Mindfulness Meditation

A 5-stage mindfulness meditation practice in the style of mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR).

Transcript

Welcome to mindfulness sitting meditation.

What you are about to do is a wonderful and powerful way of becoming intimate with your life,

Of reconnecting with the completeness of your being.

Take a moment to congratulate yourself for taking this opportunity to support your health and well-being.

For posture,

Let the spine be upright and have the upper back be freestanding rather than leaning back into the chair.

Let the shoulders be relaxed and back a little so that the chest is open.

Let the chin be slightly tucked so that the neck is extended from the spine.

Allow the hands to be soft and supported on the body somewhere,

And let the belly be round and soft.

If sitting in a chair,

Place the feet flat on the floor.

If sitting on a cushion or a bench,

Make sure the knees are below the hips and that they can touch or come close to touching the floor.

As a rule,

We don't want to be leaning back or slump forward,

But we also don't want to be tight and rigid.

The back should be upright and also relaxed.

Everyone's body is different,

So what makes a good posture may be different for you than for someone else.

Proper posture allows us to hold our experience in a way that supports our waking up to the present moment.

Explore what this means for you when you sit.

If you experience severe and chronic pain and are unable to sit,

You can always meditate lying down.

So we'll begin by doing some mindfulness of breathing.

So just feel the breath wherever it's most distinct and predominant.

Maybe at the tip of the nose,

Maybe in the chest,

Maybe in the belly,

Maybe in the whole body,

Or perhaps somewhere else in the body.

Just breathing in and knowing that you're breathing in,

Breathing out and knowing that you're breathing out.

There's no need to control the breath or count it or analyze it in any way,

Just the simple knowing awareness of the breath coming in and going out.

Breathing in with awareness and breathing out with awareness.

And you may notice in the stillness that the mind tends to wander to other experiences,

And when that happens it's not a problem at all.

Simply take note of where your mind wandered,

And then gently but firmly return to your breath over and over again.

Even if you lose your breath a hundred times in five minutes,

Simply come back a hundred times in five minutes.

This is our way of training the mind to be present with our experience.

So it's not a problem at all if you have to keep coming back.

That's actually a key piece of the meditation.

Being aware of the breath at the very beginning of the in-breath,

And seeing if you can sustain your attention all the way to the end of the in-breath.

Being aware of the breath at the beginning of the out-breath,

And seeing if you can sustain your attention all the way through to the end of the out-breath.

And if other experiences pull the mind away,

Keep gently bringing the breath into the foreground of your attention,

And let all those other experiences recede into the background,

Coming back to the breath again and again and again.

The breath comes and goes.

It keeps us alive,

But we can't hold on to it.

It's always moving,

Always changing and reflecting our current state.

Now let go of the breath as the primary object of the meditation,

And begin to be aware of physical sensations in the body.

There's so many different types of sensations.

There's sensations of contact,

Of pressure,

Heaviness,

Lightness.

There's tingling and itching and aching and pounding.

There's wet sensations and dry sensations,

Warm sensations and cool sensations.

There's pleasant sensations,

Unpleasant sensations,

And even neutral sensations.

So just be aware of the most predominant sensation in any moment,

And when that sensation dissolves sensations,

Pleasant,

Unpleasant and neutral,

As they come and go.

What sensation are you experiencing right now?

Where are you feeling it in the body?

Is it a pleasant sensation?

Is it unpleasant?

Or perhaps it's neutral,

Just noticing what type of sensation it is.

How are you experiencing it?

You don't need to change the sensations or fix them.

Just recognize what's happening and let it be.

Sensations enter awareness,

Sustain for a while,

And then dissolve or change.

We can't hold on to sensations.

They're always moving,

Always changing,

Coming and going.

Now let go of physical sensations as the object of your meditation and bring your attention to your mind.

How does the mind seem right now?

Is it open,

Relaxed,

Spacious?

Is it contracted,

Tight,

Cloudy,

Dull?

It doesn't matter how it is,

Just acknowledge it.

What's the mind like right now?

And as we bring awareness to our minds,

We can recognize that there's so many different thoughts and mind states that can occur in just a few seconds.

Thoughts coming and going,

Plans for the future,

Musings about the past,

Fantasies,

Judgments,

Ideas.

