It’s not uncommon at all. When I got to have a one-on-one meditation instruction session with Richard Reoch, one of my Buddhist role models, he told me “now, don’t worry if you find your mind wandering a lot when you get started. It’s perfectly normal. Once you’ve been practicing for 30 years like I have you might find that your mind will stay with the meditation object for longer, maybe even a minute or two.”

At first I thought I had heard him wrong, then I realised he was serious and I burst out laughing! The mind is hardwired to wander. Learning to find the stillness and refuge that comes from neither attaching to or judging those wanderings seems to be the beautiful secret of meditation.