Meditation is Stretching
Most of the time when someone takes up meditation they are trying to quiet down the train of thoughts in their mind. While you can't really put an end to thinking there is a way to turn down the volume on our thoughts. We can do this by shifting away from viewing thoughts as the primary object of our attention and returning to physical sensation. Doing this puts thoughts in the background where they will continue on but not be as bothersome.So how does meditation return us back to feeling more physical sensation? Meditation is like stretching. When you are stretching or doing a yoga pose, you aren't trying to willfully cut off your thoughts. But you also are probably not thinking about your thoughts as much because you are concentrating on your form and posture. Meditation can be done basically the same way. It's mostly about feeling the raw physical information that we normally don't pay attention to.
Two methods have worked for me the best.
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While walking, pretend like you are feeling the ground with your feet. Investigate the texture of the pavement, the sound of your foot falls, the slope of the ground, which part of your foot hits the ground first, etc
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Focusing intently on any physical feelings you experience while breathing. These feelings could be in your abdomen, your ribcage, or the nostrils. In the beginning it might help to pick one spot in particular to focus on. This technique is particularly helpful because of how “portable” it is. You are (hopefully) always breathing so it can be done any time. I'm not sure why exactly, but breathing from your abdomen instead (of your chest) has an additional calming factor. Something to try is to check in on your breathing at random times during the day and make sure you are breathing from your belly.
Additionally in the school of Zen that I practice in (Soto Zen) one of the main meditation practices is called Shikantaza. This translates to "just sitting," as in you just sit in the prescribed posture and don't worry too much about your thoughts. Sitting in meditation this way, your main focus will be on your breathing and posture, not unlike how you might approach doing a proper yoga pose.
