Working With Meditation Anchors - A Foundational Practice

This session is for people new to meditation, or looking to refresh their regular practice. In this meditation, we explore three "meditation anchors," or focus points. Sounds, sensations in the body, and observing the breath. Using a meditation anchor is a concentration practice. It’s a foundational skill, strengthening the ability to notice our thougths and focus our attention. This skill leads to other powerful Insight meditation practices.

Transcript

Welcome.

This session is for people new to meditation or someone looking to refresh their regular practice.

Today we're going to try using a meditation anchor like an anchor on a boat.

So what is a meditation anchor?

You might think of an anchor being dropped over the side of a boat in a bay and it keeps the boat more or less in the bay without going out to sea.

The boat can go a little bit one way or a little bit the other way but more or less it stays in one place.

Another helpful metaphor that I like because it's kind of loving and warm is the thought of a puppy and a chew toy.

We all know how a puppy is prone to chew up your shoe or chew on the sofa.

Maybe they're teething.

This is just what a puppy does and if we want to redirect their attention away from an unwanted behavior we might offer a puppy a chew toy so the puppy wanders off,

Chews on your shoe and you lovingly offer the puppy a chew toy to redirect them away from the attention towards the shoe or the sofa.

And we don't get mad at a puppy necessarily because we know this is just what a puppy does.

Similarly as we sit down to meditate our mind wanders.

Future thinking,

Remembering,

Random thoughts that come into your mind that you have no idea why that's happening.

This is normal and by offering your mind a meditation anchor we are offering a home base or a place to rest or stabilize your attention.

So as I guide you I'm going to use three different meditation anchors so that you may notice which one feels easiest or least hard to pay attention to.

So why do we do this practice?

It's a foundational practice,

A concentration practice where we are developing the skill of noticing and being able to focus our attention where we want it to stay.

Also when we practice bringing our attention back to a simple present moment experience using an anchor like sound or the breath or sensations in the body the mind calms down and provides a nervous system reset.

Over time this kind of concentration practice cultivates clear thinking,

Wisdom,

And insight.

So let's give it a try.

If any of this doesn't make sense to you don't worry about it.

I'm gonna guide you through it.

So I invite you to close your eyes if that's comfortable for you and if not you're welcome to leave your eyes in a low gaze in front of you.

If you're sitting in a chair it's helpful to have a bit of an upright posture and the main reason for that is so that we don't get sleepy.

And if you have trouble sitting up in a chair you're welcome to sit on a cushion if you're able to keep your spine upright and if not you're welcome to lie down just know that you may be battling the sensation of sleepiness somewhat if you're lying down.

So your eyes may be closed we're just gonna start off with a few deeper breaths and for most of the time we're really not controlling our breath.

Just at the beginning offering some deeper breaths where the exhale is longer than the inhale.

This helps our nervous system to down regulate with a longer exhale.

And on your next deeper exhale you might notice your jaw and any tension in your jaw just relaxing the muscles around your mouth and your jaw just letting those muscles drop down as you exhale.

The same with the eyes the muscles around the eyes get tight from smiling and laughing just relax those little muscles around the eyes.

And on the last deeper exhale see if it's possible to let go of any tension in your shoulders just relaxing those muscles down.

Imagine any tension rolling off your shoulders onto the ground.

And again we're looking for a posture that is relaxed but alert and dignified.

One way to keep that spine upright is imagining a white string at the crown of your head and imagining a gentle tug upward on that string just elongating the spine.

So the spine is upright the muscles in the face are relaxed and the shoulders are relaxed.

Moving down to your torso thinking about the belly that's often sucked in or holding tight as part of our core just let that muscle relax just let that belly relax.

And now you may notice your mind wandering off in thoughts future thinking or remembering.

