If you are unsure about what you are supposed to be thinking about during your meditation sessions, do not worry. This is fairly normal when you are first beginning your dive into meditation. Meditation is going to show you exactly what you need to see in the present moment, it just takes a while to get the hang of it. What exactly should you think about during meditation?
When you are meditating, there shouldn’t be any focus on what you are thinking about. There may be resistance to allow your thoughts to naturally flow. Meditation is purely an observation of the present moment, there should be no objections towards whatever may be occurring.
Meditation as Observation
Simply refer to meditation as an observation of the mind rather than something you are willingly forcing, this will give the mind a way to relax.
When you try to force the mind to relax, to stop thinking, it only creates more thought.
What you resist, persists.
It may be unnatural for you to sit there and just observe what the mind will bring up next. There may be uncomfortable thoughts that remind you about past or future events. It is important to remember that meditation is a learning experience.
Meditation will show you that these thoughts that are occurring are just thoughts that have no bearing on reality. The only way thoughts have power over you is if you react to them. The more reaction that thought provokes, the more fear or anxiety the mind will create around them.
It’s a vicious cycle.
Instead of thinking that you must meditate solely to quiet the mind, instead bring your focus only on one thing. The requirement of your meditation session is that you willingly sat down and did it.
This will give the mind space to fully relax instead of pushing the mind to try to quiet itself. It will become ever so apparent that thought cannot quiet thought. It only creates more thought! That’s why it’s so easy to get stuck in thought loops, you were trying to force the mind to be quiet and the resistance was building.
If you take a moment to take a step back and observe what is truly going on during your meditation session, that is all that is required from you. The moment you take the stress off yourself and bring your attention to observation is the moment that your meditation sessions become deep and centered.
Learning how to do this during your meditation sessions won’t just benefit you during your practice, this will also carry on into your everyday life. A part of meditation is to bring everything that you have learned through your sessions and live through them.
Meditation is the act of observing, never forget that.
Allowing the Flow To Happen
Meditation is about finding your center. It’s about being without resistance. No pushing, no pulling, no wishing, not trying to not think about anything. Just simple existing.
Allowing the mind to wander is perfectly normal. As long as the observation is continuing, there is no need to orient yourself in a different direction.
There will be many times where your meditation sessions differ from one another. One day you will have the most intense, amazing experience in your session. The next day it will feel like you are completely off balance and are barely hanging.
No matter which state you are in, flow is the key here.
Allowing both states to simultaneously exist will give you a limitless experience during your sessions.
The moment you try to force yourself to have a certain type of meditation session is the moment you have set yourself up for failure.
It’s important to remember why exactly you are meditating, to center yourself, to find that flow in life.
The flow in life is what guides all of us. It is silent, vibrant, rich, indescribable. Language cannot do flow justice when trying to describe it.
How you feel during your session is not important. Meditation is available to you no matter what state you are in.
When you are without preconceptions about how your session should go, you are totally centered. You are completely observing, without judgment. No forcing is required.
Even in your darkest sessions it is possible to be without resistance.
Next time you are having a particularly challenging meditation session, try to let the negative feelings engulf you.
Feel them totally. See that they are only temporary. See that it’s only an illusion created by the mind. That our attachment to thought is what creates our suffering.
This is what will free you.
Meeting Resistance
If you are mainly having issues with a high level of resistance during meditation, there are plenty of ways to cope.
The first thing I would suggest is to simply allow everything to be as it is.
Instead of trying to fight the mind, let the thought flow naturally. Let the thought come and go. See it for what it is, just a thought and nothing more.
The suffering that attachment brings is immense if you react to every single thought that comes across the mind. When the mind latches onto a thought, this thought can be fairly difficult to let go of.
When you are in this position, it can almost feel like your mind is on repeat. The same thought coming, never stopping.
All you have to do to is witness this thought for what it truly is.
Ask yourself:
- What is really behind this thought?
- Who is really having this thought?
- Why am I thinking about this thought all the time?
- Is this thought really true?
The deeper you question each thought, the easier they are to let go of. Once you really dig deep into them, without fear and without looking away, your meditation sessions will finally bring in some results for you.
It is counter-intuitive at first to run into the resistance rather than to run away. This is how you deal with these issues. With a big heart and an open mind.
The flow of life will naturally lead you to this point. It’s up to you whether or not you want to do the digging.
It’s your choice.
Do you want the easy way of being stuck or do you want to take a risk and see what is really going on inside the mind?
Enjoying the Process
Do not view each meditation session as one singular thing. Meditation is a continuous session throughout our entire lives.
The more you learn how to flow with your sessions, the easier the entire process becomes.
Even I have difficulties some days sitting down with my sessions and dealing with internal conflicts after 10 years!
There are no goals or rewards at the end that are waiting for you. The only thing meditation is doing is inviting you to the present moment.
This is why you meditate. To get in touch with reality and your inner being.
Do not become flustered along the journey because of a single hiccup. There will be some difficult sessions, learn how to deal with them!
Spirituality is all about learning to find the guru that is within yourself. This intuition is inside every one of us, you only need to come in touch with it.
That’s why you shouldn’t really try to force your sessions in any way, shape, or form. There shouldn’t be any certain things that you think about when you meditate.
It all boils down to just one thing, if you decided to meditate or not.
That is your only “goal” in meditation. To sit down and actually do the damn thing!
Meditation is a lifelong learning process, even I am still learning to this day after thousands of hours of practice. I am still a student and so are you. There are no masters.
Every session has something for you to learn from. Take whatever you can from them and apply them to your daily life. Over time these lessons can amount to a real, life changing impact.
Conclusion
Whether or not you are new to meditation or thousands of hours in, you should realize fairly quickly that meditation is just an observation of the present moment.
Forcing is the wrong move when it comes to meditation. Do not try to think of any certain thing when you are meditating or use any “tricks”.
There is only this present moment, that’s it! It’s fairly simple. Life is simple. Spirituality is simple.
You will figure it out along the way. Don’t give up if you are having difficulties at first quieting the mind.
Eventually all of these techniques will become intuition for you and you will not have to consciously do them anymore. This is what your progression in meditation will look like.
