Chapter 6

Getting Into Formal Mindfulness Meditation Practice

In This Chapter

Trying eating, walking and body scan mindfulness meditation practices

Breathing and walking in a mindful way

Understanding and overcoming pitfalls

Meditation is like diving to the bottom of the ocean, where the water is still. The waves (thoughts) are at the surface, but you’re watching them from a deeper, more restful depth. To submerge to that peaceful depth takes time. Extended meditations in the formal mindfulness meditation practices in this chapter offer the diving equipment for you to safely reach those tranquil places.

Formal practice is mindfulness meditation you specifically make time for in your day – it doesn’t mean you need to put on a suit or a posh dress though! You decide when and for how long you’re going to meditate, and you do it. A formal mindfulness routine lies at the heart of a mindful way of living. Without such a routine, you may struggle to be mindful in your daily life. This chapter explores some formal mindfulness practices for you to do while lying down, sitting or walking.

Preparing Your Body and Mind for Mindfulness Meditation

Here are some useful pointers on preparing yourself to practise mindful meditation:

• You can practise the meditation any time and anywhere that suits you. For more help on deciding when and where you’ll practise, see Chapter 9.
• Avoid meditating immediately after a big meal or when you’re feeling very hungry; your stomach may then become the object of your attention rather than anything else.
• Try and find conditions conducive for meditation: ideally, somewhere that is not too noisy, with the right temperature for you and soft or natural lighting. Wear clothing that’s loose and comfortable. None of these conditions are essential – it’s possible to meditate anytime and anywhere – but if you’re a beginner, these environmental factors help.
• You can be in any posture that feels comfortable for you for mindfulness meditation. If you’re interested in advice on specific sitting postures, see further on in this chapter.
• Experiment by gently smiling when you meditate. This is a simple and powerful secret to help you enjoy meditation. Think of smiling as the most important posture in meditation. A cute little grin on your face sends a signal to your mind to be friendly towards yourself. You let go of being too serious or trying too hard; meditation can then become a joyful non-activity.

Savouring Mindful Eating Meditation

Starting with mindful eating meditation demonstrates the simplicity of meditation. Mindfulness meditation isn’t about sitting cross-legged for hours on end; it’s about the awareness you bring to each present moment. Mindfulness is about living with an open and curious awareness. Anything done with mindful awareness is meditation, including eating, driving, walking, talking and much more.

Try the following exercise, which is available as an audio track (Track 7):

1. Place a small piece of fruit in your hand. Imagine you dropped in from outer space and have never seen or tasted this fruit before. Spend a few minutes looking at the colour and texture. Explore the creases and folds of its skin, how it catches the light as you rotate it, and how much varying detail it contains. Observe the skill in your fingers to be able to delicately hold and rotate the fruit precisely and at will.
2. Bring the fruit towards your nose. Feel the sensations in your arm as you bring the fruit towards your nose. As you breathe, notice whether the fruit has a scent, and the quality of it. Notice how you feel if the fruit doesn’t have a scent. Spend a few minutes doing this.
3. Hold the fruit to your ear. Squeeze the fruit gently between your thumb and finger and listen to the sound it produces, if any. Perhaps it makes a quiet sound or no sound at all. When you’ve done this, bring your arm back down.
4. Feel the texture of the fruit. Close your eyes to tune in to the sense of touch more deeply. Feel the shape of the object and its weight. Gently squeeze the fruit and observe whether you can get a sense of its juice.
5. Bring the fruit towards your mouth. Are you salivating? If so, your body has already begun the first stage of digestion. Touch the fruit gently onto your upper and lower lips to see what sensations you can detect. Place the fruit inside your mouth, on your tongue. Do you have a sense of relief now, or frustration? Feel the weight of the fruit on your tongue. Move the fruit around your mouth, noticing how skilled your tongue is at doing this. Place the fruit between two teeth and slowly bring your teeth together. Observe the phenomenon of tasting and eating. Spot the range of experiences unfolding, including a change in taste and the fluxing consistency of the fruit as it slowly breaks up and dissolves. Be aware of yourself chewing and how you automatically start to swallow. Stay with the experience until you’ve finished eating.
6. Notice the aftertaste in your mouth when you’ve finished eating the fruit.

Now, reflect on these questions:

• How do you feel having done that exercise?
• What effect will this process have on your experience of eating?
• What did you notice and find out?

There’s no correct experience in this mindful eating meditation. Different people have different experiences. You probably found it wasn’t your normal experience of eating. The first thing to discover about all mindful meditations is that whatever your experience is, it is your experience and it is correct and valid.

By connecting with the senses, you move from automatic pilot mode to a mindful mode. (Refer to Chapter 5 for more about mental modes.) In other words, rather than eating while doing something else and not even noticing the taste, you deliberately turn your attention to the whole process of eating.

You may have found the taste of the fruit to be more vivid and intense than usual. Perhaps you noticed things about this fruit that you hadn’t noticed before. Mindfulness reveals new things and transforms the experience itself, making for a deeper experience. If this is true of eating something ordinary like a piece of fruit, consider what effect mindfulness may have on the rest of your experiences in life!

You may have noticed that you were thinking during the exercise, and perhaps you felt you couldn’t do the mindful eating properly because of thinking. Don’t worry: you’re pretty much always thinking, and it’s not going to stop any time soon. What you can do is begin to become aware that it’s happening and see what effect that has.

Relaxing with Mindful Breathing Meditation

If you’re keen to try a short, simple, ten-minute sitting mindfulness meditation, this one’s for you. This meditation focuses your attention on the breath and enables you to gently guide yourself back to your breathing when your attention wanders away.

