If you were going to teach meditation to beginners . . . ?

I teach centering prayer at my church, which is fairly similar to Zen meditation in how it is practiced. The advice I give is the advice I wish I'd learned when I first started meditating many years ago: don't be hard on yourself. It's okay to have the odd intrusive thought, or to find it difficult to sit still. Forgive yourself for it. There's no such thing as a "good thought" to have or a "bad thought" to have - they're just thoughts. In that respect, I advise people to follow the Bob Ross philosophy: that is, to treat them as happy accidents.

There is an app I'm getting into called Happify. I would look into the processes of meditation outlined there. It's quite good, and is free.

If you are interested in material for this I can say that the book Mindful teaching and Teaching mindfulness was great for me.

MadHatter wrote: If you are interested in material for this I can say that the book Mindful teaching and Teaching mindfulness was great for me.

Oh yeah, thank you for reminding me about this. I actually have a bit of spare in the ol' bank account this week to pick up a copy.

Just sit still and try to pay attention to your senses.

I've taught meditation to children... Usually guided imagery stuff seems easier as a starting point in that case. Even if the imagery is just imagining your muscles relaxing into the floor so you feel like ice cream melting, heh