The short answer to the question is ‘no’. You cannot ‘do’ meditation.
Meditation is a state that may or may not occur as a result of practicing meditative techniques that prepare the body-mind to cultivate the possibility of meditation. So we do not do the meditation, we simply do the technique.
You can’t get this wrong
Many of my students have heard the stories of my initial experiences in ‘doing’ meditation. The common thread through these stories is a feeling of physical discomfort, the sense of not being good enough or of failure, the presence of more thoughts than usual seeded by those feelings of doubt, and of distraction followed by irritation at those distractions. These were certainly not peaceful experiences.
If you, like many others, have felt you are not ‘doing’ it right, this knowledge can let you off the hook. It makes it less complex, less daunting and more approachable to know that, since I cannot ‘do’ the meditation itself and I can only ‘do’ the technique, then my mind can stop telling me that I’m getting it wrong.
Whatever the meditation technique you have chosen is, does it feel right to you? Does it feel restful and peaceful? If so, keep it up with regularity, with focus and with no fear of failure, then see where you end up. And check in with your trusted teacher often to ensure that the technique you are using is right for you.
Might this make you more likely to sit down in a peaceful place, comfortably, and spend time relaxing the body and following something simple like a breath technique? I hope so since that’s all there is to ‘do’.