And there are also emotions that come and go.

Desires,

Dislikes,

Dullness,

Boredom.

So many different emotions,

So many different thoughts coming and going.

So when you notice that your mind has been gripped by a train of thought or an emotion,

You can simply note to yourself that thinking has been taking place.

You don't need to judge your thoughts and you also don't need to identify with them or believe them.

You're not trying to get rid of your thoughts either,

Just let yourself recognize them.

You can notice the types of thoughts that you're having.

Where does your mind like to go?

What types of stories do you tell yourself?

Are you going into fantasy?

Are you going into desires,

Dislikes,

Displeasure,

Boredom?

Again,

No need to judge your thoughts,

Just recognizing that thoughts come and go.

Thoughts are events in consciousness,

Like clouds passing across the sky.

You're not trying to get rid of your thoughts and you're not trying to get rid of them.

You're not trying to get rid of them.

You're not trying to get rid of them.

You're not trying to get rid of them.

Always changing.

Can't hold on to thoughts.

Now let go of the activity of the mind and bring your attention to sounds as they come and go.

Being aware of sounds near and far,

Sounds occurring in the space that you're in,

Sounds occurring in the distance,

Sounds from your own body,

The sound of swallowing,

Ringing,

Or whatever.

When one sound fades,

Let the next sound enter into the foreground of your awareness.

There's nothing you need to do to hear the sounds.

The hearing is happening quite naturally.

So see what it's like to simply rest in the knowing of sounds,

Letting Sounds coming and going in the space of awareness.

Can't hold on to sounds.

They're always moving,

Always changing.

So let go of the activity of the mind and bring your attention to sounds.

Now let go of sounds and let yourself open to a choiceless awareness.

In this practice,

We simply rest in the knowing of experience.

Just paying attention to whatever experience is predominant in any moment.

Not needing to fix or change anything about your experience,

Just recognizing what experience you're having and letting it be.

If your breath is what's predominant,

Then you simply know the breath.

If you're noticing thoughts racing in your mind,

Then you're knowing thoughts,

Thinking,

Planning,

Fantasizing,

Just recognizing them.

If strong emotions are present,

Then you recognize and allow strong emotions,

Happiness,

Sadness,

Sorrow,

Frustration,

Whatever it is.

If strong sensations arise,

Pleasant,

Unpleasant,

Neutral,

Then you're knowing sensation.

If sounds arise,

Then you're knowing sounds.

Letting yourself rest in the richness of your life,

Moment by moment,

Letting things be as they are.

Letting yourself rest in the richness of your life,

Moment by moment,

Letting things be as they are.

If you've become mesmerized by some other experience,

Just relax and start from the beginning,

Just being aware of what's here,

What's being known.

You can always start over again.

Letting yourself rest in the richness of your life,

Moment by moment,

Letting things be.

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Reviews

It was good meditation helped being in focus of my breathe and body sensations and sounds was very helpful and being mindful of mind to.

Really enjoyed it

Wonderful practice for me this morning 🧡 Thank you 🙏

A clear, guided, instructional meditation that brings you directly into present moment awareness. Excellently done, Thank you 🙏🏻👍🏻💟☮️🕉

Excellent meditation to identify the nature of a thought as a fleeting sensation just as a feeling on the body or hearing of a sound.

Thank you ! Enjoyed it immensely !

True meditation. Thankyou Bill

Easy to follow. Loved the Alcon and spacing.

Excellent. Thank you.

Very nice and peaceful.
Thank you very much for for sharing this great guided meditation.

Simple but effective guide through various transient states, emotions and sensations. This is lovely.

That was wonderful!!! Thank you Bill!

Like an MBSR meditation

Fantastic meditation. I look forward to sitting with it more.

A good basic practice to keep bring back awareness. Thank you.

Very powerful meditation. Felt much more relaxed afterwards. Guided but with a right balance between talking and silence

Really good. For me. Great structure to remind me how it can go when I am not using a guided meditation. Thanks, Bill.

Well paced, good tone of voice, good instructions, couple of minor word use mistakes (errrrr). Good mindfulness sitting meditation.

Excellent guide for awareness of breath, body sensation and thoughts

Wow just the calm and well paced/spoken meditation I needed this morning. Excellent. Thank you v much