Welcome to this introduction to meditation in one breath.
While I'm not trying to claim that meditation is always easy,
It's also not necessarily as hard as some people might make it seem.
When friends ask me,
Why meditate,
I find that showing them the single breath meditation opens up the door to the possibilities of meditation without my needing to lecture at length about it.
Actually,
You've probably done this meditation before without realizing it.
Has anybody ever told you,
As you're in some form of high energy state,
Sad,
Mad,
Excited,
Anxious,
Hold up,
Just stop and take a deep breath.
Well,
That person probably wasn't thinking that they were telling you to meditate.
They were certainly aware of the power of breath to change one's internal state.
And you more than likely,
If you followed their advice,
Felt some of that power.
Now there's a lot of opinions on how to do meditation.
And this single breath meditation is absolutely a form.
And the longer you practice with it,
Or even longer forms,
The more interesting meditation becomes.
Let's try it out.
It's only going to take a few seconds.
And I'm only going to ask you to take one breath.
Do it however you want.
Breathe through your mouth,
Your nose,
Use both.
You can close your eyes or keep them open.
Though if you're driving while listening to this,
Or riding a bike,
Or pushing a skateboard,
I'm going to suggest you keep your eyes open.
You can do this standing,
Sitting,
Lying down.
The only requirement here is that while you're doing this,
You focus only on the process.
Focus on the air that's coming into and then leaving your body.
Now before we actually do this,
Just take a couple of moments and check in with yourself.
How are you feeling right now?
Are you happy,
Sad,
Tense,
Relaxed,
Anxious,
Tired,
Mad?
Okay.
Let go of that for now.
I'm going to ask you to focus on your breath,
And more specifically,
Focus on the feeling of the air as it comes past your lips or nostrils,
As you take your slow,
Deep inhale,
And then as you slowly exhale.
Give yourself permission to ignore anything else that's going on around for the few moments that this is going to take.
Okay.
Slow inhale,
Slow exhale.
Well done.
How do you feel right now?
Compare how you feel now with how you were feeling literally just a few moments ago.
Did that single breath make a difference?
I'm still amazed at how I can feel calmer,
Clearer,
And more focused after even a single intentional breath.
If you'd like,
You're more than welcome to repeat this a couple of times.
You can think of more intensive breath-based meditation as a series of single breath meditation moments strung together in a long chain.
The challenge as you add more breaths is maintaining your focus on the process of breathing.
All too often,
Stray thoughts will barge in,
Break your concentration,
And you need to begin again.
This is why meditation is often called a practice.
I like to say,
You can't do it wrong,
Still you can always do it better.
I hope this short introduction to meditation has intrigued you,
And that you explore some of the many different styles of meditation available from the Insight Timer community.
Regardless of what form you pick,
I hope you find one that resonates with you,
And stick with the practice.
