If you've never meditated before, you might find a guide

If you've never meditated before, you might find a guide to meditation to be useful, but the fact is that nothing is more useful than real world experience. People spend endless lengths of time talking about different meditation techniques, be they the methods of Buddhism meditation, Zen meditation, or some other school altogether. But the fact is that the practice is much less important than the practitioner. If you approach meditation with good intentions and diligent study, you will get where you want to go.

Of course a guide to meditation can still help you when you're starting. Many people think video meditation guides are the best way to go. Not only do they tend to teach you the basic principles of meditation in an easy-to-understand fashion, but they also incorporate other features that you can't find in books. Many of these videos will include a guided meditation section, which can be invaluable when you are just beginning. One of the hardest things to do is to cultivate the calm, peaceful mind and disciplined internal focus that meditation requires. By using a guided meditation, you are able to get much further than you normally would as a beginner. This is why a video or audio guide to meditation can be so helpful to the new student.

Of course, the very best guide to meditation is a teacher. Having the chance to work with someone who has meditated before, probably for several years, can give you some real advantages when you are just beginning. He will be able to show your tricks to help you get over the focus problems that are so common with beginners. He or she will also be there to answer any questions on meditation, and to deal with any unforeseen problems that might come up.

Of course, it might be harder to find a good meditation teacher than a good guide to meditation . You can read a guide to meditation and decide if you like it or not, but figuring out whether a teacher is good at what he or she does make take you much much longer. Another problem is that meditation teachers tend to charge a hefty sum for the classes that they teach, which may place their services out of your range. Fortunately, in many areas it is possible to take meditation classes for a low fee, or nothing at all. I recommend this if it is an option.