Oddly enough, I was just reading a text from an old Buddhist monk (Ajahn Lee) that touches on some of these things. I'll drop a passage that seems relevant to your situation:
When you sit and meditate, even if you don't gain any intuitive insights, make sure at least that you know this much: When the breath comes in, you know. When it goes out, you know. When it's long, you know. When it's short, you know. Whether it's comfortable or uncomfortable, you know. If you can know this much, you're doing fine. As for the various thoughts and concepts (sañña) that come into the mind, brush them away — whether they're good or bad, whether they deal with the past or the future. Don't let them interfere with what you're doing — and don't go chasing after them to straighten them out. When a thought of this sort comes passing in, simply let it go passing on. Keep your awareness, unperturbed, in the present.
The goal isn't to have no thoughts; it's to not get caught up in them. Otherwise you may get carried away to painful memories from the past or drift off into a future that may never occur.
Other people here have mentioned meditation methods but I'd also like to point out that meditation is a skill set. Try not to get too discouraged if it's tough at times; just keep at it and eventually it gets easier. I'm sure at one point in time you had trouble reading and writing English and yet here you are doing both so well that you can communicate effectively with other people. Once you had the basics down it just took practice to get to that level.
I second this, i'd also like to add that you cant really "do" meditation badly, it was described to me like this: when you're sitting and you notice your mind has wandered, that's like doing a rep. A lot of times I would think that noticing I was thinking a lot meant I was bad at meditation because that means I was getting distracted a lot. But that moment when you notice your own thoughts - whatever the content of them may be - that's what meditation is all about. Its definitely something that you get better at with time though so keep at it!
Oddly enough, I was just reading a text from an old Buddhist monk (Ajahn Lee) that touches on some of these things. I'll drop a passage that seems relevant to your situation:
The goal isn't to have no thoughts; it's to not get caught up in them. Otherwise you may get carried away to painful memories from the past or drift off into a future that may never occur.
Other people here have mentioned meditation methods but I'd also like to point out that meditation is a skill set. Try not to get too discouraged if it's tough at times; just keep at it and eventually it gets easier. I'm sure at one point in time you had trouble reading and writing English and yet here you are doing both so well that you can communicate effectively with other people. Once you had the basics down it just took practice to get to that level.
I second this, i'd also like to add that you cant really "do" meditation badly, it was described to me like this: when you're sitting and you notice your mind has wandered, that's like doing a rep. A lot of times I would think that noticing I was thinking a lot meant I was bad at meditation because that means I was getting distracted a lot. But that moment when you notice your own thoughts - whatever the content of them may be - that's what meditation is all about. Its definitely something that you get better at with time though so keep at it!