Beginner- advice

Victor, modified 6 Years ago at 3/23/18 4:58 PM
Created 6 Years ago at 3/23/18 4:58 PM

Beginner- advice

Posts: 3 Join Date: 3/23/18 Recent Posts
Hello everyone!

I´m new to the forum and also new to meditation. I´ve been interested in meditaion and spirituality for many years but it´s not until now that I have actually started to sit.  I have only been doing it regularly for 2-3 weeks, 10-20 mins /day.  I have a few questions and I understand that the answer could very well be "just keep practicing, it´ll sort itself out" but if anyone has any good advice to nudge me in the right direction that would be great.

I´m so far only trying to focus on the breath. I can clearly feel the difference when my attention is on the breath and when i´m completely lost in thought/mindwandering. If I´m not to tired/sleepy I don´t spend to much time completely lost in thought, thinking without knowing that I´m thinking. It happens a few times every time I sit, I bring back the attention to the breath and it´s not much of a problem because I expect it to happen a lot in the beginning. The problem is that I feel that even when my attention is as focused as it gets it feels very scattered. I don´t think I can honestly say that I have taken one complete in-or outbreath that was totally focused. It allways feels like I`m more or less focused. Like there are thoughts etc. in the background that my attention switches to for very brief periods making it hard to really focus on the breath in a focused way.

So my question maybe comes down to what level of ambition when it comes to attention I should have at this early stage? Should I just accept my scattered attention and as a first goal only try to focus on decreasing time in "full blown" mind wandering?

One more annoying thing is that most of the time I have a hard time feeling the breath at the nose/nostrils. Sometimes I don´t actually feel anything more than a slight resistens of the air flowing out but it´s not really a sensation at the nostrils. This makes often makes me try to focus so much on trying to find the sensation that I either start controlling the breath or start thinking about if I´m actually feeling the breath, hearing it, or just making some sort of a concept of the breath.  Sometimes it makes me try so hard that I develope a light tension headache when I´m done emoticon. I guess it´s like learning a new motor-skill, using all the wrong muscles at the wrong time with bad coordination.  And I can hear when I´m writing this that Im probably overthinking things.

/Victor
Mathew Poskus, modified 6 Years ago at 3/23/18 6:01 PM
Created 6 Years ago at 3/23/18 5:43 PM

RE: Beginner- advice

Posts: 230 Join Date: 10/24/15 Recent Posts
This stuff what you asked is in great detail explained in best book I have read so far about meditation it's called The Mind Illuminated , I higly recommend .I'm no qualified meditation teacher so I don't want to give advice and mislead you emoticon.
Anna L, modified 6 Years ago at 3/24/18 5:16 AM
Created 6 Years ago at 3/24/18 5:16 AM

RE: Beginner- advice

Posts: 232 Join Date: 1/21/17 Recent Posts
Yes, I also recommend The Mind Illuminated. It is definitely worth investing in a copy emoticon 

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