This meditation is available as an audio track (Track 8) and shows you how to practise ten minutes of mindful breathing:

1. Find a comfortable posture. You can be sitting up in a chair, cross-legged on the floor or even lying down (see the later section ‘Finding a posture that’s right for you’). Close your eyes if you want to. And hold a charming little smile on your face if you can.

   This is an opportunity to be with whatever your experience is from moment to moment. This is a time for you. You don’t need to achieve anything. You don’t need to try too hard. You simply need to be with things as they are, as best you can, from moment to moment. Relax any obvious physical tensions if you can.

2. Become aware of the sensations of breathing. Feel your breath going in and out of your nostrils, or passing through the back of your throat, or feel your chest or belly rising and falling. As soon as you’ve found a place where you can feel your breath comfortably, endeavour to keep your attention there.

   Before long, your mind will take you away into thoughts, ideas, dreams, fantasies and plans. That’s perfectly normal and absolutely fine. Just as soon as you notice that it’s happened, gently smile again and guide your attention back to your breath. Try not to criticise yourself each time your mind wanders away. Instead, celebrate that you’re back in the here and now. Understand that it’s all part of the mindfulness process. If you find yourself criticising yourself or getting frustrated, say to yourself, ‘It’s okay … it’s okay … gently come back to the breath.’

3. Continue to stay with the meditation, without trying to control the depth or speed of your breathing. If the breath changes, that’s fine. If the breath stays the same, that’s fine too. Everything’s fine!
4. After ten minutes, gently open your eyes.

All the timings I suggest in this book are for guidance only. You can be flexible and reduce or increase the time you meditate depending on your circumstances. I suggest you decide, before each sitting, for how long you’re going to practise meditating and then stick to your decision. You can use an alarm with a gentle ring, or perhaps a countdown timer on your phone to indicate when you’ve finished. This avoids having to keep opening your eyes to check whether you need to bring the mindful meditation to a close.

If that was one of the first times you’ve practised meditation, you’re starting a journey. The meditation may have felt fine or awful. That doesn’t matter. What matters is your willingness to accept whatever arises and keep practising. Starting meditation is a bit like going to the gym for the first time in months: the experience can be unpleasant to begin with! Keep practising and try not to judge it as a good or bad meditation – there’s no such thing. And remember, there’s nothing to be frightened about in meditation either: if you feel too uncomfortable, you can simply open your eyes and stop the meditation.

Engaging in Mindful Movement

Moving and stretching in a slow and mindful way is a wonderful preparation for more extended meditation exercises. Movement can also be a deep formal meditation in itself, if you approach it with full awareness.

When practising mindful movement, tune in to the sensations of your breath as you move and hold different postures. Become aware of thoughts and emotions that arise, notice them, and shift your awareness back to the body. Be mindful when a stretch is slightly out of your comfort zone and begins to feel uncomfortable. Explore what being at this edge of your comfort zone feels like. Notice whether you habitually drive yourself through the pain, or whether you always avoid the discomfort completely. Be curious about your relationship with movement and stretching, and bring a playful attitude to your experience.

Practising mindful movement has many benefits. You can:

• Explore limits and discomfort. When you stretch, you eventually reach a limit beyond which the discomfort becomes too intense (the edge). Mindfulness offers the opportunity to explore your mind’s reactions as you approach your edge. Do you try to push beyond it, often causing injury, or do you stay too far away, avoiding the slightest discomfort? By approaching the edge with a mindful awareness, you open up to uncomfortable physical sensations rather than avoiding them.

  You can transfer this skill of mindful awareness to your experience of difficult thoughts and emotions, encouraging you to stay with them and acknowledge them, and see what effect mindfulness has on them.

• Tune in to the sensations in your body and tune out of the usual wandering mind. By focusing in on the range of feelings and sensations in your body, you bring yourself into the present moment. Mindful movement shows you a way of coming into the here and now. Most of the other formal meditation practices involve being still; you may find movement an easier door into mindful practice.
• Discover how to be mindful while your body is in motion. You can transfer this discovery into your daily life and become more mindful of all the movement you do, such as walking, cooking, cleaning, and getting dressed. You’re training your mind to be mindful in your day-to-day activities.
• Practise being kind to your body. Mindful movement and stretching is an opportunity to relate to your physical sensations with a spirit of friendliness. Allow physical sensations to soften by feeling them with a sense of warmth and affection rather than resistance or avoidance.
• Gain an understanding about life through movement practice. When trying to balance in a yoga posture, notice how your body isn’t stiff or still but continuously moving and correcting to maintain your balance. Sometimes you lose your balance and have to start again. In the same way, living a life of balance requires continuous correction, and sometimes you get it wrong. You just need to start again.

Consider other lessons about life you can take from doing a sequence of mindful yoga or any other mindful movement. Think about how you cope with the more challenging poses, or how you may compare yourself with others, or how you compete with yourself.

Trying Out the Body Scan Meditation

The body scan is a wonderful mindfulness practice to start your journey into contemplative practices. You normally do the body scan lying down, so you get a sense of letting go straight away.

Practising the body scan

Set aside at least half an hour for the body scan. Find a time when and a place where you won’t be disturbed, and somewhere you feel comfortable and secure. Turn off any phones you have.

This is a time totally set aside for you, and for you to be with yourself. A time for renewal, rest, and healing. A time to nourish your health and wellbeing. Remember that mindfulness is about being with things as they are, moment to moment, as they unfold in the present. So, let go of ideas about self-improvement and personal development. Let go of your tendency for wanting things to be different from how they are, and allow them to be exactly as they are. Give yourself the space to be as you are. You don’t even need to try to relax. Relaxation may happen or it may not. Relaxation isn’t the aim of the body scan. If anything, the aim is to be aware of your experience, whatever it may be. Do whatever feels right for you.

