover a moment without thoughts. 

So naturally, thoughts are one of the biggest distractions during meditation practice. 

When we sit down for meditation, we can quickly become overwhelmed as soon as we notice just how many thoughts are whizzing through our minds.

The Buddhists call this “Monkey Mind,” which has been taken to mean any one of the following terms: Unsettled, restless, capricious, whimsical, fanciful, inconstant, confused, indecisive, and uncontrollable.

Yet quieting the mind is the great aim of meditation practice.

So the question is this: How do we manage our thoughts such that we quiet our minds?

I want to propose two approaches to managing our thoughts, and you must perform both approaches in tandem, as if each approach occupies a separate end of a scale…

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Can’t Meditate? One of These 9 Obstacles May Inhibit You
Can’t Meditate? One of These 9 Obstacles May Inhibit You

Meditation is a tremendous challenge for most people.

So if you’re having trouble reaching 7 minutes in your practice before your brain almost literally EXPLODES, you’re not alone.

While each person is at a unique stage in their meditation practice and each person is undergoing a different set of challenges, we can pinpoint at least a few common obstacles that most people experience at one point or another.

I want to outline nine obstacles in particular that can interrupt our practice of meditation and inhibit our progress.

They start as mere distractions and eventually become obstacles, unless you remedy them.

Here they are…

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Supercharge Your Health with These 6 Meditation Benefits
Supercharge Your Health with These 6 Meditation Benefits

Meditation has been relatively slow to gain adoption into the modern medical mainstream, even though historians believe that it has been practiced since 3,000 BC.

But meditation has a tremendous number of health benefits.

Let’s look at a few of those benefits here…

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Your Simple 5 Step Guide to Mindfulness Meditation
Your Simple 5 Step Guide to Mindfulness Meditation

Mindfulness meditation is quite simple.

Initially, you’ll want to find a location where you can practice — ideally some place that is quiet and uplifting.

If you’re new to mindfulness meditation, start with 5 or 10 minutes at first.

Once you have learned the fundamentals, you can return to the practice and add more time.

Just follow along with these steps, and very soon you will become competent at the practice…

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How to Establish a Setting for Your Meditation Practice
How to Establish a Setting for Your Meditation Practice

Setting is an important aspect of meditation practice because creating the right atmosphere can help establish consistency in the practice. 

When you constantly sit down at the same place everyday, you are helping solidify the daily habit of meditation.   

So let’s take a look at the components that help establish an ideal setting…

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To Learn Meditation and mindfulness, Start Here
To Learn Meditation and mindfulness, Start Here

Meditation and mindfulness are practices that have been cultivated by people over thousands of years in many places, among various traditions, so naturally many different names have arisen for the various nuances of each of these fundamental practices.

However, we can distill all the different nuances of each practice into two simple explanations.

Let’s take a look…

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Mantra is a tool. Here’s how to make it really sharp

I want to give you some suggestions that will help you better understand the mantra and how to use it.

A mantra is a sound, word, or phrase, often having no meaning whatsoever. Your mantra might be "Om," "I am," "So hum," "Om namah shivaya," or any number of different mantras that correspond to various teachers or traditions. For a detailed explanation of four useful mantras, visit my article here. 

Your mantra is a tool, so let’s make sure it’s as sharp as possible.

The first important thing to understand is that mantras fall into two general categories, and one of the categories leads to the next. In other words, the two general categories of mantra present two distinct ways of using them. These are the two ways:

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Master Meditation with These Two Fundamental Skills
Master Meditation with These Two Fundamental Skills

Many forms of meditation exist, ranging from the simple and easy, to the complex and difficult.

But while many traditions have their own names for the various styles of meditation, keep in mind that scholars often divide meditation into two broad categories:

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Learn to strike a pose with these 4 meditation postures
Learn to strike a pose with these 4 meditation postures

Posture is perhaps the first aspect of your meditation practice that demands consideration, as learning to sit properly is one of the most essential skills of meditation.

A good posture is one that provides a balance between being comfortable and alert, and one that you could easily maintain over an extended period of time. The essence of good posture is the ability to sit upright, not too hunched over.

There exist a variety of poses that enable good posture for the meditator. Here are the four most basic poses:

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Hone Your Focus with these 6 meditation objects
Hone Your Focus with these 6 meditation objects

The way in which someone meditate depends much less on the two different styles —concentration and awareness — and much more on the object upon which someone meditates. 

Therefore, I want to outline the six basic objects of meditation.

Keep in mind that when practicing awareness meditation, you expand your attention to include all six objects at once — or as many of them as you possibly can. When practicing concentration meditation, you isolate your attention to include only one of the six basic objects. 

Here are the six basic objects of meditation:

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