In a lot of practices today students are told to meditate for a certain period of time whether it be 20 minutes, 30 minutes or more. But is this the best way to begin to meditate?
When beginning a meditation and trying to work to a set time period, difficulties can arise; your mind may loose concentration and become distracted. This is distracted meditation. By sitting for long periods with a distracted mind you eventually become bored and there is a high chance that you will soon give up your meditation practice all together. So how can you best meditate? When meditating your mind is open and spacious without any restrictions, including time restrictions. A restricted mind creates a restricted meditation. As an example lets use this grounding meditation from our website. When you practice this meditation you can either set a time limit for yourself or you can meditate until your concentration weakens. Ideally you should choose the latter and if after practicing the meditation you can no longer bring your mind back to your meditation after it has wandered then it is time to stop the session. This might be after 5 minutes, 10 minutes or 40 minutes; it doesn’t rea
