How do I start meditating at home - what exactly do I do for the first 10-20 minutes?
New question - under review
Sit down, straighten your back, know your breathing, and bring the mind back to it when it wanders off. Part of that is in the suttas, part is modern practical scaffolding, and the difference is marked below.
From the suttas. MN 118 sets the frame like this: the practitioner goes to the forest, to the root of a tree or to an empty hut, sits down cross-legged, holding the body erect, having established mindfulness in front; mindful he breathes in, mindful he breathes out. The first four steps: breathing in long, he understands that the breath is long; the same for short; he trains in breathing in and out experiencing the whole body (sabbakāya - read both as the physical body and as the whole process of breathing); he trains in calming the bodily formation (kāyasaṅkhāra, that is, the breath itself). The sutta assigns no duration, only development and repeated cultivation (bhāvitā, bahulīkatā).
The modern scaffolding, without which it is hard to start at home:
- Ten minutes on a timer, at the same time of day. These numbers are not canonical, they are simply convenient at the start.
- A chair is a modern adaptation. Pick a stable posture you can sit in calmly, and shift position if it hurts. Feet on the floor, hands on your knees, eyes closed or gaze lowered.
- Find the place where the breath is most noticeable - nostrils, chest or belly - and stay with it. MN 118 names no such spot; this is a later device.
- Do not adjust the breath, notice what it is doing.
- The mind will wander into plans and conversations. You notice, you come back. There is no sutta formula for this either, but it is what the practice consists of in the first weeks. Arguing with yourself about it (“distracted again”) adds nothing.
What to expect. The five hindrances (pañca nīvaraṇāni): sensual desire (kāmacchanda), ill will (vyāpāda), dullness and drowsiness (thīna-middha), restlessness and remorse (uddhacca-kukkucca), doubt (vicikicchā). MN 10 prescribes knowing, for each of them, whether it is present, how it arose, how it is abandoned and how it does not arise again. So drowsiness and restlessness on the cushion are not a sign of failure but the material the sutta tells you to work with directly. A collected mind is a result of practice, not the ticket into it, and measuring your first weeks against descriptions of the jhānas is pointless.
Breathing is not the whole of it. To Rāhula (MN 62) the Buddha gives the practice that is like earth, water, fire, air and space, the four immeasurables - goodwill, compassion, appreciative joy, equanimity - contemplation of the unattractive, perception of impermanence, and only then the detailed practice of mindfulness of breathing. If the breath brings on anxiety or tension, a common later approach is to begin with goodwill (mettā): wishing well to yourself, then to people you know. MN 62 says to develop mettā in order to abandon ill will, but gives neither a formula of wishes nor that sequence, and it does not suit everyone.
A safety note. Meditation does not replace treatment. In acute psychosis, mania or a suicidal crisis, urgent professional help is what is needed; if your state noticeably worsens, stop practising on your own and go to the clinician treating you. With panic attacks, trauma or severe depression, agree the format with your specialist and stay away from intensive solo sessions and long retreats. Our club reads suttas; it replaces neither a doctor nor a meditation teacher.
Where to read: MN 118, MN 10, MN 62.