The body scan practice is very safe. However, if the body scan brings up feelings that you can’t cope with, stop and get advice from a mindfulness teacher or professional therapist. However, if you can, open up to the feelings and sensations and move in close; by giving these feelings the chance to speak to you, you may find that they dissipate in their own time.

Follow these steps, which are available as an audio track (Track 9):

1. Loosen any tight clothing, especially around your waist or neck. You may like to remove your shoes.
2. Lie down on your bed or a mat with your arms by your sides, palms facing up, and legs gently apart. If you feel uncomfortable, place a pillow under your knees or just raise your knees. Experiment with your position; you may even prefer to sit up. You can place a blanket over yourself, because your body temperature can drop when you’re still for an extended time. Hold a slight, gentle smile on your face for the duration of this practice. This helps to remind you to be kind to yourself and not to take any experience too seriously.
3. Begin by feeling the weight of your body on the mat, bed, or chair. Notice the points of contact between that and your body. Each time you breathe out, allow yourself to sink a little deeper into the mat, bed, or chair.
4. Become aware of the sensations of your breath. You may feel the breath going in and out of your nostrils, or passing through the back of your throat, or feel the chest or belly rising and falling. Be aware of your breath wherever it feels most predominant and comfortable for you. Continue for a few minutes.
5. When you’re ready, move your awareness down the left leg, past the knee and ankle and right down into the big toe of your left foot. Notice the sensations in your big toe with a sense of curiosity. Is your big toe warm or cold? Can you feel the contact of your socks, or the movement of air? Now expand your awareness to your little toe, and then all the toes in between. What do they feel like? If you can’t feel any sensation, that’s okay. Just be aware of lack of sensation.
6. As you breathe, imagine the breath going down your body and into your toes. As you breathe out, imagine the breath going back up your body and out of your nose. Use this strategy of breathing into and out of each part to which you’re paying attention (see the nearby sidebar ‘Breathing into different parts of your body’).
7. Expand your awareness to the sole of your foot. Focus on the ball and heel of the foot. The weight of the heel. The sides and upper part of the foot. The ankle. Breathe into the whole of the left foot. Then, when you’re ready, let go of the left foot.
8. Repeat this process of gentle, kind, curious accepting awareness with the lower part of the left leg, the knee, and the upper part of the left leg. Notice how your left leg may now feel different to your right leg.
9. Gently shift your awareness around and down the right leg, to the toes in your right foot. Move your awareness up the right leg in the same way as before. Then let it go.
10. Become aware of your pelvis, hips, buttocks, and all the delicate organs around here. Breathe into them and imagine you’re filling them with nourishing oxygen.
11. Move up to the lower torso, the lower abdomen, and lower back. Notice the movement of the lower abdomen as you breathe in and out. Notice any emotions you feel here. See whether you can explore and accept your feelings as they are.
12. Bring your attention to your chest and upper back. Feel your rib cage rising and falling as you breathe in and out. Be mindful of your heart beating, if you can. Be grateful that all these vital organs are currently functioning to keep you alive and conscious. Be mindful of any emotions arising from your heart area. Allow space for your emotions to express themselves.
13. Go to both arms together, beginning with the fingertips and moving up to the shoulders. Breathe into and out of each body part before you move to the next one, if that feels helpful.
14. Focus on your neck. Then move your mindful attention to your jaw, noticing whether it’s clenched. Feel your lips, inside your mouth, your cheeks, your nose, your eyelids and eyes, your temples, your forehead (checking whether it’s frowning), your eyes, the back of your head, and finally the top of your head. Take your time to be with each part of your head in a mindful way, feeling and opening up to the physical sensations with curiosity and warmth.
15. Imagine a space in the top of your head and soles of your feet. Imagine your breath sweeping up and down your body as you breathe in and out. Feel the breath sweeping up and down your body, and get a sense of each cell in your body being nourished with energy and oxygen. Continue this for a few minutes.
16. Now let go of all effort to practise mindfulness. Get a sense of your whole body. Feel yourself as complete, just as you are. At peace, just as you are. Remember this sense of being is always available to you when you need it. Rest in this stillness.
17. Acknowledge the time you’ve taken to nourish your body and mind. Come out of this meditation gently, being aware of the transition into whatever you need to do next. Endeavour to bring this mindful awareness to whatever activity you engage in next.

Appreciating the benefits of the body scan meditation

The body scan meditation has many benefits:

• Getting in touch with your body. You spend most of your time in your head, constantly thinking, thinking, thinking. By practising the body scan, you’re connecting with your own body and disconnecting from your mind with all its ideas, opinions, beliefs, judgements, dreams, and desires. Thinking is a wonderful and precious aspect of being human, but by connecting with the sensations in the body, you tune in to the intelligence and wisdom of the body. Hearing what the body has to say is fascinating if you listen carefully and give your body the space to express itself. The body scan helps you acknowledge that understanding and insight comes not only from the thinking brain but from the whole body, a supremely intelligent system from which you can discover so much.
• Letting go of doing mode and coming into being mode. As you lie down to do the body scan, you can completely let go physically. Your mind can follow on from this and also begin to let go of thinking on automatic pilot. Through the body scan, you begin to move from the auto-pilot doing mode of mind into the being mode of mind, which is about allowing things to be just as they are (see Chapter 5 for more).
• Training your attention. The body scan alternates between a wide and a narrow focus of attention – from focusing on your little toe all the way through to the entire body. The body scan trains your mind to be able to move from detailed attention to a wider and more spacious awareness from one moment to the next. In other words, you’re more able to zoom in and out of an experience – a skill you can use outside of meditation.
• Releasing emotions stored in the body. Stressful events experienced from childhood, such as divorce or extreme discipline, cause great fear and can get locked and stored in the body as physical tension, an absence of sensation, or as a dysfunctional part of the body that causes, for example, problems with digestion. The body scan helps to release that stored-up emotion and tension. Some clients have had years of physical ailments relieved through the regular practice of the body scan meditation.
• Using the body as an emotional gauge. Practising the body scan and becoming increasingly aware of your body enables you to become more sensitive to how your body reacts in different situations throughout the day. If you become stressed or nervous about something, you may be able to notice this earlier through the body, and so be able to make an informed choice as to what to do next. Without that awareness, you don’t have a choice and face the possibility of unnecessarily spiralling down into unhelpful emotions and a tense body. For example, if you notice your forehead tightening up or your shoulders tensing in a meeting, you can do something about it rather than letting the tension unconsciously build and build.

