I’m making a better effort to meditate, but I don’t know if I’m doing it right. Focusing on my breathing and releasing thoughts is hard and if I relax too much, I fall asleep.
If you have related issues when meditating, have you found better ways to meditate or alternatives that give you similar results?
First off, I would say to stop thinking about it as being easy or relaxing. It’s an active practice, and it takes a lot of work to get started.
In most mindfulness practices, you aren’t really trying to just empty your head and think of absolutely nothing the whole time - the point is more that you are intentionally focusing on one thing (your breath, or a candle flame, or the feeling of love or whatever), and when your mind wanders, which it will constantly, the whole practice is about recognizing that and bringing your focus back to where you want it to be. Boom, one rep. Your mind wanders again, you see that and bring it back. Another rep.
So the idea really is not that you are emptying your mind, but rather that you are training your focus to go where you want it to go, and eventually to stay there better.
It’s like training to hold a kettle bell at arms length. When you start off its just hard, and you won’t be able to do it long, but by putting the weight back up and trying again, you’re getting stronger in those muscles, and the next time you can do it longer. Similarly, you can really only train so much at once, and you’re going to need to take a break and come back again later. In many ways, that’s the reps that you are doing, which is to come back to the practice again after being away. You do all you can for one day, and then when you come back and sit down the next day, boom that’s a rep.
It’s a thing that doesn’t really get easier, you just get better at doing it.
Your focus is a muscle, and you’re probably not used to training on it so specifically. Much like how if you go out and play a sport or just roughhouse with some friends, you’re using your muscles and getting stronger, but you’re not specifically training your muscles, and that type of training will only make you so strong. If you want to be able to bench press 200 lbs or whatever, you’ll almost certainly never be able to do that just by playing a lot of baseball at the park; you need to go to a gym and use the equipment in a very particular way. Similarly, if you want your focus muscle to be able to instantly drill down and focus on a particular thing and hold it without wavering, then you need to sit in zazen and practice directing and holding your focus, and the breath is the perfect target for that - largely because it is truly boring, but it’s always there, and you can feel it, and you will know exactly when you are not focused on it.
The kinda side benefit of making that focus muscle strong is that you get way better at using it without even trying. You’ll be able to at least be present in the moment with minimal or zero effort as your practice develops, and then down the road you’ll be able to achieve the full meditative state at will, even just standing in line at the grocery store or when you are experiencing something you really want to be present for. It gets hard to turn off, eventually. By that point you’ll know what to do with it, but you will definitely not be the same.
I wanted to comment on this to reiterate that meditation is like exercise. Most likely you’re not going to be good at at at first - you’re flexing a “concentration muscle” in a way it’s not used to. So at the beginning it is good to not expect it to be a walk in the park. But one should stick with it regardless. Set a realistic time for meditation, perhaps don’t meditate for too long at the start. And progress may take a while. It’s like starting exercising or learning an instrument.
And also, as the comment says, don’t think of it as forcing your mind to be empty or forcing yourself to think of nothing. If you are trying to stop thoughts then you’ll set yourself up for some disappointment at first and you will likely start forming judgement statements about yourself as being “bad” at meditating.
Instead of forcing thoughts to stop, take a brief notice of the thoughts that comes up and then let them pass without indulging in them - so don’t judge them when they arise and don’t follow where they want to take you - and use your breath as an anchor. And those thoughts may even be statements like “Ahhh! Why can’t I focus!”, if so then try to look at it like objectively like a scientist studying the mind. You can say “Ah, there’s anger”, and then don’t follow up with it, don’t indulge it, just go back to your breathing. Another thought will sure to happen, just return to the breath.
Everytime you notice that your mind has wandered go back to your breath, and that’s a “rep” like CarbonConscious said. And you know what, you’re gonna be doing a lot of reps! Because you’re new to meditation you’re mind is naturally going to wander very quickly. That’s normal, don’t judge yourself for it. It’s a new exercise for this muscle. In fact, every time you notice you are mind wandering you are improving that muscle. So you shouldn’t be upset if you mind wander. If you start judging yourself, good or bad, also just take note and don’t indulge and return to the breath. Everytime you notice it and focus back on the breath you are flexing that muscle.
There was an earlier post where others give their advice on how to meditate that I’ll post in case you find it interesting, meditation on the breath is very common, but there are other forms of meditation too: https://hexbear.net/post/3451587