I was sitting in a class today talking to some of my computer training students. We discussing how to absorb the material being learned and in particular we discussed how using meditation can help in their learning process, how meditation can help them learn more effectively and more so how they could overcome any distractions that might happen during their meditation session. See distractions are not just those that happen externally to you, they also happen internally and those internal distractions are tougher to overcome than the external ones.

Let me share with you some of the techniques I use to overcome those distractions during meditation ?

During a meditation session there are two clear types of distractions you are going to be faced with and they are -

1. External Distractions and

2. Internal Distractions

External distractions come in the form of sounds, family members running in the area where you are meditating, police cars going past, earthquakes, volcanoes and many many more. That last few were a little out there, but in reality they are potential distractions. All in all the only way of trying to address these issues with external distractions is to find a location to meditate where these distractions are not going to be an issue.

One of the issues of sound we will also address as an internal distraction as well. Once you start to get a sizeable experience meditating you will find sounds like planes going over, ambulances going past and the screech of breaks by cars, will affect your meditation less and less, and in fact you will actually learn to block out those noises and ignore them. However, I have to stress that it will take time before you develop those meditation skills.

The number one challenge you actually face when meditating is the internal distractions you will create in your mind and these include both valid and invalid distractions. Valid distractions are those in which you really do not have a lot of control of such as pain in the knees or an itch. However, one thing you will learn as you get more experienced meditating, is that unless you have a real issue you will be able to meditate out, the pain in your knees, an itch on your head or your bottom going numb. You just get better at it as time goes on.

Depending on the meditation type that you are using, you can easily move in a slow way to address the valid distraction issues I mentioned before without disrupting your meditation session.

The distractions that cause most people hassle or frustration are those that are brought about from your own mind or what we call invalid distractions, for example you might be meditating and then your mind quietly starts thinking about what you are doing tomorrow or you might start thinking about spending time with the kids and so forth. When you are first trying to meditate it is natural that you become easily distracted but the worst thing you can do during a meditation session is to become angry or frustrated. If you do this, you will make meditating a lot more difficult.

There are some basic things we can do to get back on track during the meditation session, the first step in dealing with a distraction, is to realize that you have been distracted. Once you have done this, take in a really deep breath, usually on its own this helps you to get focus back. Hold this deep breath for 5 counts and then slowly exhale gently as a mouse. Do this same process five times. Now if you find after this period that your mind is still distracted then the next thing you need to do to achieve focus you need to use the number meditation technique.

If you find that you continue to have distractions start by visualizing in your minds eye the number one. Now, convert that number from one to a number two, then convert the number in your minds eye to the number three and continue this till you get to 100. I should add one point that you visualize the number changing on the breath out. Here is the catch though, if at any time you start to think about something else, then you just simply start back at the number one. You will find after a period of time that you are back on track and will feel relaxed and ready to move on to the meditation technique you were trying to do before you were distracted.

Look the bottom line is this, if you do become distracted do not indulge the distraction or try to fight it. As the distractions occur simply follow the technique I have outlined before. When you return to a situation where you have control over your distractions then simply continue your meditation session.

Essentially, be patient, as meditation takes practice and remember that it took you time to learn to crawl and then to walk and then to run and meditation is no different. Here is a point to remember, many Buddhists have taken hundreds of lives to learn the path to enlightenment, what makes you think you are going to master it in 5 minutes.

To finish off, remember this, meditation is like a sport, it takes practice, practice and more practice. Meditation should be fun and enjoyable and if you are getting stressed and frustrated that your meditation is not working then it defeats the whole point of meditating.