Overcoming body scan obstacles

The body scan seems easy on the surface. All you need to do is lie down, turn on the audio MP3, and guide your awareness through your body. In reality you’re doing a lot more than that. If you’ve spent your life ignoring your body, trying a different approach takes both courage and determination. Problems may arise. Perhaps:

• You felt more pain in your body than you normally do.
• You wanted to stop the body scan.
• You couldn’t concentrate.
• You fell asleep.
• You became more anxious, depressed, or frustrated than when you started.
• You couldn’t do the body scan.
• You didn’t like the body scan.
• You couldn’t stop crying.
• You couldn’t see the point of the body scan.

All these are common experiences. Of course, experiences of pleasure and peace occur too! Remember the following sentence when you begin to struggle with the body scan and other long meditations:

You may not always like it – you just need to keep at it.

You may be struggling with your mindfulness meditation because you’re seeking a particular outcome. Maybe you want your mind to shut up, or the pain to go away, or you want to get rid of your restlessness. Try letting go of these desires. The fewer desires you have, the more you’re likely to enjoy the mindfulness practices. Make peace with whatever you’re experiencing in the moment by becoming aware of it with friendliness. Look at the experience like you look at a little kitten, or a baby, or a really good friend: with affection, as best you can.

Enjoying Sitting Meditation

Sitting meditation is simply being mindful in a sitting position. In this section I share some common sitting postures and guide you through seated practice. Once you establish yourself in the practice, you can adapt it in any way that suits you.

Try sitting meditation after a couple of weeks’ practising the body scan every day (explained in the previous section). The body scan helps you begin to get accustomed to paying attention to your breath and your body in an accepting and kindly way. You also begin to understand how easily the mind wanders off, and how to tenderly bring the attention back. The sitting meditation continues to develop your attention, bringing a wider range of present-moment experiences to be mindful of. Although your mind still strays into thoughts, you begin to shift your relationship to thoughts, which is a small but fundamental shift.

Finding a posture that’s right for you

When it comes to postures in mindfulness practice, I offer all sorts of suggestions in this section. But the key principle is the following:

Find a posture that you feel comfortable with.

If you spend too much energy and experience unnecessary discomfort in a particular posture, you’ll either be put off from the mindfulness practices or you’ll associate mindfulness with painful experiences. There’s no need for this. Mindfulness is about being kind to yourself, so be nice and comfortable when you’re finding the right sitting posture for yourself.

When sitting for meditation, you may like to imagine yourself as a mountain: stable, grounded, balanced, dignified, and beautiful. Your outer posture is more likely to be translated in your inner world, bringing clarity and wakefulness.

Sit on a chair or on the floor, in any posture as long as you can sit with your back relatively upright so it doesn’t cause too much discomfort over time.

Try lifting your hips several inches above your knees by sitting on a cushion or pillow. This can help to straighten and ease tension from your back.

Sitting on a chair

You may have become accustomed to slouching on chairs. Over time, slouching causes damage to your back. You may habitually lean against the chair with an arched back and crooked neck, which isn’t conducive to sitting meditation.

Here’s one suggestion for sitting on a chair for meditation. See whether it works for you (see Figure 6-2):

1. Try putting a couple of magazines, wooden blocks, or perhaps even telephone directories underneath the back two legs of the chair. By giving your chair a slight tilt forwards, you help to make your back straight naturally, without much effort.
2. Place your feet flat on the floor, or on a cushion on the floor if the chair’s too high. Your knees need to be at more than about 90 degrees so that your hips are above your knees.
3. Position your hands on your knees face down or face up, or place your hands in each other. If your hands are facing up, you may find it comfortable to allow your thumbs to gently touch each other. Some people also like to allow their hands to rest on a small cushion on their legs to prevent the shoulders dragging downwards.
4. Imagine that your head is a helium-filled balloon. Allow your head to lift naturally and gently, and straighten your spine without straining. No need to create excessive tension or discomfort. Tuck in your chin slightly.
5. Lean forwards and backwards a few times until you find the middle balance point; at this position, your head neither falls back nor forwards but is naturally balanced on the neck and shoulders. Then lean to the left and right to find the point of balance again. Now relax any extra tension in the body. If that feels good for you, you’re ready to meditate! If not, take your time to adjust your body to find the right posture for yourself.

Sitting on the floor

You can also do seated meditation sitting in the more traditional posture on the floor. Some people find sitting on the floor more grounding and stable. However, sitting in the most comfortable posture for you is more important than anything else.

On the floor, you can do the kneeling posture, shown in Figure 6-3, in which you support your buttocks using a meditation stool or a cushion. If you use a meditation stool, ensure that you have a cushion for it too, or you may find it uncomfortable.

