Well personally I like to meditate it relaxes me etc. but I have a great amount of trouble focusing on things. Either i have to many thoughts race through my mind or I keep opening my eyes. I can't seem to keep them shut. It's actually kind of odd.. I guess because I get so relaxed I maybe forget to keep my eyes closed? I'm not sure but earlier today I tried to contact my spirit guide and because I couldn't keep my eyes shut I couldn't talk to her. I saw her come over to me and I tried to talk to her but it didn't work. I don't even know if that was my spirit guide or not? maybe what I perceived her to look like? Well i'm not sure but could anyone give me some techniques that could help out and let me stay in meditation longer?

Thank you. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Just keep meditating, that's normal at first.

Be strict on yourself, tell yourself you HAVE to meditate x amount of minutes/hours daily, and do not give in. Temptation is the devil.

Keep at it you'll begin to focus better. Try concentration exercises.

Keep trying, practice is a vital and lifelong part of meditation. Let me try and give you a pointed meditation. This is just breathing, thats all you do. Get into your spot for meditation and relax and than when you are ready clear your mind of all except concentration on your breath. You will have foreign thoughts come in. If its not something you choose to meditate on than just push that thought out of your mind let it go as if a boat sailing of in the distance. NEVER force away your thoughts. This is where time comes into play. Just continue to work on pushing the thoughts out of your head and focus (single pointed meditation) on the breathing. With this once you are capable of spending long amounts of time just breathing move on and let the breath go also. I would not even worry about what occurs ( like your guide) yet until you are under a solid foundation. Use the breathing as a tool for the single point and than like i said just let your breath slip off the point of the needle. And all will be still.
simple but probably the best way i can imagine to get the thinking and random thoughts from the subconcious under control.
Later you can pick a single thought out and meditate on it. Or even one tarot card or a crystal more scrying type meditations. But they all are "single pointed". Really the breathing is the most solid technique i think i will ever find.
As for your eyes when in meditation you can keep them slightly opened just look down a little (you should be anyways if in proper posture). And even completely open in the case of the tarot and crystal meditations.
In the long term it is good to spend time in your day just makeing sure you clear your mind of all things except what you are doing. If you take a shower spend the entire shower only in the moment your thoughts reside on only showering. This will allow for future meditations to get easyer and less interferance. The shaman call it stalking and it works with amazing speed if you do it regularly.

normally budhist practises say you should meditate with your eyes open, focused downward at an angle of 45 degrees.

This is to keep you from falling asleep. Also, it is more comfortable to keep your eyes slightly open.
However, you should look at things, just stare into the distance unfocused on what you are looking at.

Also Enochians meditation technique is a good one.
But you cannot literally push your thoughts away of course. When you notice other thoughts, just focus back onto the subject of your meditation.
If you are meditating on the breath, refocus on the breath. If you are meditating on your spirit guide, put your focus back to her.

Do not punish yourself for drifting in your thoughts. Just calmly refocus your thoughts, time and time again. Gently and calmly move your focus back to the topic of meditation.
Do not think bad of yourself if you start drifting in your mind, because that negative thinking is far worse than the drifting itself.
The same with your eyes, if it bother you during meditation, the feeling of being bothered is worse than the source itself.

In fact, this is always true. If during meditation there is something that troubles your mind, the troubles in the mind are far worse than the source for the troubles.
It is not the knocking on your door that disturbs your peace, it is the mind that responds to it that is the trouble.
Meditation is mainly about teaching you not to let the mind be disturbed. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/laugh.gif)

Ahhh yes you can push thoughts out of your mind. I meant exactly what you said though.Just bring your attention back to whatever your concentrating on. In certain instances its better to think on a topic that pops up. If it is something you have issues with that keeps comeing back to the front of your mind. Its better sometimes to sort out the issue in your mind before trying to get into a deep meditation. To the shaman this is called recapitulation. Its a way to clean your mind so there is really very little to intrude on your still dark waters. after much time you come to a point where all issues in life you face immediatly so it never returns.

This post has been edited by Enochian: Dec 22 2006, 03:16 PM