For the past month or so I've been going to the local Zen center where almost all they do is meditate. Actively trying to achieve calmness as I've quickly discovered, is a sure fire way to get the opposite. The more you consciously *try* to be calm, the more thoughts and ''chatter'' you get in your mind. The way they start beginners off is to meditate by ''following the breath''. First of all you have to get your posture sorted out, which is very important because if you're not sitting properly then you will be in so much pain, and the general idea is you keep as still as possible. Even if you have an itch, you just ''be'' with the itch, noticing the sensations and not scratching it...as soon as you start scratching, your whole body seems to itch! You can sit on the floor, on a chair, it doesn't really matter. Zen people do ''kinhin'' too, which is like a form of walking meditation. There's more information on sitting here: http://www.mkzc.org/beginzen.html Once you're sat properly, which actually takes a bit of time to perfect from what I've experienced -- you half close your eyes, keeping them a little bit open, which has the advantage of letting enough light in to help prevent you from falling asleep and start to follow your breath. You count upwards, as soon as you have a thought that interrupts your breath, you gently let it go and start counting from the beginning again. Most beginners don't get past ''one'' so I'm told. I got to about 0.5! Don't try and squash your thoughts, or fight them, just notice them. I label the thoughts, e.g. ''That's a thought about dinner'' and then start to count again. Once you learn to follow your breath, and just notice your thoughts instead of actively engaging and thinking about them in depth, I find calmness follows. During my first session, I had about three 10 minute meditation attempts with the teacher, and then sat for 30 minutes with the rest of the group. After that I started to do the two thirty minute sessions on one of the evenings and about 10 minutes kinhin in between the two sessions. Most practitioners at the center do an hour a day. So in order to learn how to do this I'd recommend you start with about 10-15 minutes a day if you can manage it and then build your time up. Personally I still find 30 minutes too long to sit through. It is a bit boring at first, and it isn't really a quick fix, it takes time to be able to do well. I find I get quite frustrated if I don't feel as chilled out as everyone else looks. It does work with perseverance and practise though. That's one way of meditating and the only one I know much about, but I'm sure there are many more methods that you could explore if you wanted to.

Ok, first off... most of what I would say is already covered quite well in Carmella's answer, and it's well worth reading first: http://www.answerbag.com/a_view/1468964 Having some years of regular practice under my belt, I'll add some observations -- - It's a mistake to have a goal of "getting to a calm state", or "having thoughts clear your head". Those ideas are just more thoughts! They should be labeled or observed like any other thoughts. Your goal should just be to be as aware as possible. - The details of your moment-to-moment experience are what matters: thoughts, feelings, body sensations mostly. That's "interior stuff": the things which make up one's psychological content. Other sensory things like sounds and smells are good to notice too, but they're not as important in practice. - Regularity and persistence are crucial. This is a hard skill which takes time and effort to develop. If you want to run marathons, you have to do a lot of running, you can't just pop into the gym once a week and spend 10 minutes on the treadmill. The rewards for having solid meditation skill are enormous, but they don't come cheap. So most of what teachers do is expend a lot of energy exhorting people to keep at it, just as a coach keeps pressing the athlete to put out effort. In time, the effort pays off richly in many different ways, and there's no more worthwhile skill one can have, in my opinion. But each individual has to bring their own effort to the table: you have to want it enough to do the work and persist when the going is tough.

You kind of have to "sit back" in your mind and let your thoughts pass by without paying attention to them. It's much easier said than done, but just give it some time and try not to worry about when you will be calm. You just have to not think at all.

Edited Personally I am able to get very calm but I have difficulty quieting my mind. I mostly mediatate in a group which is much easier than alone. Although I am working on meditating at home. For the most part I part I just keep bringing my mind back to the meditation every time I realize that my thoughts have taken over. For me it is a really frustrating thing.