It’s important to find a stool or cushion at the right height for yourself. Too high, and your back will feel strained and uncomfortable. Too low, and you’re more likely to slump and feel sleepy.

The instructions for the kneeling posture are:

1. Begin by shaking your legs and rotating your ankles to prepare yourself for the posture.
2. Kneel on a carpet or mat on the floor.
3. Raise your buttocks up and place the kneeling stool between your lower legs and your buttocks.
4. Gently sit back down on the kneeling stool. Place a cushion on top of the kneeling stool if you haven’t already done so, to make the posture more comfortable for yourself.
5. Shift your body around slightly to ensure you’re in a posture that feels balanced and stable. You don’t need to be overly rigid in your posture.

The other position is the Burmese posture. This simply involves sitting on a cushion and placing both lower legs on the floor, one folded in front of the other (shown in Figure 6-4).

The Burmese posture instructions are:

1. Shake your legs, rotate your ankles and have a stretch, however feels right for you. This helps to prepare your body to sit.
2. Place a mat or soft blanket on the ground. On top of that, place a firm cushion, or several soft cushions on top of each other.
3. Sit down by placing your buttocks on the cushion. Allow your knees to touch the ground. If your knees don’t touch the ground, either use more cushions or try one of the other postures suggested in this section.
4. Allow the heel of your left foot to be close to or to gently touch the inside thigh of your right leg. Allow the right leg to be in front of the left leg, with the heel pointing towards your lower left leg. If your legs aren’t that supple, adjust as necessary, always ensuring you’re comfortable.
5. Invite your back to be quite straight but relaxed too. Gently rock back and forth to find the point where your head is balanced on your neck and shoulders. Tuck your chin in slightly, so the back of your neck isn’t straining.
6. Place your hand on your knees, facing down or facing up with thumb and first finger gently touching. Alternatively, place a small cushion in your lap and place your hands on the cushion in any way that feels right for you. I find that the cushion helps to prevent my shoulders being dragged forwards and down.
7. Meditate to your heart’s content.

You’ll find it more comfortable to sit on a firm meditation cushion, often called a zafu. Ordinary cushions on their own are too soft. The zafu helps to raise your hips above your knees, making the sitting position more stable. Alternatively, use lots of small cushions or fold a large cushion to give yourself better support. Find a position you’re happy with.

Practising sitting meditation

The mindful sitting practice I describe here comprises several stages. To begin with, I recommend that you just do the first stage – mindfulness of breath – daily. Then, after about a week, you can expand the meditation to include mindfulness of breath and body, and so on.

This book includes MP3 audio tracks that you can download for each stage of this sitting meditation. You can listen to them separately, or back to back for the full guided sitting meditation.

If you find the sitting posture too uncomfortable, you can do this mindfulness exercise lying down, or in any other posture that feels right for you. Go with what you prefer rather than forcing yourself to do what I suggest. This mindfulness exercise is available as an audio track (Tracks 10-14):

Practising mindfulness of breath (Track 10)

1.   Find a comfortable upright sitting posture on the floor or in a chair.

2.   Remember that the intention of this practice to be aware of whatever you’re focusing on, in a non-judgemental, kind, accepting and curious way. This is a time set aside entirely for you, a time to be aware and awake to your experience as best you can, from moment to moment, non-judgementally. Hold a soft, gentle smile on your face.

3.   Become aware of the feeling of your breath. Allow your attention to rest wherever the sensations of your breath are most predominant. This may be in or around the nostrils, as the cool air enters in and the warmer air leaves the nose. Or perhaps you notice it most in your chest as the rib cage rises and falls. Or maybe you feel it most easily and comfortably in the area of your belly, the lower abdomen. You may feel your belly move gently outwards as you breathe in, and back in as you let go and breathe out. As soon as you’ve found a place where you can feel the breath, simply rest your attention there for each in-breath and each out-breath. You don’t need to change the pace or depth of your breathing, and you don’t even need to think about it – you simply need to feel each breath.

4.   As you rest your attention on the breath, before long your mind will wander off. That’s absolutely natural and nothing to worry about. As soon as you notice it’s gone off, realise that you’re already back! The fact that you’ve become aware that your mind has been wandering is a moment of wakefulness. Now, simply label your thought quietly in your own mind. You can label it ‘thinking, thinking’ or if you want to be more specific: ‘worrying, worrying’ or ‘planning, planning’. This helps to frame the thought. Then gently, kindly, without criticism or judgement, guide your attention back to wherever you were feeling the breath. Your mind may wander off a thousand times, or for long periods of time. Each time, softly, lightly and smoothly direct the attention back to the breath, if you can.

5.   Continue this for about ten minutes, or longer if you want to.

At this point, you can stop or carry on to the next stage, which is mindfulness of both breath and body:

Practising mindfulness of breath and body (Track 11)

6.   Expand your awareness from a focused attention on the breath, to a more wide and spacious awareness of the body as a whole. Become aware of the whole body sitting in a stable, balanced and grounded presence, like a mountain. The feeling of breathing is part of the body, so get a sense of the whole body breathing.

7.   When the mind wanders off into thoughts, ideas, dreams, or worries, gently label it and then guide the attention back to a sense of the body as a whole, breathing as in Step 4.

8.   Remember that the whole body breathes all the time, through the skin. Get a sense of this whole-body breathing.

9.   Continue this open, wide, curious, kind, and accepting awareness for about ten minutes – or longer if you feel like it. If certain parts of your body become uncomfortable, choose to breathe into that discomfort, and note the effect of that, or slowly and mindfully shift your bodily position to relieve the discomfort. Whatever you choose, doing it mindfully is the important bit.

