Exercise the first! Get cosy!

1. There is ultimately no magic in the stance you choose. Get comfy!

You should be able to maintain your position with no discomfort and if you are new to meditation then limit further distraction by finding a peaceful, quiet place.

2. Try to focus on only your breath and count with your minds voice either every in or out, whichever feels more natural to you. Change it up and try both if you're not sure yet.

Your many endless thought streams will try to fill the space between each count so the goal is to overcome and quiet this noise through focus.

3. Count as high as possible. Simple!

If for even a fleeting moment you aren’t 100% sure that the next number is correct then you start again at 1.

Be honest with yourself or perhaps overly critical and as boring or down right difficult as it might seem sometimes, it can and will be done. 

In very short time you'll find you can clear and focus your mind on nothing but your breath in an instant, and you'll be ready to take advantage of this new found control in so many yet unknown ways.

Exercise the SECONd! Intention

Master the first exercise and you should now be comfortable and able to quiet your mind for a significant count.

1. From here and like most do, you can stop counting and revel in this internally silent peace.

This is as far as meditation goes for many. It can be genuinely refreshing and reinvigorating to do so and should be practiced as required. You may get lucky with the odd intuition or light bulb moment, but don't expect magic.

Don’t be fooled by the endless mystic, wannabe guru types that will have you believe you can let go of everything, abandon the self and blindly stumble into nirvana. 

2. Step it up! Utilise this state of mind to focus and train your consciousness! Ultimately increasing your ability to control and communicate with your so poorly named “sub”-conscious, opening the door to Gnosis and real development of the brain mind complex.

At its simplest, use this noiseless consciousness stream with your imaginative and creative skills to explore your memory and emotional systems. This can be extremely productive for personal development and increasing self awareness.

With time you can actively and dramatically improve your rational decision making ability, recognise and reshape your mental paradigm, develop new or existing physical/mental skills and improve your memory.

Recognise your mind for what it is. It is not material and it has not “emerged” from mindless, souless, material atoms. Wakey wakey <3

As always - If your mind ever sways from your intention, back to counting breath until it's clear to start again

Exercise the Third! Leveling up skills!

1. This starts before meditation and while doing whatever it is you want to get better at.  Count, visualise, feel

Take a few counted breaths and quiet your mind. Focus on nothing but yourself, visualising what you want to do perfectly and comparing it objectively to your actual form. No judgements or anything, just observe and imagine.

Feel the different muscle groups and movements involved, the rotations, the feelings and try to keep these in memory. If you struggle then just remain peaceful and continue repetitions.

2. Later in the day, before bed perhaps, assume your comfy position, count your breaths until you're completely still and quiet, then stop counting and instead attempt to visualise, feel and imagine the skill you want to improve.

Like in the material world, complete repetitions and continue to practice in your mind, almost so these become your new count. Remind yourself of any struggles and the earlier feedback you gave yourself and relax.

You'll be surprised how much you seem to have improved when you next step up to try the skill in real life!

3. Make a mantra! It doesn't need to be latin, rhyme or be literal magic. Make it simple, positive, a command and give it real world, spacetime components.

I love being upside down, so I'll use handstands to make an example - you keep falling onto your back moments after your feet leave the ground. and know it's at least in part due to a curved back and neck, while looking at the ground between your hands.

Your mantra, or simple, positive, real world command, might be: “In tomorrows practice at the park, I will look forwards, straighten my back and beat my record balance time”. Simply repeat this while continually visualising  and mentally repeating the skill.

As always, if you become distracted or are unable to clearly remember any parts of the exercise then return to counting and refocus.

This technique can be applied to almost anything and is especially useful before bed at night as even with no experience in controlled dream states, your sleeping mind will often continue practicing for you.

Remember, your so called “sub” conscious is responsible for processing the incredible and endlessly complex calculations throughout your body, from the actions of each and every cell to timing the perfect catch, all at once.

Your power and capabilities will continue to grow as your self awareness does. As your conscious mind learns to better understand, communicate and control the mind at large you will mentally evolve and grow, becoming capable of more than you ever realised.

Exercise the Fourth! HAbbits

Probably one of the least utilised but powerful uses of mantra within meditation is for recognising and breaking bad habbits. Use your peace of mind to focus on aspects of life where you are least happy, free or powerful and look for ways to improve.

This can be anything from stuttering, wrong use of body language or putting the toilet seat down to game changers like quitting cigarettes or not rushing into toxic relationships any more.

If you want to change something about yourself then you don't need a superhuman work ethic or mind, you just need to quiet all other thought and consciously command your sub conscious to work with you. Repeat, repeat and repeat.

In the same way that a hypnotist will communicate directly with a willing sub conscious, your intention should be to programme this change so when it next appears in life, your subconscious awareness triggers a conscious and intentional response.

With difficult habbit changes as with many other mantras it can help to create a gesture or movement and do this with each repetition. This will serve as a symbol of the change which can be discreetly done in the day to day to reinforce your will and will be especially useful in changes to your social habbits for example as a trigger to overcome nerves of speaking in public.

As always, make your mantra positive, a command and relate it to something tangible in spacetime. If you find yourself distracted or overwhelmed then return to counting breath and try again later.

Some find great benefit in exact repetition counts or using beads to count or even adding all sorts of creative ritual to each meditation session. Some benefit from just going until it feels like enough wherever they happen to be parked. Again, there is no magic either way so see what works for you and lets get figuring this universe out and building heaven together.

Exercise the Fith! Mind/Memory Palace

The concept of memory palaces can be worked on in numerous ways but during meditation is probably the simplest way to build strong foundations.

1. Get comfy, count, find peace and maintain self awareness.

Stop counting and just focus on all aspects of your body, imagine it visually and in detail from the skin between your toes to the hairs in your nose. Don’t judge yourself and if distracted return to counting.

2. When you feel focused, it is time to switch this to the ground directly beneath your feet and visualise a room or space stretching out in all directions.

If you are blessed with creative imagination then choose for yourself the shape, materials and structures, building in fine detail but keeping the space reasonably bare.

If, like myself, you are not so naturally gifted in this way, then instead imagine a familiar place or even the very room you are in. It can even be helpful to have a sneak peak to give your imaginations version some clarity but make sure to empty the space of clutter and furniture that is non essential.

3. Spend some time in each of your meditation sessions to really focus and build your mental image of the room so there is not a shape or wave in the space that you don't know.

It can also help to add a specific gesture or movement when focusing to add ritual and help trigger your memories in daily life, though this is not essential.

In a short time, you will be able to recall this imaginary space at conscious will, any time.

4. From here you can begin to utilise the space in countless ways

For example you may add visual features to serve as reminders, add acronyms and memory stories to these in turn, or perhaps expand different room styles for different purposes. 

I always remember Derren Brown explaining how he plays multiple people at chess and such by assigning umbrellas to players and moving these around his mental room, where each guest has a specific seat. He sticks tags on for some, opens some of them up etc, to serve as different reminders. Lets be honest though, I think hes got more of a Memory empire by now.

I am in no way suggesting that this is a quick skill to learn but it is one that will never stop providing increased benefit and at very least can be used to pull of some cool memory tricks.