According to the Bible, how should Christians meditate?

Please excuse me for a large answer, in my opinion this question is really hard to answer in several words.

Althought there are many references to "meditation" in Bible, however, word "meditation" should be used very carefully here, to be not confused with meditation practice in eastern religions, such as Buddhism or Hinduism.

We Christians should listen to the Church, the only authority of faith on the Earth. And both Catholic and Orthodox Church warns about mixing prayer with any New Age practicies.

Catholic Church about meditation

Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on some aspects of Christian meditation

"This document of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith stresses the differences between Christian and eastern meditative approaches. It warns of the dangers of attempting to mix Christian meditation with eastern approaches since that could be both confusing and misleading, and may result in the loss of the essential Christocentric nature of Christian meditation.

The letter warns that "euphoric states" obtained through Eastern meditation should not be confused with prayer or assumed to be signs of the presence of God, a state that should always result in loving service to others. Without these truths, the letter said, meditation, which should be a flight from the self, can degenerate into a form of self-absorption. The letter warns against concentration on the self, rather than on Christ, and states that:

Christian prayer, ..., the communion of redeemed creatures with the intimate life of the Persons of the Trinity, based on Baptism and the Eucharist, source and summit of the life of the Church, implies an attitude of conversion, a flight from "self" to the "You" of God. Thus Christian prayer is at the same time always authentically personal and communitarian. It flees from impersonal techniques or from concentrating on oneself, which can create a kind of rut.

The letter also warns that concentration on the physical aspects of meditation "can degenerate into a cult of the body" and that equating bodily states with mysticism "could also lead to psychic disturbance and, at times, to moral deviations."

A Christian reflection on the New Age, a six year study by the Roman Catholic Church on the New Age movement

The document states that for Christians, the spiritual life is a relationship with God. It criticizes Eastern meditation and states that all meditation techniques need to be purged of presumption and pretentiousness. It states that Christian prayer is not an exercise in self-contemplation, stillness and self-emptying, but a dialogue of love, one which "implies an attitude of conversion, a flight from 'self' to the 'you' of God".

Orthodox Church about meditation

Easter meditation from the point of Orthodoxy and Science

The pursuit of imaginary grace of peace leads to irreparable spiritual losses: "painlessness of a heart dazzles the mind" (St. John of the Ladder, The ladder of divine ascent 7:13). We can find a confirmation of this idea in the words of St. Peter of Damascus: "Lowliness of mind is a product of intellect, and intellect is a product of temptations". Optina elder Hieroschemamonk Makarios said that if we want to be glorified with the Lord, then we must suffer with Him, we must suffer with everything that He wills send to us.

Orthodoxy and the Faith of Future, monk-priest Seraphim Exposes that Transcendental meditation, introduced in USA by Maharishi, contains secret initiation as a pagan Guru worshipping cult

Christian meditation

A great article on that point in Wikipedia lists several practical approaches:

• Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola

Within the Exercises, daily instructions include various meditations and contemplations on the nature of the world, of human psychology as Ignatius understood it, and of man's relationship to God through Jesus Christ. The Exercises is divided into "four weeks" of varying lengths with four major themes: sin, the life of Jesus, the Passion of Jesus and the Resurrection of Jesus. During each day of the Exercises, a typical retreatant prays with a particular exercise, as assigned by the director, reviews each prayer, and, following four or five periods of prayer, reports back to the spiritual director of the retreat who helps them to understand what these experiences of prayer might mean to the retreatant. The goal of the Exercises is to reflect upon their experiences and to understand how these same experiences might apply to the retreatant's life.

• Camino de Perfección (The Way of Perfection) of St. Teresa of Avila

Her starting point was the practice of "recollection", i.e. keeping the senses and the intellect in check and not allowing them to stray. In her meditations, one generally restricts attention to a single subject, principally the love of God. In The Way of Perfection she wrote: "It is called recollection because the soul collects together all the faculties and enters within itself to be with God". She would use devices such as short readings, a scene of natural beauty or a religious statue or picture to remind her to keep her focus. She wrote that in due course, the mind naturally learns to maintain focus on God almost effortlessly. St. Theresa viewed Christian meditation as the first of four steps in achieving "union with God", and used the analogy of watering the garden. She compared basic meditation to watering a garden with a bucket, Recollection to the water wheel, Quiet (contemplation) to a spring of water and Union to drenching rain.

• St. Francis de Sales

In the preparation part, one places oneself in the presence of God and asks the Holy Spirit to direct the prayer, as in the Epistle to the Romans[8:26]: "The Spirit helps us in our weakness, for we do not know what to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words." In the consideration part, one focuses on a specific topic, e.g. a passage from the Bible. In the affections and resolutions part, one focuses on feelings and makes a resolution or decision. For instance, when meditating on the Parable of the Good Samaritan one may decide to visit someone sick and be kind to them. In the conclusion part, one gives thanks and praise to God for the considerations and asks for the grace to stand by the resolution.

• 20th century

The 20th century has also witnessed a new focus on Biblical meditation. These may be defined as: "the devotional practice of pondering the words of a verse or verses of Scripture with a receptive heart." Modern Biblical meditations may be designed to relate and connect the Biblical message to the modern world. Such Biblical meditations may correspond to specific seasons such as Lent with the meditation topic selected to interact with two or three readings of the Bible during weekdays or Sundays of Lent. The meditation sequence may begin by a summary of the Bible reading, then suggest specific ideas for meditation, then conclude with an appropriat prayer. Such meditations may also be designed not just for "strong seasons" such as Lent or Easter, but also for Ordinary Time. In the 20th century methods of Christian meditations have been taught using relatively new devotions such as the Divine Mercy devotion.