Starting to meditate is much simpler than it often seems.
We do not need a special room, extraordinary flexibility, or half an hour of perfect silence. Nor do we need to know how to stop our thoughts. To begin, it is enough to find a few minutes, adopt a reasonably comfortable posture, and pay attention to what is already happening.
Breathe. Feel. Listen. Be.
The difficulty is rarely in understanding the instructions. The difficulty appears when we try to turn them into a real practice within a life full of tasks, screens, tiredness, and small urgencies.
That is why, at first, it is better to keep things simple.
There is no need to create the perfect space. It can be a chair in a quiet room, a corner of the bedroom, or a cushion on the floor. What matters is that, for a few minutes, we can remain there without major interruptions.
Meditation can coexist with the sounds of a home or a city. Waiting for absolute silence is often just another way of postponing it. We close a door if we can, silence the phone, and accept that life will continue around us.
We can light a candle or prepare a cup of tea before sitting down if that small ritual helps us. But the objects are not the practice. The practice begins when we stop preparing and, finally, sit down.
It is possible to meditate on the floor, but it is not necessary. A chair is perfectly suitable.
Place your feet on the floor, rest your hands on your thighs, and keep your back upright without becoming rigid. The chin can lower slightly. Close your eyes or leave them half open. The posture should allow the body to remain stable and the mind to stay awake.
If pain appears, adjust your position. Meditation is not about enduring discomfort unnecessarily. The body is not an obstacle we need to overcome, but the first place we return to.
We can also practise while walking when sitting feels difficult. Walk slowly, feeling the contact of your feet with the ground and observing the movement. Meditation can take different forms, although when beginning I also recommend learning to sit in silence.
Ten minutes a day is enough to begin. Even five can be worthwhile if that makes consistency easier.
It is better to sit for ten minutes with some regularity than to meditate for forty-five minutes once, finish exhausted, and not return for two weeks. The duration can grow naturally. First, the practice needs to find a recognisable place in the day.
Choose a reasonably stable time. When you wake up, before starting work, or at the end of the afternoon. There is no universally better time. There is the time when you can actually do it.
Whenever possible, repeat the same time and the same place. Routine reduces decisions. A day will come when you no longer need to ask yourself whether you feel like meditating, just as you do not ask yourself every morning whether you feel like brushing your teeth.
I have been getting up early to practise for many years. I do not do it because I feel inspired every morning, nor because at that hour I easily enter into communion with the divine. I get up and meditate because that is the time when I meditate. Nothing more. Routine, when accompanied by kindness, can support us on the days when motivation does not appear.
Sit down. Take two or three conscious breaths and then allow your breathing to return to its natural rhythm.
Notice the air coming in and going out. You may feel it at the nose, in the chest, or in the abdomen. There is no need to breathe more deeply or in any special way.
The mind will wander. It will remember something, organise the day, replay a conversation, or imagine the future. When you notice, return to the breath.
That is all.
Do not turn the return into a reprimand. You have not failed because you became distracted. The moment you recognise that your attention has wandered is already a moment of awareness. Return gently. Ten times. A hundred times. As many times as necessary.
Sounds, physical sensations, and emotions will also appear. We do not need to eliminate them. We can acknowledge them and return. With time, we will learn to observe them with greater spaciousness, but at the beginning the breath offers a simple point of support.
A guided meditation can be a good way to begin. The voice accompanies us, reminds us of the instructions, and provides structure when we are not yet quite sure what to do.
However, I recommend gradually introducing some moments without guidance. Although silence may feel more difficult at first, it allows us to encounter our own mind directly and to stop depending constantly on an external stimulus.
We can alternate between both forms. Guidance helps; silence deepens.
Relaxation aims to reduce tension and lead us towards a state of rest. Meditation does not necessarily pursue a particular state. Sometimes we will feel calm. At other times, we will discover that we are tired, worried, or irritable.
The practice has not gone wrong simply because it has shown us what was already there.
Meditation is not about replacing an uncomfortable experience with a pleasant one. It is about learning to stay with present experience without immediately escaping from it. On some days, that will bring calm. On others, simply a little more honesty.
You may meditate for a week and then stop. Or for a month. Even people who have been practising for years go through periods of less consistency.
Do not turn an interruption into a permanent abandonment.
Return.
Meditation is built in this way: sitting down, wandering away, and returning. During a single practice and also over the course of the years.
To begin, you do not need to feel ready. You only need to sit for a few minutes and discover what happens when, for once, you do not have to get anywhere else.
Returning to Simplicity
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