the common problem with beginners meditating is not bieng able to stop the mid chatter for long periods of time and im sure most people had this pronlem before they learnt so what i want to know is how they learnt to stop it???

usually a mantra is used.

I believe this to be a meaningless word that you repeat to yourself. It is ok if other thoughts creep in, at times. just when you realize that your mind is drifting back to chatter, start repeating your mantra again.............mine is a 2 syllable word that they gave me through TM training...............

You may benefit from doing a youtube search for TM and listen to Maharishi speak about it.

I also have an audio track with sitar etc that helps me to stay calm and focused on my mantra.

Just in case you're interested in Transcendal Meditation (TM), I recently spoke to the trainer that worked with me. He told me that they had received some substantial grants recently that allowed for a much more reasonable cost for TM training................FYI

Hope this helps. I find that it makes a big difference, as far as my experiences are concerned, if I meditate for 10 or 15 minutes first.

Much Love.....

Namaste

In our zen school where I live the basic mantras used by beginners go as such:

1) On your breath in ask "who am I" on your breath out say "don't know"

2) On your breath out count 1, on you next breath out count 2. Try to get to 4, and work your way up.

These are just simple techniques we use. But of course you can make your own, or find more meaningful ones

I haven't perfected a quiet mind but I find counting my breath helps a lot.

And practise, lots of practise.

If you've got an hour to spare, you might find a good bit of use from this.

Alan Watts - Still the mind

Some relaxing music might help, as you have something to concentrate on, also concentrating on the breathing is good tecnique. It's best not to fight the thoughts but let them flow through... I used to meditate but these days not so much.... But it's a very good practice

A mantra and the quietest environment possible helps me. So does just sitting quietly. My mind is always noisier right when I sit down to meditate than it is 20 minutes in.

Well, for beginners I don't think the word has any meaning, or any real significance.
It's purpose is simply to keeps your mind focused on something simple.Or occupied on a activity.To keep your mind from wondering.

Once you master this you can choose the topic or subject or whatever you want to focus on.Once you manage to keep your mind silent.

i personally try to 'distract' myself from thinking by consciously being aware of what is around me, and focusing on it.

My uncle is hindu and takes tons of trips to india almost monthly. He taught me a simple exercise once when I was in a home for boys as a teen. All it requires is that you sit with your back straight, eyes closed, and legs crossed. Once properly positioned you start by taking a deep breath nasally and saying the number one in your head then you exhale orally and say the number two mentally. This is done until you reach ten and then it is repeated as many times as necessary. The goal is to ignore every sensation, noise, thought, whatever and to just focus on the numbers. If you lose count start over. If you find youre still having trouble quieting your mind then attempt to focus on the air entering and exiting your lungs from the moment it cools your nostrils to the moment it leaves your lips, but always counting silently. And this works for quiting your mind under any circumstance, whether you cant sleep or you took too much of w.e (except in extreme cases)

I sometime try to visualize the source of my thoughts as a point in space and then observe it passively.

I find hamala's are also quite handy

like others said mantra, focusing on only one thing is the key to quieting ur mind into reaching deep states. i find saying things a little distracting and have personally had best results with deep breath meditation focusing only on breath. This rising and falling of ur stomach as u breath. as soon as ur mind starts wandering catch it as quickly as u can and back to breath. Id also recommend using binural beats for ur sessions

I inhale more vapor.

^lol

all the techniques mentioned here sound great!

You can focus on the visualization of a simple geometry like a triangle or circle or something. If you're feeling daring, maybe a 3D geometry like a pyramid or a cone.

some very interesting techniques here which i will definetly try, very happy with the response, this is proberly the most useful forum i ever joined

A combination of the things posted above generally works. However when your mind becomes quiet, you will have moments of thought that you should not quiet. These are called revelations. The easiest way to achieve this result is by focusing on your 'minds eye' with your eyes closed while concentrating on inward breaths and outward breaths. Some find it easy to 'count' the breaths to help still the mind, but eventually you should just notice that you are taking short or long breaths, and 'listen to your breath' and it will tell you how to continue. When this happens, thought can suddenly roar to life. Listen. When its done, continue your meditation from the start, and eventually a mantra will come to you.

For me...and I really have no idea why... Do Ra Mi Fa So La Ti Do... popped into my head and wouldn't stop. My mind repeated it constantly while I still had absolute focus on my center, and eventually, my mind stopped completely. This corresponded with an odd and persistent ringing in my ears and continued throughout, but sporadically. I continued meditation and attempt to "breath with out breathing", and eventually, I felt my pores open and almost a pins and needles feeling throughout various parts of body.

