Sharon Salzberg Balance Beginning Again Guided Meditation

Lesson Progress:

Day 1 Meditation

Today we will begin our exploration of CONCENTRATION with something you've known how to practice all of your life: breathe. This practice entails paying attention to each in-and-out breath, and when your mind wanders (and it will, that's natural), noticing whatever has captured your attention, then letting go of the thoughts or feelings without berating yourself for it. You and so return to focusing on your breathing. In this way, the meditation trains us to stay in the moment earlier u.s. instead of reliving the past or worrying about the future. Information technology also teaches us how to be gentle with ourselves and others, to forgive our lapses and move on.

Inspiration

Daily Tip

It can be very supportive to establish a concrete space that you lot can use every solar day for your do. This meditation corner could be in your sleeping accommodation or office; in the basement or on the porch. Wherever you practice, option a place where you can exist relatively undisturbed during your meditation sessions.

Question & Answer

Q: When I try to meditate, I become then conscious of the jiff that I almost feel like I'chiliad going to hyperventilate. How practise I just exhale normally?

A: When I was a beginner, I found that every time I began one breath, I would already be anticipating the next. Leaning forward was the habit of my mind; I was very wary and concerned about what would happen next in life, and I brought that hyper vigilance into meditation do. I had so much functioning anxiety that I couldn't concentrate on my jiff. What I needed was to settle dorsum in my mind and let the breath come.
 But sometimes we settle back too far, get too relaxed, and that'south when we get sleepy or bored or distracted. When that happens, nosotros demand to rev up our free energy – take more of an interest in the process of breathing, refocus, reconnect. One way to do that might be to give yourself a little claiming: run into if you can feel the finish of 1 breath and the showtime of the adjacent. Losing and restoring balance is part of the practise. The play a joke on ever is to begin again – to realize that zip is ruined when we lose track of our breath.

Today'south Weblog

Meditation Transcript

My name is Sharon Salzberg. I've been practicing meditation since 1971 and educational activity since 1974. Over the next four weeks, I'll exist guiding you through practices to deepen concentration, mindfulness of the body, mindfulness of emotions, and the heart practices of loving kindness and compassion. These are adapted from my book Real Happiness: The Ability of Meditation: A 28-Day Programme, which I wrote to help anyone begin or strengthen a regular meditation exercise. These meditation exercises are ancient techniques expressed in a modern way. Together, nosotros volition explore meditation as a skills training, beginning with concentration.

A classic foundational practise in meditation is focusing on the feeling of the in and out jiff. The breath is called, they say, for many reasons. For i matter, you don't have to believe anything in lodge to feel your jiff. Yous don't accept to call yourself a Buddhist or a Hindu or decline anything else. If you're breathing, you lot can be meditating. Information technology'south besides said that the jiff is very portable. If we can practice beingness connected, being aware, when we're sitting formally, when we say, "Oh, now I'm going to be meditating," we can too exist practicing standing in line impatiently at the grocery shop, sitting anxiously in a doctor'due south waiting room. Anywhere nosotros are breathing, nosotros can be meditating. In this system, the breath that nosotros focus on is the normal flow of the in and out breath. We don't try to make the breath deeper or different, just withal it'southward appearing and however it's changing.

This classic meditation practice is designed to deepen the force of concentration. If you lot consider how scattered, how distracted, how out of the moment nosotros may ordinarily exist, y'all can see the do good of gathering that free energy, gathering our attention. To have a sense of reclaiming all of that energy, which could be available to us, but unremarkably isn't considering we throw it away into the by, into the futurity. Nosotros gather all of that attending and energy to get integrated, to take a middle, to not be so fragmented, so torn apart. So fifty-fifty though we take a very elementary object, an ordinary object, like the feeling of the breath, it has the upshot of really bringing usa to a sense of wholeness, a sense of empowerment.

To begin with, you can sit comfortably and relax. You don't accept to feel self-conscious, as though you're about to do something special or weird. Just be at ease. It helps if your back can exist straight without beingness strained or over-arched. Yous can shut your optics or not, nevertheless y'all experience comfortable. And notice where the feeling of the breath is almost predominant. At the nostrils, at the chest, or at the belly. Rest your attention lightly in only that area. See if yous tin feel simply i jiff from the commencement, through the middle, to the end. If you lot're with a jiff at the nostrils, it may be tingling, vibration, warmth, coolness. If at the abdomen, information technology may be movement, pressure level, stretching, release. You don't have to name these sensations, merely feel them. Information technology's just one breath. If images or sounds, emotions, or sensations should ascend, just they're not stiff plenty to really take y'all away from the feeling of the jiff, just let them flow on by. Y'all don't have to follow after them, you lot don't accept to attack them. You're animate, it'south just ane breath. It'southward like seeing a friend in a oversupply. Yous don't accept to shove everyone else aside or make them go away, simply your enthusiasm, your interest is going toward your friend. "Well, there's my friend!" There's the breath, there's the breath. If something arises, sensations, emotions, thoughts, whatever it might be that's strong enough to have your attending away from the feeling of the jiff, or if yous fall asleep, if you go lost in some incredible fantasy, see if you can let go and begin once more, bringing your attending back to the breath. If you have to permit go and begin over again thousands of times, it'southward fine, that'southward the practice. It's just 1 jiff.

You may notice the rhythm of your breath changing in the course of this meditation session. You can just allow it to exist however it is. And if yous see your attention jumping to the by, jumping to the future, judgment, speculation, that's alright. Our practice is to gently let go and simply return. Yous tin shepherd your attention back to the feeling of the breath. Call back that in letting go of distraction, the of import discussion is gentle. Nosotros tin gently let get. We tin forgive ourselves for having wandered, and with great kindness to ourselves, we can begin once again. And when you feel ready, you lot can open your eyes. Sometimes nosotros feel energized and exhilarated after this kind of do. Sometimes calm and rested, and sometimes too rested, every bit though nosotros were waking up from a nap a little groggy. All of that is normal.

See if you can bring an sensation of your breath several times throughout your day.

The 2020 Real Happiness Claiming is sponsored past Happify. Happify offers Science-based activities and games to reduce stress and worry.

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Source: https://www.sharonsalzberg.com/topic/day-1-breath-meditation/

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