Congratulations on two things. First, for making the decision to meditate and second for actually following through. Meditation is such a huge field with innumerable techniques and it can be easy to get lost. There are many schools of thought which often insist that this technique or that is indispensible but they tend to be preferences.

Of those few guidelines that are important I would suggest the following two:

1. Find a comfortable place where you will not be disturbed.
2. Try to meditate the same time each day.

As far as techniques go, a mantra can be helpful but certainly not vital. My first teacher, a Theravadan Buddhist monk, taught me that ... wow, I just went searching for it because he gave it to me in a handout twenty years ago or so and believe it or not, I found it. It's long but worth the read.

Initial Meditation Instruction

According to the Buddha's system of training the mind, meditation is used in order to help bring the mind under the control of the user. This is the most efficacious use toward which one can put the tool of meditation. There are some schools of meditation which use visualization or encourage the practitioner to delve into deeply complicated metaphysical exercises, neither of which will help one to do the direct work of training the mind to follow one's own directions. If the goal of the person who takes up Buddhist meditation instruction and practice is to realize the highest state of conscious control of the mind, then this goal must be pursued from the very beginning of their practice until it is finally reached and attained. In this process, one can realize the achievement of the highest states of consciousness, and learn how to maintain and cultivate those states for one's own personal betterment.

Along the way toward perfecting this control, one has the opportunity to learn, from direct experience, about the nature of universal reality. In other words, the same profound realization which the Buddha achieved can be achieved by the diligent practitioner. If this were not the case, his system of training would not have survived this long after his death. The Buddha has stated that "All mental states have mind as their forerunner, mind is their chief, and they are mind-made. Our life is the creation of our mind." With this thought firmly realized, one begins to become aware that without firm control of the mind one's life is lived at the whim of unconscious forces. This need not be the case, as we each have the ability to realize our highest potential through a systematic training of that instrument which is the most important factor in determining the course our life can take: the mind.

The mind, as you may be aware, is a subtle mechanism. It often operates without our being aware of it. It takes little strands of thought and draws assumptions which may or may not have anything to do with objective reality; it devises schemes which it then tries to sell us; it takes preconceived ideas about how things are and tries to convince us that the outcome of an event is inevitable. In short, it uses every trick it can devise in order to confuse and confound us. That is, unless we begin to take control of it and direct it to do our bidding. What you are about to learn may not be found in any of the textbooks you've studied in school. It is based on a system of mind training developed over 2500 years ago which miraculously still survives today in its original form. It is deceptively simple and yet deeply profound in its instructions and the effects it produces. Not all teachers associated with this school of training are aware of the things we will discuss. And the reason for this is that the people who trained them were not fully aware of these things themselves. Getting the correct instructions and realizing how they are supposed to work is crucial in being able to genuinely gain control of one's mind.

It will be important that you have a little background about what we will be discussing so that you can begin to put the instructions into context for your personal use. What I'm about to teach you is the first part of a two part system of meditation. The overall system is called Vipassana, which literally means "insight". The Vipassana system of meditation is made up of, first, samatha meditation and then vipassana, or insight meditation. In this first part of the Vipassana system, samatha, which refers to tranquility and quietude, is practiced and developed. Being able to attain a quiet and tranquil mind, where extraneous thought ceases, is a necessary state to achieve before one can go on to attain and develop the higher states. In tranquilizing the mind, one begins to develop concentration, or one-pointedness of mind. In this system, one cannot begin to gain insight into reality until one can one-pointedly focus the mind on one object at a time without being distracted. In order to accomplish this, one needs to be able to calm the mind down first so that the work of concentration can take place. Once this first stage is achieved, one can then go on to practice vipassana, or insight meditation, in order to discover the true nature of the reality being examined.

For our object in samatha training, we will need to use a common phenomenon which is always present and is easily within our grasp. Toward this goal, a system of meditation was developed called Anapana-sati which refers to "Mindfulness of in- and out-breathing." Since the breath is always with us, it makes the perfect object for us to pay attention to. In order to make it a little easier for you to comprehend, I'm going to endeavor to describe it in a way that you can get the "feel" of it. Once you get the feel of it happening, you will be doing it automatically, and then you can benefit by experiencing the positive results it brings.

Briefly, this is how it is done. Set aside some time and locate a quiet space that you can use for meditation. This can be your own apartment, an empty church, or out in nature under a secluded tree. In other words, it can be almost anywhere that is conducive to a peaceful setting where you can meditate undisturbed for about thirty minutes or more. You can be seated on a chair or couch, or if you prefer, you can use the traditional Indian posture of sitting cross legged on a carpet with a pillow-like cushion underneath. The important thing is to be comfortable whichever posture you choose and to keep the spine erect. If you are in a chair, your feet should be about shoulder's length apart in front of you. Place your open left hand, palm up, on your lap if you are seated in a chair or on your crossed legs if you are using the Indian position, and bring your right hand down, palm up, on top of your left palm, lightly touching the two thumbs together to form the mudra, or hand position.

Before starting, take two or three slow, deep breaths in order to begin the calming process. This will help you to capture the feeling and mood of serenity. When you are ready to begin, point your eyes toward the spot just above and between the eye brows and then close them, keeping the eyes pointed toward this spot. With the eyes pointed upward in this way it will prevent you from falling asleep. You cannot fall asleep with the eyes in this position. Now, it may be a little uncomfortable in the beginning when you are doing this, but as you continue to do so it will become easier and easier to maintain this eye position, and it will cease to cause a problem.

