Carmen Vaughan: Hi, I am Carmen Vaughan and I am here today to show you how to meditate quickly and easily. So what exactly is meditation? The most concise definition I have come across is this, meditation is consciously directing your attention in order to alter a state of consciousness. Meditation is a discipline wherein you focus your attention on an object of thought or awareness. By stopping the normal thought process and freeing the mind of its scattered thoughts and usual patterns, a different mode of thinking is achieved. Simply put, meditation is really about attention. Today I am going to be teaching you a kind of meditation called Mindfulness Meditation, there are many ways of doing Mindfulness Meditation but all of them involve two essential components.

The first is eliminating distractions by focusing the attention on an object, a thought or awareness and that could be many things. It could be a sound or a word called the mantra. It could be your own breath, it could be visual images or symbols. The second component of meditation is relinquishing control over the process, adapting an attitude of easy acceptance. It is a good idea to keep these two things in mind when you are getting started to meditate. Now that I have talked about what meditation is, I would like to talk a little bit about what meditation is not.