No. We should always be focusing on something in meditation, this is called our object of meditation. We can prepare our mind for meditation by focusing on a neutral object such as the breath but actual meditation involves focusing on and familiarising our mind with a virtuous object, for example love or compassion. By familiarising our mind with these objects inside meditation we will be able to keep a positive and happy mind outside of meditation more easily, and we will notice over a period of time that our mind starts to change on a deeper level.

Because meditation is a training of the mind it is better to remove external distractions, such as music so that we are able to focus more clearly on the inner development of transforming and changing our mind.

Getting our mind completely still and distraction-free requires practise, patience and familiarity. It is very common for distractions to arise in meditation. During the meditation session we can practise reducing mental busy-ness by returning our mind back to our main object of meditation whenever we notice it has become distracted. Outside of meditation we can train in reducing our daily distractions so that when we sit down to meditate we notice that our mind is naturally more calm and clear.