mindfulness

Learning to breathe and relax can deepen your capacity to stay present to the events of your life. This meditation can provide space for you to notice as feelings and thoughts arise, shift, and fade away. Rather than push away emotions, this practice allows you to tune in to those emotions and learn how to ride the waves of sensations that we each experience throughout our lives.

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The practice of metta, or loving-kindness, meditation provides an opportunity to develop your capacity to love and care for both yourself and others. Metta can create opportunities for you to re-examine your relationship with all beings in the world, and provide an opening for you to replace thoughts of anger and fear with feelings of kindness and compassion. The practice is highly adaptable and the phrases can be altered to reflect whatever is meaningful to you.

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Lots of meditation techniques break down our assumptions about the world and help us come to grips with reality. In this meditation practice we examine the body as four elements: the earth element, the water element, the fire element, and the air element. Each element represents the basic qualities of matter: the earth element represents solidity, the water element represents fluidity, the fire element represents temperature, and the air element represents motion. Understanding the body in this way allows us to let go of attachments to judgements about ourselves and other people. Rather than desirable or repulsive, too big or too small, we can train the main to understand the body simply as a being consisting of these four elements.

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Society places a lot of attention on bodies. Some we label "too big" while others we see as "too small." This body is attractive and that one is not. But on the outside, bodies do not consist of much, and it can be useful to contemplate the body in terms of its visible components, such as head hair, body hair, nails, teeth, and skin. When we break down the body into these elements, we become less attached to it. We realize that these parts are impermanent and ownerless. This practice allows us to shift our attention from appearance to more important matters. For more on this technique, see the Digha Nikaya 22.

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Mindfulness acts as the gatekeeper for the mind, and in this episode we develop our mindfulness practice by using the idea of a gatekeeper who guards the single gate of a city surrounded by walls. The wise and competent gatekeeper, like a mindfulness practice, keeps out strangers and welcomes in friends. This practice helps to build trust in the gatekeeper and awareness of the present moment.

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We live complex lives in which we race around from one activity to the next. Let this practice slow the mind, and slow down time. Train the attention to this moment. In this meditation, we practice responding to thoughts rather than reacting to them.

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Metta meditation (also called loving-kindness meditation) helps develop a propensity for kindness. In this meditation we practice and cultivate universal love for all living beings.

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In this episode of Pretty Good Meditation, we explore the concept of "home."

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Someone requested that I record some meditations that could be used to start a meeting. So in this episode of Pretty Good Meditation, I offer you Meeting Meditation Three.

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