I have an irregular breathing pattern and it is hard to concentrate on my breath.

Can I replace my focus with a mantra like Om mani padme hum instead?

[slowsnake]

Hello,just concentrate on a black screen,any thoughts come across the blackness like coloured mists,just mentally move them on,eventually you are the screen,eventually you become the screen,its sort of "scrying" without a crystal ball or black mirror.

Kind Regards Billy.

[Gem]

Originally Posted by FrankieJG

Can I replace my focus with a mantra like Om mani padme hum instead?

I guess - anyone can do whatever they want.

How long have to been practicing meditation.

[Dan_SF]

Everything, what brings your thoughts to stop works.

Meditation is to attain the peace of the mind. Breathing are only concentration exercises.

The state which you want to attain during a meditation is this:

Use a gong, or some music, which does the sound of the gong. the sound has to come once, and to vibrate into nothingness.

Now try to listen to the Gong. And try to hear the exact moment, where the vibrations stop.

Notice, how while listening to all this, your thoughts seems to be vanished.

This is the state, which you want to attain, and prolong in the meditation.
It can be helpfull to tell yourself, that you like this state, because it is an formal invitation of it.

God bless you.