How do I know which kind of meditation is best for me

Now there's different kinds of meditation. Somebody says hi I'm looking at a candle and.

Somebody else is saying what's the sound of one hand, clapping or whatever, I mean? What's the difference. Really, in them, an what distinguishes them or what's in advantage? How do I know which one. I want to do it's a matter of trial and error. I would say you read about the different traditions and you see which way of working appeals to you intellectually.

You also check out different teachers see their teaching style their personality their emphasis. Some they're all different summer very heartfelt. Some are very intellectually clear and precise yeah. I'm more. The as TS Eliot would have said the sharp compassion of the Healers Art and maybe a little bit.

Less on the heartfelt side, but

Everybody has their specialty so you check out the intellectual model are you check out the personality of the teacher or teachers. You can have more than one teacher so their confusing. It depends some People are not for some People that is confusing. But some People are naturally by spiritual or Poly. Spiritual yeah, you can be buyer. Poly for those People. It's not confusing so there is.

The main difference in the different meditation traditions is what do they have you focus on? How do they have you build the concentration now typically concentration power? Is built by giving somebody an object to focus on and then when their attention. Wanders they bring it back and then it monitors again and they bring it back over and over again. Now I see typically because there are exceptions. Where you don't actually have an object that you focus on but that's

Pretty specialized most forms of meditation will give you an object so most of them in object could you tell me a very good a sensory experience of some sort so give you a range of possibilities. Typical sensory experiences a person might focus on are the physical sensations of breathing.

OK, OK, which would be a body sensation that is specific in physical that so the physical sensation of breathing is one common object external sound is another common object. You can do it with music for example, some People do a music based meditation focus on the sound itself. The meditation on the sound of the music another thing another sensory experience could be as you mentioned.

Something that's external site like a flower or a candle your attention wanders you bring it back on the object could be an internal sound of a mantra, which is any syllable word phrase sentence that you repeat over and over again. That could be an object. It could be an internal image. For example, some People like to visualize like a sphere of light or?

Something like that that they would look look at or like a blank extent of brightness or darkness, so that would be image type thing, which one of these you do is there an advantage to looking at a sphere of light versus listening to music or let me list. A few more and then we'll talk about the relative advantages and disadvantages. Let's see so we could have touch we could have sight sound we could have mental image.

We could have an internal talk, but in the form of a syllable or word or sentence that is repeated over and over again, which would tend to cool out talk space. You know your internal chattering so that's called mantra in Sanskrit, but the Christians used it to most of the traditions used it so that image. Talk and you could even focus on an emotional sensation like a pleasant emotional feeling in your body like love or something like that.

So certain kinds of physical touch is site external sites external sounds mental images certain kinds of internal talk certain kinds of emotional feeling the body would be typical objects that a person might take as a concentration everything potentially anything because you're training. Generic skill so you do have it does have to be based on sensory experience. You pick a sensory experience your attention will wander it will be pulled elsewhere. You bring it back and wander bring it back each time you bring it back it's life.

Lifting await your strengthening your muscles you may get tired. But in the end your muscles get strong if you do that consistently that's how most kinds of meditation work not every kind. There are some formless kinds. But most kinds of meditation will give you an object your attention wanders you bring it back as to the advantages and disadvantages. I would say it very much depends on what appeals to you and what works for you as a person.

So try out to see somebody like sound so would someone move from one to another like say today. I want to listen to music and tune into that experience and if my mind, wanders I come back to the music and maybe tomorrow. I want to watch this.

Light in front of my eyes and I mean, or did someone pick. One thing that they're doing in that that's what you do every day to build this muscle of concentration excellent question. It depends on the tradition. You're working it because each meditations are organized into systems.

And each system has an internal consistency.

That is designed for it, so in some systems. You'll be encouraged to like OK. It can be today. This tomorrow that based on some sort of algorithm in other systems. It will be a much more monolithic. No matter what you always do this kind of thing like the breath I've heard a lot of People who do nothing then. That's the answer to the question what should I focus on is easy, it's always the same.

No matter what comes up gently return to the breath sensation in your abdomen nostril wherever so it very much depends on the internal consistency of the meditationes system that a person is practicing in the teacher or teachers will tell you how to make those decisions and why and every meditation teacher should be willing and able to explain to you.

Why they ask you to do things in a certain way?