Three Simple Meditation Exercises

                                                        

Exercise 1: One Minute of Mindfulness

For the next 60 seconds your task is to focus all your attention on nothing. That's right, nothing. For one minute, sit comfortably with your hands placed in your lap or on your thighs. Take a few breaths and release any tension in your body, especially the neck and shoulders. Gaze at a spot on the floor a few feet in front of you with soft focus--you look at it but you aren't really seeing it. Allow the eyelids to close half way. 

Don't focus your attention, just sit there and do nothing. Breathe normally. If you mind wanders, notice that you are having thoughts and then let them dissolve and then allow the mind to empty again.

This exercise is simply for practice. It's not a personal challenge. Don't try to accomplish anything, just allow yourself the freedom to be whatever you are in the moment.

This exercise can be used often to calm the mind and restore clarity. You can gradually extend the duration of the exercise into longer periods.

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Exercise 2: Conscious Observation

Pick up an object that you have lying around. Any everyday object that you can easily hold in your hand will do. Allow your attention to become slowly and fully absorbed by the object. Just observe it as it is. Don’t critique it or try to imagine how it was formed our how it came to be in your possession. Just notice it's shape, it's color, it's hardness, it's weight, all it's properties without judgment or analysis.

You may feel a heightened sense of awareness or "being awake" during this exercise. Conscious observation is a subtle but very powerful form of meditation.

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Exercise 3: Mindfulness Triggers

In this exercise you pay attention to nothing or to your breath. It doesn't matter if your mind wanders because you will hear a bell at regular intervals that will remind you to drop the thinking and refocus. 

This exercise was designed for one of my classes and I was ringing the bell but you can use this technique during the day by choosing any environment trigger you like. I know one guy who has chosen to use traffic lights to remind him to pay attention to the moment. You might choose to become mindful every time you look in the mirror or wash your hands. I'm practicing becoming mindful every time I hear the words, "You ought to...."

Mindfulness triggers is an excellent technique designed to snap you out of the unconscious “autopilot” state of mind. 

Who Are You Really?

We simply have no tolerance for uncomfortable situations. We cannot wait to get away from anyone and anything that makes us feel uneasy. Some of us become expert at avoiding those situations. This tendency to stay away from what we don't understand slows our growth as human beings. We cannot run from life and yet hope to be fully participating in its richness. The better path is the one that leads us to higher levels of comfort in the larger arena.

Artful Meditation is a vehicle for learning how to become comfortable in difficult situations and how to engage with people who make us uneasy. Mindfulness-awareness practice is the foundation of Living Meditation training. It provides the tools for cultivating loving-kindness and compassion, the qualities we need to be comfortable with life.

Artful Meditation practice moves us closer to our thoughts and emotions and brings us back to awareness of our bodies. This full immersion in the waters of life washes away the veil of indifference that separates us from the lives, indeed the suffering, of others. It is our vehicle for learning to be a truly loving person.

What we discover is that it was our fear of what we didn't know that made us uncomfortable and the greatest unknown in our lives was--ourselves. Artful Mediation helps us to become comfortable with who we are and then we can face the world with confidence.

Escaping the Trap

The mouse that gets caught in the trap because it can't resist trying to eat the cheese is a familiar analogy for the pain caused by holding onto old ideas that no longer work or false ideals that never worked.

No matter how we get ourselves trapped, our usual reaction is to blindly reach for something familiar that we associate with reward even though it invariably leads to dissatisfaction and disappointment.

The most common way of medicating the pain and ignoring the part we play in setting our own traps is through the subtle and seductive games of the conditioned mind. Our everyday mind avoids uneasiness by seeking special states. Drugs are often used for the purpose but we are proficient at using many things to avoid facing our true condition. Sports, spiritual practices, community service, the list is endless. These special states of mind brought about by participation in ego-flattering activities are addictive because they make us feel good, though only for a short time.

When we don't run away from the mundane activities of life and instead pay attention to how we feel and how we behave, we encounter the extraordinary in the everyday. Our innate wisdom is a natural force that emerges when we stop fighting it.

The radical approach, as incredible as it may sound, is to pay attention to our behavior and to our emotions. Without judgement, we recognize exactly what is happening in our daily lives. Eventually, we decide to stop getting in the way of our happiness.