This is a guided meditation for beginners and will meditate for around 8 minutes.
Regular practice of this will help you to feel less troubled by life and much more peaceful.
Most of our stress comes from worrying that things will go wrong.
When in fact most of the things that happen to us turn out fine or even great.
If we can come to our breathing and just focus on that,
Slowly we gain enough distance from our thoughts to be able to find inner peace.
Go to a quiet room where you won't be disturbed.
Find a comfortable seat.
This can be a chair or you can sit on the floor with your legs crossed.
Rest your hands in your lap,
Palms facing up,
One on top of the other.
Straighten your back just enough to stop you slouching and gently close your eyes.
Now imagine that it is a warm sunny day and you are sitting by a peaceful slow moving river.
Breathe in the fresh clean air and relax.
Relax your face and relax your shoulders and feel your whole body relax.
And now bring your attention to your body and feel where you can feel breathing happening.
It might be the swell of your belly moving in and out or it might be the air coming in and out of your nostrils.
Find where it feels strongest for you.
Now keep your attention at this point and try to feel a whole breath.
Feel the breath all the way in and the breath all the way out.
Feeling the sensations that happen at your chosen point.
If it's your belly you will feel it move slowly in and out.
If it's your nose you will feel the air coming in and out.
Try to link the breaths together so that the only thing you are concentrating on is the feelings of the in and out breath.
Now while this is a very simple task it's also very difficult.
The mind is used to wandering all day even while we sleep.
So naturally the mind will wander away from the breath and start thinking.
When this happens look to see what the thought is.
It's usually just thinking,
Worrying,
Planning or remembering.
When you recognise what kind of thought it is imagine the word and say it twice in your mind.
Worrying,
Worrying or planning,
Planning or whatever thought it is.
And then put that thought on a leaf coming down the river and then watch it slowly float away.
And then come back to the sensations of breathing in your body feeling the breath all the way in and all the way out.
And keep doing this for as many breaths as you can feeling how peaceful the breath can make us feel.
Just watching the simple in and out breath,
Nothing more.
Again when you catch yourself thinking name the thoughts twice in your mind,
Put it onto a leaf in the river and let it float away.
As it floats away we see that we are not the thoughts and we don't have to engage with it and then we come back to the peaceful in and out breath.
Just feeling the breath in and out when the mind gets lost in thought.
Placing that thought on the leaf and watching it float away and then returning to the breath.
And now we end the meditation but don't open your eyes just yet.
How does the mind feel?
How does the body feel?
If you do this every day you'll find great happiness in your life.
Open your eyes and have a lovely day.