I would not recommend focus on objects, or symbols that bring you peace, because once you realized why you have found peace in the symbol, it will hold no value. And objects are illusions. When you realize these things, the mind becomes completely still.

*edit below

Long Story Short: Upon further meditative breathing after the writing of the above post, I would like to slightly modify my stance on symbols. I still don't believe that they should be concentrated "upon" but while concentrating on breathing, and placing them at your center they can definitely progress your mind.

And the reason for the change in stance --

Long Story:
A quick edit on my change of mind on the symbol, turned into an explanation of why I changed my mind, which meant explanations of a couple other things and eventually it got pretty big and a bit more broad so uh... enjoy the ramble? Hope you gain some insights

Sometimes, while doing meditative stretching my voice (that i refer to as giving the revelations above) literally dictates my movements. I follow no documented stretching routine; I only concentrate on my breathing (using whichever breathing method 'feels' appropriate) and 'listen' to 'what im told' while my body reacts.

For Example. I've had chronic back/body problems for 15 years (from a broken hip that fused out of place) and I have been stretching in a primitive form of this way for a couple months now and it has helped a considerable amount. Due to some reason studies/insights, i started following a deeper meditative path and my pains are literally almost alleviated, and I most definitely feel better than I ever remember feeling. I even had a noticeable slouch and rounded in shoulders, which are now up and out.

During the past few weeks, I've added some religious studies to my generally logic/reason/Info Technology based studies/thought processes and this is when I started to take my 'breathing exercises' and stretching one step further. I didn't do this on a whim either. I followed a path of logic and reasoning and it took me to this completely unexpected place. Religion. Alongside politics, its the only subject I ever really avoided. But when looking at Ancient Civilizations, you can't understand them without understanding their religion. So with an open mind (and because i always try to read all sides) I read as much info as I could on ancient societies/cultures and their writing. Then of course came their religions where I (surprisingly) fell in love with Buddhism and the teaching of Buddha (even though I still find flaws with it, but it allows for that). So, needing to know more and to compare, that led me to pretty much every religion you can think of. When you logically look at these things, especially the languages of the cultures; you can't help but notice that those characters and the names for the characters are still extremely significant today. This of course led me to look into symbology/alchemy, which is a course that always leads one to the Illuminati. Then of course comes a looking into rituals and secret societies and the lizards/Nagas ruling behind the scenes. The path is then followed towards other dimensions of existence. This relates to new findings in quantum physics and is supported by facts in math and astronomy, and actually ties in with ancient cultures. I was hooked. I also realized religious books need to be looked at as nothing more than what they are: stories that use symbolism in combination with the real events and teachings of certain 'enlightened individuals' to make other individuals behave in the way appropriate to achieve release from the non existent 'physical world'. Or in some cases the can be viewed as the inappropriate pieces of literature in which they are. But in all cases, they should be questioned and they should not be followed blindly, if at all really. They are not rules, just guidelines. When religion is realized for what it is, and all of this information is looked at logically, not only does it make sense, it is actually verified from a math/quantum physics standpoint! And surprisingly enough (because that Do Ra Me Fa Sol La Ti Do was chanted in my head in meditation this morning) while checking out the origins of the chant, I found that it had the same setup as ancient language structure and when looked at symbolically it has an extremely significant relationship or connection to every subject mentioned above and others I have yet to delve into. In fact, it seems to be a pretty good allegory for understanding how this dimension works....and if I'm right, It could provide clues into 'sightreading' this dimension, while being on the next....essentially one part of the puzzle to leaving this realm (for how can we perceive this realm if we don't know how to read it?)

This reasoning led me to start believing and understanding significant things. And in order to help advance my state of being, i find myself spending some significant time (blocks of 4 hours or more generally)doing this advanced meditative stretching/yoga/meditation with a verily: buddhist rationalle, discordianism humor, and the Kaballahistic 10 sephirot principles and its cyclic interconnecting principles in mind.

I feel I have always had a semi clear mind due to how I recall or figure things out. Essentially, in my mind, I express my ideas/questions and then I would wait for a 'response' from my subconcious as it found the answer and dictated it back to me. Sometimes I needed to direct where it was going, but I always came up with an answer. I either had the knowledge, or I knew somewhat, but not enough to give a true answer. I never really gave much thought to this practice, since It was something I started doing when I realized I couldn't remember a thing if I tried to hard to remember it. This way of non thought yet thinking seem to work well for me even on tests or practical applications. If I didn't "actively think", but just recalled what I needed to, when I needed to it, I had much better results. This was true in everything from sorting my thoughts to taking tests or designing websites or network infrastructures. It even worked when I wanted to remember birthdays or lists.

