7 tips to improve your meditation

1: Always meditate in the same place.
Set up a special place for your meditation. Either a quite room somewhere in your house, or if you are like me and your bedroom and living room are one and the same (I live in a monastery). Setup a special place in your room that is used for meditation/reading dharma only.
I have a place in my room where I have a low coffee, zabuton mat, cushion, and small book shelf.

2: Place a piece of soft fabric underneath the palms of your hands.
This one I got from a Tibetan yogi who spent more than 20 years meditating in the hills of Dharamsala.
Place a piece of soft fabric underneath the palms of your hands (if they are resting in your lap).
For monks and nuns just use your zen (the upper garment worn by monks and nuns of the Tibetan traditions).

3: Stop before you get tired.
If you stop your meditation session before you get bored and/or tired, you will be more likely to free enthusiasm for meditation the next time you start a session. This is actually a very important point! Just pushing ahead through sheer determination will only lead to tension! Which in turn will only lead to the deterioration of the quality of your meditation.

4: Encourage yourself.
Especially if you suffer from low self-esteem this point is particular important.
Encourage yourself when things are going well, if you are happy than you are in a greater position to be of benefit to others.
When you have a bad session, or you just can’t settle your mind, think about impermanence or use some other technique to lift the mind.
Everyone has bad sessions, this can be for health reasons, environmental reasons or it could be that you are just plain tired!�
Try to being encouraging by patting yourself on the back but, without letting pride and ego take over!
This will help develop the joy of meditation, remember it’s supposed to be fun.

5: Be Patient
Have realistic expectations of how your meditation prowess will improve.

If it was easy then we wouldn’t hear stories of yogi’s meditating in caves for 20 plus years.
Becoming a good mediator is very much like learning to become a musician. Would you expect yourself to learn the violin in 2 weeks?
Probably not, so be patient with yourself and continue to encourage yourself. It will happen it’s just a matter of time!

6: Becoming Regular
One of the keys to improving your meditation skill is having a regular meditation session. This includes a set time for sessions.
This holds true regardless of whether you are engaged in placement or insight practice. It is also true for study type meditations.
My teacher Geshe Thubten Loden has told me that meditating on the definition of Bodhichitta has unbelievable power in removing dysfunctional emotional states.

If you are new to meditation, you may find it difficult to meditate regularly. It seems as if you just can’t get it together.
Life get in the way, you are busy at work etc etc! This is in fact part of the process of becoming a meditate and this factor of instability will diminish over time. I have had to work and meditate myself, it’s not easy at first but don’t stop because of that.

7: Know you subject
Although this may seem obvious, it is important that you know deeply your subject matter.
Regardless of whether you are performing analytic or placement meditation the better you know the subject matter at hand the better you will be able to sustain a focused and insightful session.

Do you have a meditation tip?