Meditation

Meditate every day and as often as you can. It will change your life. Well, it'll change how you see life ...


Beginners


Start with a body scan: guided body scan meditation

Learn to relax.

Try zazen meditation. Do it regularly until you recognise the mind calming down. Enjoy the posture, relax into the body breathing.

Then, practice mindfulness, it is a major pivot in meditation practice and is good for life in general - guided mindfulness meditation

It's a good idea to keep gladdening the mind: guided meditation to gladden the mind

A happy mind is a useful place to meditate from. It helps settle the mind, and is a useful condition accessing deeper mental states.

More experienced meditators


Once you've been meditating a while, try jhana practice (more jhana here) or vipassana. It will lift the lid on your life.

Here's my personal walk through of the anapanasati stages:

Stage 1 - breathing and body
Stage 2 - pleasure and thoughts
Stage 3 - heartmind and equanimity
Stage 4 - wisdom and freedom

It's useful to do stage 1 a lot until you know the difference between being in the body and thinking about the body. I created an app on Google Play that contains the anapanasati instructions - it will guide through if you want it to.

Assorted practices for fun


If you want something easy to try, here's some simple ideas to experiment with/think about:

 Getting back into the groove meditation instructions
 Breathe in, breathe out, release
 Relax the mind
 Don't breathe out, just let it go
 Meditation sequence to stillness
 Rest in the gaps
 Using visualisation

Aim straight for the still point:
Go deep

Then go even deeper.