How To Meditate - Your Anchor

This session, in the How to Meditate series, talks about "The Anchor" and how we use it to meditate. We’ll look at the fundamental meditative process of anchoring our awareness to a single point of focus before finishing with a lovely short seated meditation.

Background Audio: Dandelion Meditation

Transcript

Hello everybody, Hope you're all having a wonderful day wherever you are in the world. So you want to learn how to meditate, Fantastic, It's a pleasure to help you on your first step into this wonderful world of self-discovery. You might be completely new to meditation, You might have tried a few times before, Maybe you're just not quite sure that you're doing it right. Over the next three sessions in this how to meditate series, I'll provide you with all the tools necessary to begin your meditation practice. Today we're talking about the anchor. In this session we'll look at the fundamental meditative process of anchoring our awareness to a single point of focus, Before we finish with a lovely short seated meditation. So when we begin meditating our minds will inevitably be all over the place, Wandering off to thoughts of past memories, Future plans, Lost in momentary emotions, It can all seem a little daunting to try and completely rid ourselves of this mental noise. So to aid our minds in settling down it's helpful to gently touch our focus upon just a single point of awareness. This single point of awareness could really be anything, Might be a visual object such as a flower, An auditory stimulus such as a calming melody or the chatter of birds. But most commonly and the thing that's most accessible to us all is our breath. The breath is a fantastic anchor to cradle our awareness. Why? Well because we all have it, Right now in this moment. We can't breathe for 5 minutes ago, Nor can we breathe for 5 minutes time. We can just breathe for now. With every breath we're practising acceptance, Letting go. Every moment we accept new air into our bodies with an in-breath, We practice letting go with every out-breath. We can't breathe all the air in the world, Nor can we hold on to that breath forever, Well at least not without going blue in the face. So the breath is a really unique bodily process that we have both conscious and unconscious control over. We often consciously take slower breaths, Deeper breaths to calm our nerves. We might choose to increase our pace of our breaths, We want that rush of adrenaline. But we can also simply observe the breath too. We can allow our breath to take care of itself, At it's own pace, It's own rhythm, Watching this process just unfold within ourselves. This provides our mind with just one single task, A simple focus, A direct awareness of ourselves. That's why the breath is such a fantastic meditative anchor. Establishing the breath as the anchor simply means tuning into the breath, Wherever it's most noticeable for you. For some people this could be in the nostrils, Others the throat. Some people find that the chest moves most noticeably, Others prefer to connect with the rise and the fall of the abdomen. So in the upcoming meditation we'll explore the anchor of the breath and use it as our stabilising force when trying to invoke the meditative state. So without further ado, Let's take our seats for a short 5 minute meditation. So let's begin by trying to embody a dignified posture, Comfortable but alert. If you're on a chair maybe allowing your back to be nice and straight just off the back of the chair ever so slightly, Maybe our chins tucked in ever so slightly really elongating that spine, Our jaws nice and relaxed, Allowing our brows to unfurrow, Our shoulders to fall away from the ears, No tension here today, We're not fighting anything. Let's start by taking a few consciously deep breaths in through our nose, And out through the mouth, Nice and slowly, At a comfortable pace, Trying if you can to really deeply fill the lungs from the abdomen, Rising up from the abdomen to the chest, With a gentle exhale on the way out, And then just allowing the breath to return to normal, Through the nose, And when you're ready, If you haven't done so already, Just allowing your gaze to soften, And if it feels comfortable, Gently floating the eyes closed, And wherever our minds are today that's okay, We're going to invite our minds just to follow a simple anchor, To gently quieten that chatter, So I invite you to bring your awareness to the breath, The breath is one of those things that we don't have to consciously control, It just happens, Can we just allow our bodies to breathe, Not trying to force the breath in any way, Just allowing it to come to us, Observing the breath, As we notice our own natural pace, Our own natural depth, The gentle expansion and contractions of our bodies, Noting any pauses in between each breath, As I ask you now just to bring your attention to the nostrils, That first point, Can you notice that cool air entering, And on the next in-breath, Just follow the breath from the nostrils to the throat, Do you notice any sensations in the throat at all, And on the next in-breath, Just following the breath from the throat down into the chest, How does our chest move with the breath, Maybe our chests rise a little on the in-breath, Fall ever so slightly on the out-breath, Placing ourselves within the chest, Noticing any movement, If any at all, And again on the next in-breath, Just allowing your attention to float from the chest and into the abdomen, The abdomen is where our deepest and longest breaths are pulled to, Can you tune into that gentle expansion and contraction of the abdomen, With each remembering you don't have to consciously control the breath here, You can just watch the breath, For the body to breathe for itself, It knows what to do, Wherever you feel the breath most notably, I invite you to use this as your anchor, And now it's perfectly normal for our attention to wander during this practice, To other thoughts and plans, And that's okay, I invite you just to note where your mind has drifted to and then gently guide your attention back to the breath, Back to your anchor, That gentle rise and fall, That gentle natural rhythm, That peaceful rise and fall, The expansion, Contraction, The transition from cool to warm air, Your breath, Your anchor, Your stabilising force, It will always be with you, In every moment, I invite you now just to contemplate your return back to the room, Back to the space that you are in, As you become aware of your seated or lying position, Any contact points with the seat or the floor beneath you, Maybe giving the fingers and toes just a gentle wiggle, Welcoming yourself back into the world, And when you are ready maybe on the next out breath, Just gently opening the eyes, Not feeling the need to immediately jump up or rush off to start another activity, Just allowing this calmness to settle with you, To support you through the day. If you enjoyed this session, Feel free to listen to other recordings in this series, In which we look at the posture of meditation and the practice of noting wandering thoughts. I hope you all have a wonderful day.