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How to Meditate: Meditation 101 for Beginners
10 Science-Backed Benefits of Meditation
What is Meditation?
How to Meditate: Meditation 101 for Beginners
10 Science-Backed Benefits of Meditation
What is Meditation?
Benefits of Mindfulness: Mindful Living Can Change Your Life
Mindfulness 101: A Beginner's Guide
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Allow yourself to feel the joy of resting in the sensations of your body and the flow of your breath.
Let's start by finding a comfortable
posture for this practice, whether
in the traditional seated position
or in some other position that
feels comfortable for you right now.
May be lying down or otherwise.
This practice will support you in
cultivating joy and exploring how
self-compassion practices can help
you sustain joy in your own life.
So let's begin by becoming aware
of the sensations of the body
in the posture you've chosen.
And inviting the mind to rest
on the sensations of the body,
as it rests in contact with
the seat or other structure.
And through all of that, the ground below.
And letting the mind rest on
the sensations, perhaps gently
noticing the sensations of the
in-breath as you breathe in.
And the out-breath as you breathe out.
And perhaps taking one or two deeper than
normal breaths for you to support you and
allowing the mind to just come home to
the sensations of breathing and sitting.
And resting on the sway of the flow
of the in-breath or the out-breath.
Wherever you happen to find
yourself in this moment, and then
continuing to follow along gently.
Allowing attention to rest in
breathing in and breathing out.
And as you breathe in and out,
and notice the way in which
impact of breathing can be known.
Or just sensing into the breath itself and
what it feels like for you in this moment.
Noticing as you breathe in and out,
perhaps one subtle way in which the
breathing in and affects the sense of
the body and the mind in this moment.
Seeing if you can become aware of
the impact of a cleansing breath in.
Perhaps lightening, brightening the mind.
And the impact of a full breath out.
Allowing yourself to feel the joy of
just letting go of thought in this
moment, of any plans, any judgment.
Just allowing yourself
to really be here now.
Inviting awareness of what it
feels like to gently allow yourself
to be present to the sensations
of simply breathing and sitting.
Noticing any thoughts that
arise in these few moments.
And for this practice, allowing the
thoughts to really be the least.
Perhaps imagining releasing them into
the earth, letting them fall away,
or if it helps, perhaps imagine each
thought dropping onto a leaf and that
leaf falling into the stream of water,
rolling on by, and just floating away.
Or it might help to have the image
of a thought rising, floating up and
drifting off, as you might imagine,
reflecting and seeing a cloud drifting
off against a peerless blue sky.
And so the invitation then is to,
again and again, as often as is
necessary, smilingly and lovingly
bring the attention back from thoughts,
planning, any subtle judgment that
may have come up, any stories.
Realizing that the moment that you
notice that the mind has wandered
off and gotten engaged in one of
these ways, noticing that, and
gently bringing the attention back.
That is a moment of mindfulness.
And indeed, it's a moment of
self-compassionate mindfulness.
We are cultivating the will and then
the action of alleviating our own
suffering by meeting the movement of
our mind, the engagement with thought
when we've chosen to sit and meditate.
Meeting that movement with kindness,
with love, with understanding.
Yes, this is what the mind does.
It's like this.
Smiling, and letting go of any
judgment or narrative about how
bad you are at meditation, anything
else that could be coming up.
And just gently as you would, perhaps
with kindness, offer a kind of support
for a young child to come back, to sit.
Or maybe a puppy you're trying
to train and potty train.
You might just imagine bringing
that puppy back gently right here.
A wandering mind, somewhat,
as many have called it, like a
monkey mind, kind of moving to and
fro, grasping on this and that.
The invitation is to meet
that movement with love.
Bringing the attention right back
home to the sensations in this moment
of breathing in and breathing out.
And resting, relaxing, lovingly
allowing yourself to come
home to the present moment.
With each momentary focus on the
sensations of breathing and sitting.
And now, if you're willing, the invitation
is to allow the sense of the attention
to focus it more broadly now on awareness
of the body as a whole as you sit.
Breathing in and breathing out, perhaps
allowing the focus on the sensations
of breathing to fall a little bit into
the background and bringing to the
fore a sense of the body as a whole.
Perhaps noting it, noticing again the
points of contact between the body and the
seat beneath you or the bed or cushion.
And the floor beneath that
and the ground beneath that.
Or you might be noticing the skin and
the sensations at the level of skin.
Maybe a breeze at the cheeks or the hands.
The feeling of clothing or cloth resting
on the elbows or around the waist.
The sensation of tightness
somewhere in the body.
The invitation is to perhaps in the
next in breath, noticing all of these
subtle ways in which we are just fully
spaciously resting in this moment.
And allowing again as we breathe out, to
let go of any particular narrow focus.
Expanding the sense of the
awareness to take in the body as
a whole, breathing and sitting.
And feeling again the joy.
Just allowing yourself to rest
in this way of the sensations
of your life in this moment.
And as we begin to bring this
meditation to a close, just gently
noticing the way in which allowing
yourself these few moments of gentle
awareness of sitting and breathing.
Also, it may deliver a
sense of the pleasantness.
Just resting, letting go of thoughts for
just a few minutes and coming home to
the present moment right here, right now,
with a deepening commitment to allow in
yourself the ease of resting in awareness.
Keep practicing like this with love for
your own experience in these moments.
Thank you for your practice.
Be well, until we meet again.
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