While keeping the formerly mentioned ideals in mind, but more specifically, while concentrating on my breathing and quenching any non useful thoughts; I achieved a peace of mind well beyond what I thought possible. Then, I started essentially hearing my 'conscience' talk to me while I focused. There was some conflict here with my 'logical mind'(kinda feels like you going insane when its unprompted by answers questions previously thought about-- but even Siddharth Gautama (Buddha) says he experienced this on his path towards enlightenment as he started to realize the truth), so I went with it, and even learned to trust it. This is the basis for the 'revelations' I stated above.

I only really started out by concentrating on my breathing and also by counting my breathes until as i progressed in my focus, I only become aware of my types of breathing (long/short) and remembering Buddhist teaching, eventually I tried 'breathing without breathing' until essentially I didn't focus on my breath anymore, but i know I was breathing, and all of my concentration was in me center. This progressed in a cyclic manner as I was occasionally interrupted by thought/the voice telling me answers and giving revelations. It was also during this time that I started stretching for hours at a time. It wasn't because i made the concious choice too (I was reading various religious books, thinking and concentrating on breathing) when I felt the need to alleviate my bodily distraction of pain. During my stretching I noticed another strong relation to symbols.

The form my body was taking during the stretch was that of various symbols (swastika, cross, lotus, buddha, and a few others) My hands even stretched various parts of my face and eye lids (the image of certain mayan runes were flashing in front of my eyes during this time) During these routines I would sometimes feel the need to open my eyes, sometimes to close them. When I was truly focused on my 'minds eye'/eyes closed while I was stretching and feeling centered; when I opened my eyes, they were always facing inward (towards the nose/cross-eyed essentially). However, was I was not centered/feeling pain, and felt the need to open my eyes, they were...(hard to describe - best guess is) twitching as if trying to reach that point. Eventually however, my breathing (which had diminished to a point in which I didn't realize anymore that I was) had increased dramatically to rapid short, but deep breaths, until I felt the need for a deep breath, and then a hold and WHAM my eyes would literally snap into place. It was a dizzying feeling and I generally would have to recenter myself and start again, eventually even rubbing my eyeballs exceptionally hard (they feel great now and my vision has even improved. I know this because I can now use my laptop without my glasses lol). Now, when I say that I knew/felt that I was centered as I focused on my center/minds eye, I'm not talking about concentrating with your eyes closed while still 'looking' at the back of your eyelids (which would also make you cross-eyed). There is a distinguishable difference (even while stretching) which you can realize either immediately, or once you reach a deep enough level of concentration.

While doing this cycle, when I was centered and my eyes popped open, a bright white triangle appeared. This bright white triangle was formed by the resonance of light on my eyes and the seeing of my nose. But it was an in your face bright white triangle. When I closed my eyes and centered myself, i felt the need/heard the voice tell me to concentrate on that white triangle. Due to the past successes and the fact that I made the decision to just listen and see how far down the rabbit hole this thing takes me; I concentrated on the triangle at my minds eye. I can't even begin to describe my amazement upon directing my focus on this symbol and finding a new deeper point to center myself on. When I reached this point, I snapped out of it, but found it again quickly by the same method. This time however, when I reached that point; the triangle morphed into a triangle pointing upwards towards a resounding white orb. I felt overwhelmed at this point as I then'viewed' flashes upon flashes of images, and I have still been processing things.

As I said above, this rant/ramble is longer than expected. But for me, the experience and even the writing has been truly profound.

I should also add, that even as short as 2 weeks ago, I was a firm disbeliever in religion. I am now a firm believer in...something spiritual that I am still trying to grasp, but I know with all my being is true. All thanks to mindful meditation and an open mind.

I never focus on any of the thoughts that pop up while i have my eyes closed and focusing on my breath. If a thought comes up I look at it as secondary to my breath (which is what focuses me to the point of not giving anything else credence).

Over the course of about 25-30 minutes I slowly forget each thought that comes about..one by one...they disappear........until............................................. BLISS

If a thought occurs I observe it from a distance, eventually fading as I drift off.

What worked best for me was imagining an empty space which contains nothing, blackness. Also listening to the empty space's nothing. If a thought ever where to occur I'd watch it drift off from afar in this space, slowly drifting away into a self induced coma or a blazing sun.