Learning to meditate without a guide or guided meditation is a useful skill. Although guided meditations absolutely have a place in practice, meditating with silence has its benefits as well. I covered this more in my post Guided Meditation vs. Silent Meditation: Which is Right for You?
I’ll offer some tips below on how to meditate without a guide. We’ll cover the basics, the structure, and how to investigate for yourself what is useful. I’ll also address some common challenges people face when trying silent meditation periods, and the pros and cons of unguided meditation.
Steps to Meditate Without a Guide
When we meditate with a guide, we really just have to show up and follow along. Without a guide, it can be difficult to know exactly what we’re doing. This is one of many reasons meditation can feel hard at first. Below are a few things to consider and steps to take to try meditating without any guidance.
Find the Right Time and Place
The first step is choosing where and when to meditate. You may not have the “perfect” place or time to meditate, and that’s okay. Try to choose somewhere that is relatively quiet, private, and free from other people. We cannot avoid all stimuli, but we also don’t need to sit in a way that directly sets us up to be distracted.
As I cover in this post, choosing the time of day can make a difference. Research suggests morning meditators build the habit more easily. But some people find the afternoon or evening to be more beneficial. Investigate for yourself how the mind feels at different times of the day when you meditate.
Choose a Practice
Before beginning your sit, you need to know what you’re doing. You can choose open awareness, concentration, compassion, loving-kindness, or whatever you feel you need in this moment. We benefit from having an idea of what we’re doing. But we also don’t need to hold too tightly to our ideas.
For example, you may set out to practice with open awareness. During your practice, a painful experience or memory comes up. You don’t need to stick with open awareness just because you chose that at the beginning. If self-compassion feels useful in that moment, be willing to adjust.
Connect with Intentions
This is something I encourage all of my mindfulness coaching students to investigate. It’s a common practice in many Mahayana traditions, and I find it useful. You don’t need to set an intention or create one. Simply pause and connect with existing intentions. Why are you meditating? What brings you to practice today?
Find Your Comfortable Posture
Finding the “right” posture for meditation is tricky for many people. You don’t have to sit cross-legged to meditate. In fact, you don’t have to sit in any way at all to meditate. Find a way to meditate that feels useful to you. Maybe it’s lying down, standing, or walking.
Consider the purpose of traditional meditation postures. They are commonly used because they support mindfulness and compassion. So investigate for yourself what is conducive to practice. Don’t sit in a way that is useful for someone else’s practice. Pay attention to your own body.
Begin by Settling
The first thing we do when beginning a meditation period is settle. I cannot tell you how to do this; everybody settles slightly differently. If you’ve listened to guided meditations extensively, perhaps you know what works for you. It may be a few minutes of working with the breath, doing a brief body scan, or offering some phrases of loving-kindness.
Remember that we don’t need to stop thinking during meditation. The goal isn’t to completely quiet the mind. We just need to allow some space to arrive where we are. Don’t resist whatever is present. The task in settling is to create space for what’s happening and arrive, not change it.
Move Into Your Practice
When you feel settled, it’s time to move into your practice. Whatever you chose as your practice for the day, move into it. Remember your intention, and what you set out to do. As mentioned, if you feel the need to change practice, feel free to do so. This is one of the benefits of meditating without a guide!
Recognize When the Mind Wanders
When awareness is lost, recognize what the mind is doing. These moments are crucial in our practice, and help us get to know the habits and patterns of the mind. Remember you don’t have to clear your mind to meditate. If the mind is active, so be it! Know the active mind.
A good practice to incorporate here if you’re not already doing so is mental noting. This is the practice of simply labeling what is present in awareness. In the case of a wandering mind, you might simply note “thinking” or “daydreaming.” These labels help us recognize what is happening without identifying so strongly with the experience.
Create Space to Come Out
As you move toward the end of your meditation period, create some space to come out of formal practice. You might return to the body for a bit, open the eyes and mindfully take in the visual field, or begin to move the body. Don’t come out of meditation too quickly! You don’t want to just plop yourself out of meditation and back to daily life.
Pause and Reflect
This is one of many things we can do after meditating. We so often stop meditating and just return to daily life. Instead, take a moment to reflect. You don’t need to qualify the period as good or bad. But what did you learn? Was there anything interesting that happened? You might keep a mindfulness journal nearby and jot a few thoughts down.
Common Challenges When Meditating Without a Guide
Meditating without a guide can bring a new set of challenges. Guided meditations can help us stay focused, know what we’re doing, and keep the mind engaged. Here are a few common challenges people face and what we might do with them.
Mind-Wandering
Without guidance to keep you on track, you might find it difficult to focus during meditation. That’s okay! Just know that. You might choose a practice that has a lot of structure, allow more space for settling, or simply know the reactions in the mind to the wandering. Below is a video from my YouTube where I cover mind-wandering a bit more.
Wondering If You’re Doing it Right
Without structured guidance, you may wonder if you’re meditating correctly. This is not a question I can really answer. The best answer is another question: are you aware of what is arising in your experience? That’s what we’re doing in insight meditation. Whatever practice or technique you choose, you can know you are meditating correctly if you are continually working toward awareness of what is arising and passing.
You also might check in with the hindrance of doubt. One of the Five Hindrances, doubt is seen as the most difficult one to overcome. It’s natural to doubt our practice or the teachings. And healthy questioning is helpful. But self-criticism and doubt don’t serve us. Observe the doubt and again watch the mental reaction.
Sleepiness and Boredom
Boredom is a common experience in meditation, and sleepiness happens to nearly all of us. My best advice is to bring in the energizing factors of the Seven Factors of Awakening: investigation, effort, and joy. Below is a recording from my online meditation group, Thursday Morning Meditation, in which we cover this hindrance of sloth and torpor in slightly more detail.
Anxiety or Restlessness
Another of the Five Hindrances, restlessness and anxiety are common. They can arise from so many causes. If it becomes overwhelming, you can stand up and do walking meditation. You also can consider switching to a self-compassion practice. And over time, we can work to cultivate samadhi and a calm collectedness of mind. Don’t judge your practice based on the presence of anxiety!
Is Guided or Unguided Meditation Better?
This is just not a question that can be answered. The Buddha taught different practices to different people. Guidance works for some people, while silence is more supportive for others. And over time, one’s needs may change. I encourage you, much like many aspects of the path, to really investigate. What feels useful to you?