Decide what style of meditation you are practicing before you start your practice.

There are many different forms of meditation.  It can be tempting to jump around during a practice.  Do your best to set up a plan before you begin and hold strong to it.

My personal opinion is that most meditation styles take you to the same place.  Some styles are better suited to different personality types, settings, lengths of time in practice, and egoic restraints you are overcoming.  Nonetheless, if you decide to practice in a certain form, commit to it for the duration of your practice.

Distracting yourself with different types of meditation techniques is no different than allowing yourself to be distracted by the mind’s chatter.

If you truly want to experience and live from meditative mind, it will be necessary to overcome the inherent egoic desire to keep your mind busy.

Meditation Practice: Today, I meditated on the simple mantra, “listen.” On every inhale, I silently thought the word “listen” and on every exhale I allowed myself to experience the silence beneath thought. Over and over again, ‘listen.”

When my mind would wander to passing thoughts, I would say the word, “thinking” then return to the mantra.

This is a simple meditation taught to me by one of my gurus, JunPo Denis Kelly, a zen master. (See http://www.mondozen.org/community/teachers_priests.htm).  I recommend this practice for people whose first language is English or find sanskrit to be off-putting.

Lesson Learned: Commit to your sitting practice before you sit down and hold strong through discomfort.