Do you practice any form of meditation?

I started meditating when I was 19, and have been meditating more or less consistently (less at the beginning, more later on) for the past 6, going on 7 years.

I grew up Mormon, and when I left I started studying different religions because I wanted to both understand people and come to a satisfying conclusion that they were as empty of truth as Mormonism. I looked into Christianity generally, Islam, Baha'i, Sikhism, Jainism and Buddhism. Probably more as well, but those are the ones I remember most. But it was reading the Dhammapada, a Theravadan Buddhist text of short sayings of the Buddha, that kind of shocked me out of how I was approaching it all. Previously I had been trying to disprove everything, but suddenly I saw that it actually held value. This is what led me to decide to meditate.

So one night I walked across the street from my apartment complex out into this area that had some hills and almost no development. There were some construction vehicles, and for some reason I decided to sit on a big pile of gravel. I had done very little research on how to meditate, I didn't count or follow my breath. If I had to compare it to any kind of meditation I'm aware of now, it was probably most similar to either shikantaza, or Dzogchen or Mahamudra present moment awareness. I sat there for the next 20-30 minutes and that was enough to convince me how useful and powerful it was.

I continued studying Buddhism, but I had no intention of being a Buddhist for a long time. I started out studying Theravada because it seemed the most down to earth and least superstitious (as time has gone on I've seen that that's not necessarily true). During this time I moved north, across the state I live in. At the time I had family and friends there and I had access to a pretty great library, and that got me into Zen and Mahayana more generally. This is around the time where I started to consider becoming a Buddhist. Then I tried reading the Lotus Sutra and that sent me the other way (I definitely wasn't ready for the more religious elements). But something made me stick with it and I kept studying Buddhism. Eventually every single one of my family and friends moved out of the area for one reason or another. So I moved back down to where I was before because I was getting really lonely.

I kept studying Mahayana in general and Zen in particular. That's when I learned about Pure Land Buddhism, and I guess what you could call voice meditation (Pure Land practices the nembutsu; it is comparable to mantra meditation but it is a little different). This was the first time I really heavily considered becoming a Buddhist. Although I had previously lived in a city that had lots of Buddhist sanghas, when I moved back "home" I was moving back to a place that had no Buddhist presence to speak of at the time, outside of a Buddhist reading group.

About two years went by and I decided to officially become a Buddhist. I had become aware of certain groups that held refuge ceremonies with the help of technology (by phone, internet broadcast/Skype etc. as well as a thriving community on Second Life of all places). So I took refuge in August of 2018, and by chance I ran into a Buddhist sangha 15 minutes away from me that had just started up about a year before. So I checked it out. It was a Tibetan Buddhist group that was associated with a well established group up north where I'd lived before. I took refuge again in December of that year, and I've practiced with that group ever since. Honestly, having a teacher involved in a traditional practice has been very helpful to me; I think too many people write that kind of thing off because of fears of religion, which, while understandable, in my opinion often gets in the way of actually learning about meditation and developing a practice in a significant way. I'm not saying everyone should be a Buddhist, but most groups will allow you to practice with them without being a member. Often when people try to figure it out on their own, they get frustrated, don't get anywhere with it, or even hurt themselves (remember when you're meditating you're dealing with your mind and literally rewiring your brain. Meditation can be harmful without guidance, particularly for people who have mental health conditions).

The Tibetan tradition has an amazingly wide array of techniques and meditation practices. All the major categories of Buddhism ended up there, so Tibetan Buddhism contains teachings and practices belonging to the Hinayana, Mahayana and Vajrayana varieties, and they all converge into one school (actually there are 4 schools of Tibetan Buddhism, but they all individually contain Hinayana, Mahayana and Vajrayana). So rather than listing one thing I practice it is more accurate to make a list. Tibetan practices include:

counting the breath, following the breath, focusing on an object (like a statue or painting) for shamatha/concentration meditation

physical yogas

Lojong/mind trainings

metta/loving kindness/exchanging self and others meditation, where you visualize your breath taking blessings out to people while taking there sufferings into yourself.

mantras, visualization and Dzogchen/Mahamudra

Most formal practices will have any number of these meditations, and they often contain or are directly involved with each other. For example, any mantra will have a visualization, and after any mantra and visualization comes Dzogchen or Mahamudra practice (these are referred to as creation, perfection and dissolution stages), although Dzogchen can sometimes be practiced on its own. There are lots of other practices as well, like walking meditation and sky gazing. Another common thing is to combine walking, mantra, breath and visualization. So for example, for every breath you might take one step, and say one recitation of the mantra while holding a visualization. You might hold a mala (prayer beads) in one hand, and move up a bead each time you say the mantra, while in the other hand you spin a prayer wheel.

Tibetan Buddhist practices often try to engage you as much as possible, so you're using both your hands, you're using your mouth/speech, you're moving your feet and you're focusing your mind on both the mantra and the visualization, as well as all the movement. In this way your mind is totally focused and it is almost impossible to get distracted.

As far as my own practice, I do ngondro as well as some sadhanas, all of which includes an assortment of the practices listed above. I also still do a little nembutsu practice from my Pure Land days. This went a lot longer than I meant it to, but it was nice reflecting where I am and where I've been.