A collection of my best advice on meditation

I'm so glad that some of our conversations are on meditation. I have a number of questions that I get on meditation. Uh, what type? There are just many, many, many types of meditation, and I suppose they're probably almost all good.

I've only experienced Transcendental Meditation, but there's the type of meditation that I do, which is a mantra Transcendental Meditation. I think there are a number of them that have mantras, and the way it works is there's a sound that you repeat in your mind that takes your thoughts away from your thoughts and puts them into that sound. For example, "M" might be an example, and you repeat, and you sit there quietly and you repeat.

The greatest problem you're going to have is impatience. You're going to go into that state of meditation, and you're going to get restless, and that tells you you need to meditate. Because if you can't sit there and transcend and get rid of your thoughts, you're going to be in trouble. Think about the power that you have when you can go into that nothingness and experience that.

It's like going on vacation and also being given the gift of creativity and equanimity.

How did I learn to meditate? The Beatles taught me. Not, I mean, not literally; what they did is they went to India and they came back and they told everybody about Transcendental Meditation, and I thought, well, okay, that sounds cool. I'll try it. So I went to a place, a little townhouse where they taught meditation. I brought my flowers, I paid my fee, and so on, and I learned Transcendental Meditation. Thank God for it.

So when do I meditate? I meditate usually in the morning before breakfast, usually in the evening before dinner. I try to—I'm not always faithful to that—and then also when I have the need. You know, I can feel the difference between being centered and having that equanimity and not. When there's stress, when there's tension, when there are big things sometimes weighing on me, I then know I just need to go meditate.

I can go into some quiet spot and be there for 20 minutes, and it just goes all off me, all that. Then I come out of it, and I have a clarity and an equanimity that lets me deal with whatever it is.