At this point, you can stop or carry on to mindfulness of sounds.

Practising mindfulness of sounds (Track 12)

10. Let go of mindfulness of breath and body and become aware of sounds. Begin by noticing the sounds of your body, the sounds in the room you’re in, the sounds in the building, and finally the furthest sounds outside. Let the sounds permeate into you rather than straining to grasp them. Listen without effort: let it happen by itself. Listen without labelling the sound, as best you can. For example, if you hear the sound of a plane passing, or a door closing, or a bird singing, listen to the actual sound itself – its tone, pitch, and volume – rather than thinking, ‘Oh, that’s a plane.’

11. As soon as you notice your thoughts taking over, label the thought and tenderly escort the attention back to listening.

12. Continue listening for ten minutes or so.

At this point, you can stop or carry on to mindfulness of thoughts and feelings.

Practising mindfulness of thoughts and feelings (Track 13)

13. When you’re ready, turn your attention from the external experience of sound to your inner thoughts. Thoughts can be in the form of sounds you can hear or in the form of images you can see. Watch or listen to thoughts in the same way you were mindful of sounds: without judgement or criticism, and with acceptance and openness.

14. Watch thoughts arise and pass away like clouds in the sky. Neither force thoughts to arise nor push them away. As best you can, create a distance, a space, between yourself and your thoughts. Notice what effect this has, if any. If the thoughts suddenly disappear, see whether you can be okay with that too.

15. Imagine that you’re sitting on the bank of a river, as another way of watching thoughts. As you sit there, leaves float on the surface and continuously drift by. Place each thought that you have onto each leaf that passes you. Continue to sit and observe your thoughts passing by.

16. As soon as you notice your attention get stuck in a train of thought, calmly take a step back from your thoughts and watch them once again from a distance, as best you can. (Every so often, your attention may get stuck in a train of thought; your mind just works that way.) If you criticise yourself for your mind wandering, observe that as just a thought too.

17. Now try turning towards emotions. Notice whatever emotions arise, and whether they’re positive or negative. As far as you can, open up to the emotion and feel it. Notice where that emotion manifests itself in your body. Is it new or familiar? Is it just one emotion or several layers? Do you feel like running away from the emotion, or staying with it? Breathe into the feeling as you continue to watch it. Observe your emotion in a curious, friendly way, like a young child looking at a new toy.

18. Continue to practise for ten minutes or so. These subtle activities take time to develop. Just do your best and accept however you feel they’ve gone, whether you were successful at focusing or not.

At this point, you can stop or carry on to choiceless awareness, which is simply an open awareness of whatever arises in your consciousness: sounds, thoughts, the sensations in your body, feelings, or the breath. Here’s how:

Practising choiceless awareness (Track 14)

19. Just be aware of whatever arises, in an expansive, receptive, and welcoming way. Put the welcome mat out for your experience. Notice whatever predominates most in your awareness and let it go again.

20. If you find your mind wandering (and it’s particularly easy to get swept up and away into thoughts when practising this), come back to mindfulness of breath to ground yourself, before trying again. Become curious about what’s happening for you, rather than trying to change anything.

21. Practise for about ten minutes, then begin to bring the sitting meditation to a close. Gently congratulate yourself for having taken the time to nourish your health and wellbeing in this practice, for having taken time out of doing mode to explore the inner landscape of being mode, and allow this sense of awareness to permeate whatever activities you engage in today.

Overcoming sitting meditation obstacles

One of the most common problems with sitting meditation is posture. After sitting for some time, the back, knees, or other parts of the body start to ache. When this happens, you have two choices:

• Observe both the discomfort as well as your mind’s reaction to it, while continuing to sit still. I recommend this if the discomfort doesn’t hurt too much. Mindfulness is about welcoming experiences, even if they feel unpleasant at first. What does the discomfort feel like exactly? What’s its precise location? What do you think about it? Because all experience is in a state of flux and change, you may find that even your feeling of physical discomfort changes.
• By you discovering how to stay with these sensations, your meditation skills flow into your everyday life. You can manage other difficult emotions and challenging problems in the same welcoming, curious, and accepting way, rather than fighting them. Your body and mind are one, so by sitting still, your mind has a chance to stabilise and focus too.
• Mindfully move the position of your body. If your bodily discomfort is overwhelming, you can, of course, move your body. That’s a lovely act of kindness to yourself. Try not to react quickly to the discomfort. Instead, shift your position slowly and mindfully. In this way, you enfold your shift of position into the practice. You’re responding instead of reacting, which is what mindfulness is about. Responding involves a deliberate choice by you: you feel the sensation and make a conscious decision about what to do next. Reacting is automatic, lacks control, and bypasses an intentional decision by you. By you becoming more skilful in responding to your own experience in meditation, your ability spills out into everyday life: when someone frustrates you, you can respond while remaining in control of yourself rather than reacting in an out-of-control way.

Besides arising from the posture, frustration can arise from the practice itself. You’re so used to judging all your experiences that you judge your meditation too. But mindfulness means non-judgemental awareness. Bad meditation doesn’t exist – there’s no such thing. Sometimes you can concentrate and focus your mind, and other times it’s totally wild. Meditation is like that. Trust in the process, even if it feels as if you’re not improving. Mindfulness works at a level both above and below the conscious mind, so on the surface it may seem as though you’re not getting anywhere. Don’t worry: each meditation is a step forwards, because you’ve actually practised.

Stepping Out with Walking Meditations

Walking meditation is meditation in which the process of walking is used as a focus. The ability to walk is a privilege, and walking is a miraculous process that you can feel grateful for.

