Meditation researcher here (stopped research when i realized the methods for studying research that would be accepted for publication basically yielded little or no useful information)
Try this:
Count "1" as you inhale, Exhale without counting, then count "2" on your next inhale. Continue to 10 and go back to 1. If you lose track at any point, start over.
I assume the 8 week program, including the half day retreat, was the basic structure that Jon Kabat Zinn created decades ago. This means the subjects were doing breath awareness meditation.
I've consistently, over decades, met people who had done breath meditation for years, convinced they were meditating well, and asked them to do the counting meditation.
Very few could do it for more than a few minutes without losing track.
yet virtually all the traditional texts say you haven't really reached the first stage of meditation (first stage in terms of its effectiveness) until you can consistently meditate for at least 24 minutes following the breath, without getting absorbed in thoughts.
I guarantee you, if you can't do the counting meditation for more than a few minutes, you can't possibly stay focused on the breath for more than a few minutes, much less 24 minutes.
Jack Kornfield, among numerous other world-famous teachers, declares that ancient texts claiming it's possible to completely silence the verbal mind, are making this up. According to his experience, it's simply impossible.
Well, this is nonsense. In the last several years, borrowing in particular from texts describing a form of effortless awareness, have been used to help people develop perfect silence of the mind within a matter of several months.
I think it's astonishing, given the extraordinarily limited methods of meditation that are usually taught, that scientists have found any benefits to meditation. It's a testament to the amazing potential of meditation that there have been any effects. But nobody should assume the limited effectiveness found in meditation research is a reflection of anything more than the limitations of much if not most modern meditation teaching AND the limitations of most meditation research methodology.
www.RememberToBe.Life