Basic Meditation

Here’s a basic approach that can get you going quickly.

Meditation as a daily practice can have wonderful and beneficial effects for your daily life.  Some benefits of a regular practice include:  stress relief, a general feeling of well-being and self-confidence, heightened powers of concentration and attention, and increased feelings of self-worth and happiness.  You may also find that you develop a greater appreciation and love for the world around you and your fellow human beings… ?

After trying the basic technique, you may want to change the practice in ways that seem more intuitive for you.  After your meditation practice, please take the time to record any to record any thoughts or observations you might have in your journal.

A simple meditation technique – 15 minutes

• Allow yourself 15 minutes.
• Sit comfortably, preferably in a chair with your back straight.
• Places your hands on your knees
• Breath normally in and out.
• Listen to your breathing.
• After a time, count silently with your in-breath 1-2-3.
• And then, count silently with your out-breath 1-2-3.
• After you have counted for a time, finish your session by just listening to your own breathing.

If you have thoughts that arise as you are meditating, just allow your attention to go back to your breathing concentration.  Whatever thoughts arise, it’s good to treat them non-judgmentally and just let them pass as you move your attention back to your breathing and practice.

Loving Kindness Meditation – 15 minutes

This kind of meditation uses a seed thought and phrase.  In this case: “May well-being, happiness, and joy be with me” followed by “May well-being, happiness, and joy be with all living creatures and sentient beings on the Good Earth.” You might imagine an image of the Earth as you do this meditation.

Method:

• Sit comfortably, with your back straight.
• Spend several minutes just listening to your breathing
• When you are ready, repeat silently the two phrases in succession.
  • You can also repeat the phrases out loud if you wish.
• Repeat the phrases slowly and continue to listen to your breathing.
• You might imagine an image of the Earth.
• Continue for several minutes.
• If any thoughts arise, just allow yourself to come back to your phrases and breathing.
• After a time, stop repeating the phrases, and go back to listening to your breathing.

Meditation:  Pause and Reconnect

“Remember your connection to the World around you.”

When you’re feeling stressed, out of it, angry, overburdened by the issues of the day, etc., this can be a great way to reconnect to a calm center.

• Take a break from your activities for a moment.
• Find a quiet comfortable place, or just sit still.
• Close your eyes and relax your body.
• Count backward from 30 to 0.
• Listen to your own breathing for a while.
• Think about the majestic beauty of Earth. Imagine a nature image that you think is beautiful.
• Picture the Earth in your mind. Remind yourself of the incredible diversity of Life here on a massive scale.
• Remind yourself of your inter-connection to all Life and the beauty of the Earth.
• Picture the Sun above the Earth.
• Imagine the Sun’s golden light descending through your head and filling your body.
• Rest for a few moments.
• Open your eyes.
• Rejoin your day.

Possible issues and warnings:

Please do not over-meditate.
A good beginning meditation time is from 5 to 30 minutes.  You might try this for several months.
A good daily practice, once you have spent the time in initial meditation, can be around 30 minutes to 1 hour.

Some additional approaches to meditation:

1.  You could meditate using an image, such as a tarot card or mandala.  Feel free to download and use the Mandala images below. These images can be used to quiet the mind.  Using images can also be helpful for your concentration practice.  Take the time to memorize an image.  And then recreate that image within your meditation.  You could even use a simple practical image / object such as a soccer ball.  Just use your mind to recreate the image in your imagination.  Make the image as detailed as possible.

2.  You may wish to start with doing basic concentration exercise to quiet the mind.  Counting down from 100 to 0 is a good starting point.  You might want to repeat this count several times until you have a easy flow of it.

Mandalas:
Download Mandala One
Download Mandala Two
Download Mandala Three

Other Image ideas for meditation:

Conch Buddha Mandala – Image Link.
See description here.

Tarot Key One – The Magician
See description here.

Photo by Hans Vivek on Unsplash