Most of these tips for meditation are simply to relinquish our conditioned behaviours. Rather than being things you have to adopt, these tips often show you what you can give up…

Have No Aim

If you sit with a goal or an aim in mind, then you are still in concepts. Don’t chase anything, don’t be ambitious. Relinquish your efforts for attainment. You are already here.

Don’t Try To Stop Thoughts

Thoughts arise and fall by themselves. To be responsible for them, or to exert energy trying to control them, means you will always be their slave. Let thoughts be as they are, you are the stillness from which they arise, which is unaffected by thoughts.

Don’t Try To Change Anything

When you allow everything to be, even allowing any effort being expended or any resistance arising, it is far easier to see that everything is in you. You are the awareness in which everything exists. When you are resisting or manipulating your inner state, it feels like you are trapped inside everything else.

Simply Breathe

The classic anchor for attention - simply be aware of the breath. Feel it. The mind may still be playing, but this is not your concern, just be aware of the breath.

Simply Feel

Simply feel whatever you can. Feeling shifts attention away from thinking. Even if thinking is arising, that is fine, just shift to feeling. Just feel your own being, your own sense of presence, simply be aware of the feeling of being awake, or conscious, feel the stillness that comes with this. Leave the mind alone. Just feel. Feel who you are at the deepest level - the simple feeling "I AM".

Not The Mind’s Domain

Meditation is often misinterpreted as being mental, or of the mind. It is beyond the mind, prior to it. You are aware that mind arises. You know thought it is there, however loud or quiet, you know sensations, pain and emotions are all there, however shy or intense. How do you know? You are the awareness itself.

Don’t Be “A Meditator”

Saying “I am a meditator” or “I am meditating” is more thought, more ego. If you sit without holding the idea that you are a meditator, or a person, or someone seeking anything, then you are in your natural state, and so meditation becomes your natural state of being, rather than a means to an end.

Natural Silence

Silence is always here, already. Silence is not a mental creation, it is not something that needs to be held or maintained. Without silence there could be no mental noise. Notice that there is an inner silence, always present, impersonal, that requires no maintenance. The habitual effort of the thinking mind is merely an energy movement that dances in silence. The idea of yourself is also a temporary emergence from this silence.

For some more tips on meditation, have a look at the Quotes on Meditation page.