Imagine being able to walk to work in a mindful, calm, and relaxed way, arriving at your destination refreshed and energised. You can walk in a stress-free way with walking meditation. My students often say that walking meditation is one of their favourite practices. The walking gives them time out from an over-occupied mind. Meditative walking is also a good way of preparing for the other, more physically static, meditations.

Examining your walking habits

You probably rarely just walk. You may walk and talk, walk and think, walk and plan, or walk and worry. Walking is so easy that you do other things at the same time. You probably walk on automatic pilot most of the time. However, you can get into negative habit patterns and end up spending all your time planning when you walk, and rarely just enjoying the walking itself.

When you walk, you’re normally trying to get somewhere. That makes sense, I know. In walking meditation, you’re not trying to get anywhere. You can let go of the destination and enjoy the journey, which is what all meditations are about.

Practising formal walking meditation

In this section I describe a formal walking meditation, which means you make special time and space to practise the exercise. You can equally introduce an awareness of your walking in an informal way, when going about your daily activities. You don’t have to slow down the pace at which you walk for that.

To practise formal walking meditation, sometimes called mindful walking, try the following steps, available as an audio track (Track 15):

1. Decide for how long you’re going to practise. I suggest ten minutes the first time, but whatever you feel comfortable with. Also choose where to practise. The first time you try it, practise walking very slowly, so a quiet room at home may be best.
2. Stand upright with stability. Gently lean to the left and right, forwards and backwards, to find a central, balanced standing posture. Let your knees unlock slightly, and soften any unnecessary tension in your face. Allow your arms to hang naturally by your sides. Ensure that your body’s grounded, like a tree – firmly rooted to the ground with dignity and poise.
3. Become aware of your breath. Come into contact with the flow of each inhalation and exhalation. Enjoy breathing. Maintain a beautiful little grin on your face for the duration of this practice, if you can.
4. Now slowly lean onto your left foot and notice how your sensations change. Then slowly shift your weight onto your right foot. Again perceive how the sensations fluctuate from moment to moment.
5. When you’re ready, gradually shift most of your weight onto your left foot, so almost no weight is on the right foot. Slowly take your right heel off the ground. Pause for a moment here. Notice the sense of anticipation about something as basic as taking a step. Now lift your right foot off the ground and place it heel first in front of you. Become aware of the weight of your body shifting from the left to the right foot. Continue gradually to place the rest of the right foot flat and firmly on the ground. Notice the weight continue to shift from left to right.
6. Continue to walk in this very slow, mindful way for as long as you want. When you finish, take some time to reflect on your experience.

Trying alternative walking meditations

Here are a couple of other ways of practising walking meditation that you can use while moving at your own pace:

• Walking body scan. In this walking meditation, you gradually move your awareness up your body as you walk, from your feet all the way to the top of your head.
  1. Begin by walking as you normally do.
  2. Now focus on the sensations in your feet. Notice how the weight shifts from one foot to the other.
  3. Continue to move your mindful attention up your body. Feel your lower legs as you walk, then your upper legs, noticing their movement.
  4. Now observe the movement and sensations in the area of the hips and pelvis.
  5. Continue to scan your awareness to the lower and then upper torso, then your arms, as they naturally swing to help you keep balance.
  6. Observe the sensation in your shoulders, your neck, your face, and then the whole of your head.
  7. Now get a sense of the body as a whole as you continue to stroll, together with the physical sensation of the breath. Continue this for as long as you wish.
• Walking with happiness. This practice is recommended by world-famous mindfulness teacher Thich Nhat Hanh. This mindfulness exercise is about generating positive feelings as you walk. Try the following as an experiment. Have fun with it:
  1. Find a place to walk by yourself or with a friend. Try to find a beautiful place to walk if possible.
  2. Remember that the purpose of walking meditation is to be in the present moment, letting go of your anxieties and worries. Just enjoy the present moment.
  3. Walk as if you’re the happiest person on earth. Smile – you’re alive! Acknowledge that you’re very fortunate if you’re able to walk.
  4. As you walk in this way, imagine you’re printing peace and joy with every step you take. Walk as if you’re kissing the earth with each step you take. Know that you’re taking care of the earth by walking in this way.
  5. Notice how many steps you take when you breathe in, and how many you take when you breathe out. If you take three steps with each in-breath, in your mind say ‘in – in – in’ as you breathe in. And if you take four steps as you breathe out, say ‘out – out – out – out’. Doing so helps you to become aware of your breathing. You don’t need to control your breathing or walking; let it be slow and natural.
  6. Every now and then, when you see a beautiful tree, flower, lake, children playing, or anything else you like, stop and look at it. Continue to follow your breathing as you do this.
  7. Imagine a flower blooming under each step you take. Allow each step to refresh your body and mind. Realise that life can only be lived in the present moment. Enjoy your walking.

Overcoming walking meditation obstacles

Walking meditation doesn’t create as many issues as the other meditations. However, here are a couple that often crop up, with ideas to solve them:

• You can’t balance when walking very slowly. Walking straight at a very slow pace is surprisingly tricky. If you think that you may fall over, use a wall to support yourself. Additionally, gaze at a spot in front of you and keep your eyes fixed there as you walk forwards. As you practise, your balance improves.
• Your mind keeps wandering off. Walking meditation is like all other mindfulness practices. The mind becomes distracted. Gently guide your attention back to the feeling of the feet on the floor, or of the breath. No self-criticism or blaming is required.

Generating Compassion: Metta Meditations

Metta is a Buddhist term meaning loving kindness or friendliness. Metta meditation is designed to generate a sense of compassion both for yourself and towards others. All mindfulness meditations make use of an affectionate awareness, but metta meditations are specifically designed to deepen this skill and direct it in specific ways.