To begin the meditation itself, draw your attention to that point in the nostrils where the air just touches on the top of the inner nostrils as it is breathed in and out. Focus your attention on that spot. This is your object for this meditation. And then just follow the natural course of the breath itself as it is drawn in and then back out through that point in the tip of the nostrils. Do not try to interfere with the breathing in any way by holding or stopping it; just let it flow naturally and easily as it wants to. Watch the breath with your inner awareness as it comes in and then as it goes back out. Let the breath come in and go back out when it feels like it. Keeping this up, you will become completely comfortable with letting it go its own way and will notice that the rhythm slows down without the least amount of effort on your part. This happens because you are now "with" the breath and no longer "outside" it as controller. This is key! You must only follow the breath, observing it from the outside and not attempt to control its flow.

Your only task here is to follow the natural flow of the breath mindfully and continually, without a break in attention or without an unnoticed break. If you notice that your mind is not focused on your nostrils, immediately bring your focus back to the nostrils and continue observing the flow of the breath. Each time you bring the focus of your attention back to the nostrils you are increasing your ability to maintain your one-pointed concentration and thus strengthening it.

When this process is done correctly, you will experience a very subtle but pleasant feeling, almost as though you are as light as a feather. If you experience this feeling, then you know you are doing it correctly. You may experience certain signs, like a slight pressure in the forehead, or a feeling of being in sync with the universe. These are definite positive signs. Flow with them as they lead you deeper into tranquility and quietude.

As you are following the breath, you may experience the intrusion of certain thoughts or ideas, or hear sounds which suggest images such as a car, an airplane, or perhaps a bird's song. Do not allow your mind to cling to these thoughts or images, but allow them to float through your consciousness like watching a flock of birds pass through the sky. Once they are gone, dismiss them from your mind and resume your attention on the breath. When your concentration has developed sufficiently, you will be able to maintain it on the object of your attention without being bothered or distracted by sounds, thoughts, or ideas. In other words, you will be aware that the distracting sound or thought is there, but it will not affect or distract your concentration from the object. When you can gain this kind of concentration and maintain it for at least twenty minutes at a time, you will be ready to go on to further meditative developments.

When focusing your attention on the nostrils, there is a very apt simile used in the ancient Buddhist literature which may enhance your ability to stay focused. It describes this process of attention to the breath in the nostrils and compares it to a man sawing a log of wood. His attention will be concentrated on the point of contact where the saw's teeth are against the wood, without following the movement of the teeth of the saw cutting through the wood, without following the movement of the teeth swinging back and forth. Just so, a meditator should contemplate the breath as it swings back and forth around the fulcrum of the tip of the nostrils, without letting his mindfulness become distracted by the breath's inward and outward passage through the body.

Learn and practice this technique first in a formal meditation sitting. After you have practiced it for a period of time (a week or two) and are able to gain access to the feeling described and can experience the calming, tranquilizing effect it has, then you will be able to bring it into other settings in order to help you gain control when you feel yourself losing control of the mind. But first, practice every day for a week or two for at least half an hour a sitting. As you become more proficient you may want to increase the time. But that can come later. What is important now is that you gain some experience in this process so that you can gain from its benefits. The best time of day to do this is in the morning to start your day off on the right footing. But if you are unable to schedule a morning meditation due to a limited amount of time in the mornings, it is suggested that you set aside some time in the afternoon or evening for your practice. This is how I started when I began to meditate, by practicing after I got off work. In my case, to give you some perspective, I wanted to experience the benefits as soon as possible and so I would sometimes spend upwards of an hour to 1 1/2 hours in meditation. Even today I still practice at least twice a day, in the morning for an hour and in the evening for an hour. The benefits are REAL. But you can't obtain them if you don't practice.

After you have been able to experience some of these benefits and are able to calm your mind down through this practice, I will give you some further hints as to how to bring this practice into your daily life so that you can benefit from it while at work, while riding on a bus, or while doing almost anything which does not require 100% of your attention. This will entail beginning your practice in mindfulness, or the effort to stay in the present moment. You first, though, need to be able to access that feeling I was talking about wherein you feel your mind concentrating on the meditation object. When you can access that state at will, then these further hints will assist you and will not be difficult for you to achieve. And then you will have a tool that you can use at any time or any place to help manage your mind, while learning to maintain a presence of mind at all times.

Do this for the next two weeks or so and keep track of your progress. You might want to write down some of your experiences in a journal after meditating in order to remember and document them. It can be interesting to see just how these experiences change over time. You will soon find out just how unruly (intractable) the mind can be. Keeping track of your thoughts in this way will assist you in practicing mindfulness. In order to practice mindfulness, one needs to be focused on the present moment. In contemplating, evaluating, and keeping a journal of your meditative experiences, one is mentally focused on recounting the experience exactly as it happened. This helps train the mind for one-pointed awareness, which comes in handy if one wishes to proceed into deeper meditative territory like the meditative absorptions, otherwise known as the jhanas.

The only thing I would add to this is that while journaling may be helpful in the beginning, you might find that you start trying to think things up to write about while you are supposed to be clearing the mind. If you find this begins to be the case, stop journaling as it has become a distraction.

Good luck.