Mindfulness Meditation

This is a very simple Buddhist meditation, which is also known as shamatha meditation. It is just a matter of watching your breath.

John found this meditation to be helpful. It relaxes the mind and helps develop an open awareness of what is coming and going in mind, without having any particular interest in any of it. Over time, this simple practice strengthens your capacity to move and focus attention on objects in consciousness at will. It also reveals certain characteristics of human consciousness.

The practice itself is very simple. You can do it for about 10-15 minutes at a time. Set an alarm clock so you will know when the time is over.

All that is required concerning posture is that you sit comfortably enough to be able to remain seated for 10 minutes in a row. There is no need to pay any particular attention to posture. Just sit comfortably.

Your eyes can be open or closed.

You will be counting out breaths. We use the breath in this meditation not because there is any mystical or spiritually significance in it, but merely because breath is something that happens on its own, and can be relied upon to continue without needing your attention.

Just sit quietly and begin paying attention to your breath, as it goes in and out of your body. Make no attempt or effort to control or monitor the way the breath is happening; just watch the sensation of the breath as it passes across the nostrils, on its way into and out of the body. The sensation is cool as it passes across the nostrils coming into the body and warm on its way out of the body. It is that feeling, that sensation at your nostrils that you will pay attention to and focus on.

Sit quietly with your eyes open or closed and try to create a tight focus on the sensation of the breath coming into the nose and out of the nose. With every out breath, you will count mentally: 1, 2, 3 ... The first out breath is 1; the second out breath is 2, and so forth. You will count up until 10.

Should it happen that during this counting period you find that your attention has been distracted and you find yourself paying attention to anything apart from the sensation of the breath – a physical sensation, a train of thought, a sound, or something crossing your field of vision – you will simply say to yourself silently, inwardly: Thinking. It doesn’t matter what the distraction is, for the purpose of this exercise it is all thinking. Just say silently to yourself: Thinking. Then move your attention back to the breath and start counting again at 1. If you get to 10, start over again at 1. Do this for 10 minutes, once a day.