Many religious traditions and ancient cultures emphasise the need to love and care for yourself and those around you. When you’re feeling particularly harsh and self-critical, metta meditation can act as an antidote and generate feelings of friendliness and affection. The reason metta meditation works is due to an important aspect of human beings: you can’t feel both hatred and friendliness at the same time: by nourishing one, you displace the other. Metta meditation is a gentle way of healing your inner mind and heart from all its pain and suffering.

If you’re new to meditation, try some of the other meditations in this book first. When you’ve had some experience of those meditations, you’re ready to try the metta meditation. Take your time with it: work through the practice slowly and regularly, and you’re sure to reap the benefits.

Practising loving kindness meditation

Here’s a guided metta meditation. Work through it slowly, taking it step by step. If you don’t have the time or the patience to do all the stages, do as many as you feel comfortable with. Be gentle with yourself, right from the beginning. This meditation is available as an audio track (Track 16):

1. You can practise loving kindness in a seated or lying down position. You can even practise it while walking. What’s most important isn’t the position you adopt, but the intention of kindness and friendliness you bring to the process. Make yourself warm and at ease. Gently close your eyes or keep them half open, looking comfortably downwards.
2. Begin by feeling your breath. Notice the breath sensation wherever it feels most predominant for you. This awareness helps create a connection between your body and mind. Continue to feel your breath for a few minutes.
3. When you’re ready, see whether certain phrases arise from your heart for what you most deeply desire for yourself in a long-lasting way, and ultimately for all beings. Phrases like:

   May I be well. May I be happy. May I be healthy. May I be free from suffering.

4. Softly repeat the phrases again and again. Allow them to sink into your heart. Allow the words to generate a feeling of kindness towards yourself. If that doesn’t happen, don’t worry about it: your intention is more important than the feeling. Just continue to repeat the phrases lightly. Let the phrases resonate.
5. Now bring to mind someone you care about: a good friend or person who inspires you. Picture the person in your mind’s eye and inwardly say the same phrases to her. Don’t worry if you can’t create the image clearly. The intention works by itself. Use phrases like:

   May you be well. May you be happy. May you be healthy. May you be free from suffering.

   Send loving kindness to the person using these words.

6. When you’re ready, choose a neutral person: someone you see daily but don’t have any particular positive or negative feelings towards. Perhaps someone you walk past every morning or buy coffee from. Again send a sense of loving kindness using your phrases:

   May you be well. May you be happy. May you be healthy. May you be free from suffering.

7. Now choose a person you don’t get on with too well. Perhaps someone you’ve been having difficulties with recently. Say the same phrases again, from the mind and heart. This may be more challenging.
8. Now bring all four people to mind: yourself, your friend, your neutral person, and your difficult person. Visualise them or feel their presence. Try to send an equal amount of loving kindness to them all by saying:

   May we be well. May we be happy. May we be healthy. May we be free from suffering.

9. Finally, expand your sense of loving kindness outwards, towards all living beings. Plants, animals of the land, air, and sea. The whole universe. Send this sense of friendliness, care, loving kindness, and compassion in all directions from your heart:

   May all be well. May all be happy. May all be healthy. May all be free from suffering.

If the metta phrases I suggest don’t work for you, then here are other suggestions. Choose two or three and use them as your metta phrases. Or you can be creative and come up with your own, too:

• May I be at peace with myself and all other beings.
• May I accept myself just as I am.
• May I find forgiveness for the inevitable hurt peopole bring to one another.
• May I live in peace and harmony with all beings.
• May I love myself completely just as I am now no matter what happens.
• May I be free from the suffering of fear and anger.
• May I love myself unconditionally.

Metta meditation can be a profoundly healing practice. Be patient with yourself and practise it slowly and lovingly. Let the phrases come from your heart and see what happens.

Once you become experienced at this meditation, you can even practise it while walking. However, remember to keep your eyes open, or you may mindfully bump into something!

Overcoming metta meditation obstacles

You may experience a few specific problems with metta meditation. Some common issues, with suggestions for overcoming them, include:

• You can’t think of a specific person. If you can’t think of a suitable friend, or neutral person, or someone you’re having difficulties with, don’t worry. You can miss that step for now, or just choose anyone. The intention of loving kindness is more important than the specific person you choose.
• You say the phrases but don’t feel anything. This is perfectly normal, especially when you start. Imagine the phrases coming out of your chest or heart, rather than your head, if you can. Again, the feeling isn’t as important as your attitude of friendliness in the practice. The feelings may come in the future, or may not – you don’t need to worry about that.
• Your mind keeps wandering off. This is simply the nature of mind, and happens in all meditations. As always, as soon as you notice, kindly and gently bring your attention back to the practice. Each time you bring it back, you’re strengthening your mind to pay attention.
• You have great trouble with the difficult person. If you have a strong aversion to bringing a sense of kindness to the difficult person, try remembering that she’s a human being, just like you. She too has her challenges in life, which may be why she behaves in the way she does. And she, too, ultimately wants to be happy and peaceful, although it may not seem that way on the outside. If these thoughts don’t help either, try focusing on someone less difficult to begin with. Be patient with yourself: this isn’t an easy process, but it’s certainly worth the effort.
• You feel very emotional. Feeling emotional is a very common reaction. You may not be used to generating feelings in this way, and it can unlock deep-seated emotions. If you can, try to continue with the practice. If your emotions become overwhelming, try just the first phase, sending metta towards yourself, for the whole meditation. Doing just one phase for a whole meditation is perfectly fine. Alternatively, stop the practice and come back to it later, when it feels more appropriate.