system
A chat on 4chan
human
I'd recommend a secular approach to meditation, to just learn the technique, without any believes attached. You can form your own believes later on based on what you experience with meditation and yourself. That's why I'm a big fan of mindfulness meditation.

For a beginner I'd advise to listen to guided meditation. palousemindfulness.com is an excellent two months long introduction course.

>How does an experienced anon meditate?
By getting aware of whatever it is I'm doing. For a unexperienced beginner starting with getting aware of your breathing is usually the way to go. But later you can meditate by simply being aware of whatever else you are doing at the present moment. Be it walking meditation or brushing your teeth in the morning meditation or enjoying delicious food meditation, this kind of mindfulness technique isn't limited to formal breath meditation practice.

>Or more specifically, what are you specifically trying to accomplish while doing it?
Getting aware of the present moment without judgment.

>Clear out your mind or focus on one specific simple task IE counting?
To learn and strenghten your awarness, focus on breathing in and out. Then getting aware that you failed to holding your awarness on your breath, not judging yourself but simply bringing your awareness back to your breath.
Akin to lifting, putting the weights up as long as you can and holding it up = getting aware of your breathing, putting the weights down again = drifting off in thoughts and feelings again, then getting aware of that fact, and gently bringing back your awareness to your breath again = putting the weight up again.
This way you literally train the awarness muscle in your brain, and get better at it each day, as long as you keep up the practice daily, you'll achieve results in about two months. 

>Or is it breathing in a certain way?
Simply getting aware of your breathing will suffice, how you breath isn't important.
gpt
This is good advice. In some form pretty much all meditation is about cultivating awareness and/or focus, and both are active processes. Think about what you want to achieve and find a method with some historical backing to it.