Basic Pursuits

According to the Yoga Sutra, the goal of yoga and meditation is to calm the fluctuations of the mind.

When I sit in meditation, my goal is to calm my thoughts, the "fluctuations of my mind," and to be present. Being present is a long way toward calming the mind, because let's face it, most of these thought fluctuations are about the past or the future.

Like my muscles, my mind need variety in its meditation workout. I use a number of techniques, especially in the calming phase of my meditation. Some days some work better than others. Here's my current arsenal of mind calming techniques. As my thoughts slow down, I gradually employ one of these to the exclusion of the others.

1. Mantra, a word or a short string of words that I repeat over and over again. When other thoughts intrude (and they always do), I let the thought dissipate and return to the mantra. Mantra is good to slow thoughts that come in the form of talking to yourself in your head. Good examples of mantra are aum and amen.
2. Seeing what's there. Even with my eyes closed, there's something to see there. Shapes of light. Sometimes a reddish pink hue. Often a light gray alternating with blue. Whatever, I just see it. Note this is what I actually see with my closed eyes, not some mental image that I imagine.This technique is good for presence and to quiet thoughts that come in visual images and to relax the muscles around the eyes.
3. Hearing what's there. Exactly as it sounds, hear all that is going on around. Traffic. Air conditioners and especially that inner whirr, the sound of my own metabolism. This is good to calm "inner voice" type thoughts, for presence, and to relax the scalp and inner ears.
4. Systematically relaxing the muscles. I do a systematic scan of my body and release tension as I discover it. Yoga poses are great for this technique because poses bring such great awareness to the body. This is great for presence and to calm kinesthetically induced thoughts. I've yet to discover a thought that did not have some corresponding tension in the body. A great way to relax a tense spot is to gently breathe into it.
5. Watch the breath. What is more essentially present about you or me than the breath. I focus my attention on my breath. I work to separate myself from it so that my attention to it does not affect it in any way. This takes practice.
6. Talk to myself. This may seem counter intuitive, but I've had good luck assuming the role of being my own yoga teacher. The key to success is keeping the self-talking inner voice objective and not involved in the thoughts that pop up. My objective voice might say things like, "Ah. You're thinking about breakfast again. Let that go and watch your breath..." or "Ah. You're still miffed about what she said to you last night. Be grateful that she cared enough to mention it and return to your breath."
7. Sing to myself. I need a slow meaningful song. I like "Amazing Grace." I sing the song completely in my head. I work to keep tongue, throat and lips completely relaxed, which means I need to be somewhat calm for this to really work. This is really engaging and very calming at the same time.

Any one of these techniques needs a little time to work. Hopping from one technique to another every few seconds will simply lead to more frustration. Calming down takes time.

If you are a beginner, you might pick one technique and work with it for five or so minutes and call it good.

These are my meditation techniques. If you have any that you find effective, hit the comments and share them with the rest of us.