Hi,
I am hearing two aspects of your spirit talking. One is telling you SFQ will help, and one is telling you that meditation is useless for you, because your mind flits around... The angel and devil on your shoulder so to speak...
Conciously align with that part of you that leads you to this practice. Comfort that part of you that doesn't want you to proceed. Assure it, that it will continue on and benefit from your practice. You've had a traumatic event in your life. Comforting your spirit/self as a whole, bringing into alignment with that sense of higher self/spirit, the part leading you this practice, will help. In the body, some focus on the heart area would be good too relative to the trauma of your accident. This is also relative to spirit.
The smile would be a good focus for you within the alignments/visualizations given. It is a good way to be, during, or meeting thoughts , or having thoughts. You are not your mind, and you spirit is where you can orient relative to mind. Also, the mind is not your opponent. See your overall practice allowing your mind to rest. Meet thinking , or respond to thinking with the smile, allowing, self love, compassion, forgiveness. Go to that focus. Don't think about thinking, or react to it. The smile can function as a way to keep neutralizing your feelings relative to the thoughts or relative to your reaction to thinking. The smile is a heart center deal, expression of love or compassion. It is a higher vibration than thinking, and employing it can lessen the flow of thinking. It sort of puts that higher vibration there, and that has an effect on the whole of you, the thinking, whatever..
Establish the ability to focus, and build on that. It's okay if it is only a minute or two. It is like building a muscle. Like Spiral says, start small. You either hold a focus, or not. You can not think and focus at the same time. When ever you find yourself lost in thought, simply go back to the focus. That is the practice. No additional reactions or self judgement regarding how well you do your practice.
When Master Lin says to "go into the emptiness", it is a gentle lead, not an absolute that has to be in place to achieve 'meditation'. You set up physical and spiritual alignments when you start your session. These remain constant. Your intention to do the work/practice has a momentum to it, that flows through the session, regardless of thoughts rising.
Again, the practice, thoughts rise, return to the focus, no reactions/opinions. Smile. Align with sense of higher self, loving, accepting, compassion, not the mind and thinking. Embrace all aspects of self and experience. No sense of something working against you. Include all aspects in that transformative smile or self love.
love, gallen