See if it's possible to gather your attention almost like using a laser pointer and turning our attention inward to the sensations of our body touch points of our body your feet touching the ground noticing your back against the chair the contact point of your seat in the chair noticing your hands resting on your legs or your chair wherever they're resting just for a moment lift up one of your hands and notice that space under the hand the lack of a contact point and place the hand back down on whatever it was resting on and experience that contact point noticing the sensation of your hand resting on something that's what we're focusing on that contact point and take that focus down your back noticing your back against the chair your seat in the chair or the cushion your feet on the ground does it feel solid what if you were standing on a waterbed what would that feel like does this feel different the solidity of the ground holding you when your mind wanders that's perfectly normal don't worry about it just invite your attention lovingly the way you would offer a puppy a chew toy instead of gnawing on that shoe just invite your attention back to the body you might even offer your mind this phrase of feet seat hands just giving your mind a place to rest your attention noticing the contact points of your feet your seat your hands be quiet for a moment so you can use this rotation or any other way you can connect to the sensation of your body right now and as you meditate here you can start to notice that you're breathing shifting your attention from the contact points of the body to noticing the in and out motion of the body breathing the chest rising and falling the belly expanding contracting or you might notice the breath at your nose the sensation of the air coming in or out of your nose this is our meditation anchor our focus we are focusing on the breath you may notice one of these contact points or just the whole process of the air coming in and out of the body if it's helpful you might say to yourself inhale exhale just observing the process not trying to control it in any way just an observer and as the mind wanders this is totally normal the mind generates random thoughts on its own and that's totally okay we're not trying to stop this process even if it's a million thoughts at once and it feels overwhelming this is normal we're just shifting the thoughts to the background and noticing our breath we have the ability to move our attention around from noticing thoughts to noticing our body breathing that is our anchor that is where we're choosing to focus on for the moment right now it's our breath and finally for our third meditation anchor we're gonna let go of focusing on the breath and focus on our experience of sound what are you hearing right now it might be sounds in the room outside of your house or building sound of my voice notice that you don't have to try to hear our ears simply receive sounds effortlessly just turning our attention toward hearing and notice what's there when your mind wanders just bring it back this is normal you're not doing it wrong if it's helpful you can softly say in your mind hearing hearing to keep your attention in the present moment we're looking to bring a beginner's mind to this experience even though you might recognize a sound like a siren or a leaf blower outside imagine that it's the first time you're hearing it almost like an alien dropping in for a visit that doesn't know what makes that sound what are the qualities of that actual sound is it getting louder or softer is it coming in from the right side or the left side and what is the furthest away sound that you might be able to hear sound is a great focus or anchor because we can't hear in the future we can't hear in the past so whatever you're hearing is in the present moment keeping us in the present moment and for the last few minutes think back to the focus or the anchor that felt easiest for you to rest your attention on is it hearing observing the breath or feeling the contact points of your body in the chair or on the floor stay with that anchor or focal point for the next few minutes I invite you to check in with how you feel and notice any amount of calmness or relaxation that you feel this feeling is not manufactured it's always there we just have to slow down and take our attention away from our non-stop stream of thinking autopilot thoughts and consciously like with a laser pointer move our attention to where we choose and this is a skill that becomes easier over time it's a foundational skill that allows us to place our attention hold it where we want it and when we want whether it's a formal meditation or just in our day-to-day life use this skill to notice thoughts that are skillful or unskillful in our lives so this skill is the basis for much of the other practices that we will work with in the future so in a moment I'm going to ring a bell three times and I invite you to train your attention to the sound of the bell as it rings all the way out each time now you might wiggle your fingers or tilt your head gently from side to side bring your attention back into the room and into your body when you're ready you can slowly open your eyes and so for now as you go through your day remember that these meditation anchors or focal points are always with you if your mind or emotions are being tossed around you can always take a moment to just notice the sounds in your experience feel your feet on the ground the solid ground or just pay attention to one breath thank you for your practice I look forward to meditating with you next time

Reviews

I reallly enjoy how you teach, Madelyne! This was a great review of three anchors I tend to use simultaneously in my meditation practice. I added the Insight Timer music track “soothing guitar” (in the sound healing category) to the background and it made the practice even lovelier.❤️