Setting Up a Practice

Most people who try meditation stop. The reasons are rarely doctrinal and almost never to do with technique. They are to do with logistics, expectations, and the absence of anything holding the practice in place.

This guide is about those things. How to Start a Meditation Practice covers the first sit; this cluster covers what makes it last.

The five practical decisions #

When. Morning, before the day acquires momentum, is what most traditions and most teachers recommend, and the reason is not mystical: it is the time least likely to be taken by something else. Evening practice competes with tiredness and with everything the day generated. If mornings are impossible, a fixed evening slot is much better than a flexible one.

How long. Shorter than you think, at first. Ten or fifteen minutes daily, sustained for a year, produces more than forty-five minutes sustained for three weeks. The classical instruction assumes decades; there is no prize for intensity in month one.

Where. The same place, if possible. A cushion in a particular corner, a particular chair. Habit is substantially environmental, and reusing a location does a surprising amount of the work.

How. One technique, long enough to learn it. The most common beginner error is method-switching — a week of breath, a week of body scan, a week of an app’s new programme — which prevents any of them from developing. See Mindfulness of Breathing for the standard starting point.

With whom. Practice held by other people survives when motivation does not. A weekly group, an online sit, a teacher, or one other person who asks how it is going, all raise the odds considerably.

Posture #

The body is not incidental. An unstable posture produces either pain or drowsiness, and both consume the session.

The essentials, whatever the position: a stable base, a spine that is upright without being rigid, and shoulders that are not held. Chairs are entirely acceptable, and the idea that cross-legged sitting is required is a cultural assumption rather than a doctrinal one — the Buddha sat on a grass cushion because that is what was available.

See Meditation Posture for the full treatment, including the specific positions, what to do about knees, and why the hands matter more than people expect.

Walking #

Walking meditation is the most underused practice in the modern repertoire, and it solves several problems at once: it dissolves drowsiness, relieves the body between sitting periods, and is much easier for people for whom stillness is difficult — including many with trauma histories.

In traditional retreat schedules, sitting and walking alternate throughout the day in roughly equal proportion. Most modern lay practitioners do only the sitting, which is a needless handicap.

Retreat #

At some point, a longer period of practice does something that daily sitting does not. The traditional instruction assumes it, and the modern retreat centre exists to provide it.

It is also an intensive intervention with real risks, and the enthusiasm of the retreat culture has not always been matched by candour about them. See Going on Retreat for what to expect, how to choose one, and who should approach the intensive formats with caution.

What to expect, honestly #

The mind will not go quiet. Not in the first month, and not in the first year. The instruction has never been to stop thinking; it is to notice when attention has wandered and to return it. Each return is a repetition of the exercise.

Progress is invisible from inside. Sessions vary enormously and the variation says almost nothing. The traditional check is off-cushion: whether reactivity has lessened, whether difficult states pass more quickly, whether other people have noticed anything.

Some of it is unpleasant. The five hindrances are expected and named. Some later stages are frankly difficult. Practice is not a relaxation technique and does not promise a pleasant hour.

It is slow. The tradition’s own timescale is lifetimes. Teachers who promise rapid results are departing from it.

What holds a practice together #

Three things, in the tradition’s account and in most practitioners’ experience.

Ethics. Sila comes before samadhi in every presentation of the path, and the reason is practical: remorse is one of the five hindrances, and a mind carrying it does not settle. Practitioners often discover this before they read it.

Community. The sangha is one of the three refuges, not an optional extra. Ananda once suggested to the Buddha that good friendship was half the holy life, and was corrected: it is the whole of it.

A teacher. At some point the instructions stop being sufficient and someone who has been where you are becomes necessary — particularly if practice becomes difficult. See Finding a Teacher and a Sangha.

The obstacles, named #

The tradition’s list of what goes wrong is old, short, and accurate. The five hindrances each have a named antidote, and recognising which one is operating is most of the work.

Sensual desire — the mind pulling towards something pleasant. Note the wanting as wanting and return.

Ill will — irritation with the practice, the noise, the posture, yourself. Antidote: loving-kindness.

Sloth and torpor — dullness and sleepiness. Antidote: energy, brighter attention, eyes open, walking, and more sleep.

Restlessness and worry — agitation, and specifically remorse about past conduct. Antidote: tranquillity, and for the remorse component, ethical repair. The placement of sila before samadhi in the path exists for this.

Doubt — uncertainty about whether this works or whether you are doing it right. Antidote: investigation, instruction, and a teacher.

The canonical similes describe what each does to clarity: water coloured with dye, water boiling, water choked with weeds, water whipped by wind, and water muddied and left in the dark. In each case the water is fine; what has gone is the ability to see into it.

Their arising is expected and is not a sign of failure. The practice is to recognise the hindrance, which is a different operation from defeating it.

Choosing a method #

New practitioners often ask which technique is best. The tradition’s answer is that it depends on the person, and the classical scheme is more specific than modern presentations.

The Visuddhimagga lists forty meditation objects and matches them to temperaments: someone of a hating disposition is given the brahmaviharas and the colour kasinas; someone of a lustful disposition is given the contemplations of the body’s unattractiveness; someone of a speculative disposition is given mindfulness of breathing, on the grounds that it gives the intellect nothing to work with.

The practical version for a modern beginner:

Mindfulness of breathing is the default, and it is the default for good reasons — always available, portable, and neutral.

Metta suits people for whom the breath produces dryness or self-criticism, and people whose main difficulty is ill will.

Body scan suits people who cannot find the breath, and is the basis of the Goenka method.

Walking suits people for whom stillness is difficult, including many with trauma histories and many with high baseline restlessness.

Counting the breath — one to ten on the exhalation, restarting when you lose count — is the standard Zen starting point and is unusually good at making wandering obvious.

The error is not choosing wrongly; it is switching every fortnight. Give one method several months.

A realistic first year #

What actually happens, so that it is not mistaken for failure.

Weeks 1–4. Sitting is uncomfortable, the mind is noisier than you expected, and you conclude you are unusually bad at this. Everyone concludes this.

Months 2–3. The posture settles and the body stops being the main event. Sessions vary wildly and the variation says nothing.

Months 4–6. Occasional sessions where attention genuinely settles, followed by sessions where it does not, followed by the discovery that trying to reproduce the good ones is what prevents them.

Months 6–12. The first off-cushion changes, and they are usually noticed by other people before they are noticed by you: a shorter fuse cooling faster, a difficult conversation handled without the usual escalation.

Throughout. Missed days. The remedy for a missed week is to sit today, not to construct a better schedule.

Sources & further reading #

Bhante Henepola Gunaratana, Mindfulness in Plain English (Wisdom, 20th anniversary ed. 2011) — the best practical beginner’s manual in English. Joseph Goldstein, Mindfulness: A Practical Guide to Awakening (Sounds True, 2013) — a thorough guide organised around the Satipatthana Sutta. Ajahn Brahm, Mindfulness, Bliss, and Beyond (Wisdom, 2006) — on concentration practice, and unusually candid about difficulty. Shunryu Suzuki, Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind (Weatherhill, 1970) — on posture and on the attitude that sustains practice. Bhikkhu Analayo, Satipaṭṭhāna: The Direct Path to Realization (Windhorse, 2003) — the scholarly and practical treatment together.

Meditation Posture: A Practical Guide — the body
Walking Meditation — the neglected half
Going on Retreat: What to Expect — intensive practice
How to Start a Meditation Practice — the first sessions
When Meditation Is Difficult — obstacles and adverse effects
Finding a Teacher and a Sangha — what holds it together