Try a short meditation

Here are two meditations you can practice at home. All you need is a comfortable chair or cushion and five to ten minutes’ free time.

Enjoy!

Meditation 1 – Finding a still point

Finding a still point in meditation – where busy mental activity subsides for a few moments – helps us to relieve stress and keep a clear head throughout the day.

1. Sit comfortably with your back straight but relaxed.
2. Close your eyes and become aware of your breath entering and leaving your nostrils.
3. Breathing normally, follow the inhalation and exhalation with your mind. Follow your breath, not your thoughts.
4. Every time your mind is distracted by a thought, bring it back to the breath.
5. Gradually you will feel the stress in your body and mind melt away and experience a deep, inner stillness and peace.
6. Stay with this stillness for a while, feeling that you are centered in your heart, giving yourself permission to enjoy it.
7. Understand that this is the natural peace of your own mind when it is allowed to settle and relax. Identify with this peace, thinking “This indicates my boundless potential. This is me.”
8. Throughout the day, remember the still point you reached in your heart and return to it as often as you can.
9. Before you rise, mentally dedicate the good karma from your meditation to the happiness of all, thinking, “May everyone be happy. May our world be peaceful.”

You can find our more about this meditation here.

Meditation 2 – Clearing the inner energies

Most of our problems come from our negative states of mind, which depend upon negative energy inside us. This meditation helps to eliminate negative energy and build up positive energy.

1. Sit comfortably with your back straight but relaxed.
2. Close your eyes and become aware of your breath.
3. Breathing normally, try to follow the inhalation and exhalation.
4. Follow your breath, not your thoughts. Every time your mind is distracted by a thought, bring it back to the breath.
5. As you breathe out, imagine you exhale all your negative energy in the form of thick smoke, which completely disappears into space.
6. As you breathe in, imagine you inhale blissful, positive energy in the form of clear light, which fills your entire body and mind.
7. Continue in this way for a few minutes, then conclude by focusing on the clean, blissful feeling emanating from your heart and pervading your body and mind.
8. Throughout the day, try to keep this clear, blissful feeling inside and make it the starting point for all your thoughts, words, and actions.
9. Before you rise, mentally dedicate the good karma from your meditation to the happiness of all, thinking, “May everyone be happy. May our world be peaceful.”

You can find out more about this meditation in Joyful Path of Good Fortune, pages 51-2.

If any of your family or friends have expressed interest in learning to meditate, please feel free to pass on this article, and/or this related article.

The benefits of meditation

Positive Health Wellness have produced a fantastic infographic on the benefits of meditation, which I reproduce here with their permission:

Comments welcome below!