The usual choice is the lotus position, seated cross-legged with the right foot tucked on top of the left thigh, and the left foot on top of the right thigh. If your body cannot accommodate this, use a comfortable cross-legged posture, or sit on a chair. Sit upright, with your spine straight and your head well-supported. If required, feel free to gently and mindfully lay your back against a chair, wall, or tree trunk. Tilt your head slightly downward if it is more comfortable. Place your hands anywhere that feels comfortable. A common choice is to place them on your lap, with both palms upward, the left cradling the right.
You can expect your eyes to naturally and gradually close during relaxation. You may softly close them before you begin if it helps.
There are several methods of counting used in meditation. Some count to five or eight instead, and some complete the count during each breath, with the final number landing at the end of the breath. [10] X Research source [11] X Research source
Maintain your focus on one point of your body. Track the beginning, middle, and end of your breaths by the changes in air flow at that point, not by attempting to follow the movement of air through your body. [13] X Research source Although the description is simple, you can spend years on this stage, improving your focus. There is no schedule for attaining each stage.
Attempting to shift focus from your breath to the image will often cause it to disappear. If you successfully remain in contact with your breath, you may find that the image stabilizes and that your mind focuses on it without conscious choice. [17] X Research source These are subtle steps with natural, overlapping transitions. Both “contact” and “fixing” are techniques that assist you in what the Buddha called “calming the bodily formation”. [18] X Research source
Become aware of how inner feelings of rapture and pleasure cause a gladdening of the mind, which in turn leads to stillness and peace. [20] X Expert Source James BrownMeditation Coach Expert Interview. 3 April 2019. Notice how the stillness born of the inner happiness gives a different taste to your mind: a taste of freedom and sufficiency.
Contemplate impermanence. Understand the deepest implication of impermanence in our experience of suffering. Contemplate fading away. Contemplate cessation. Contemplate relinquishment. Realize that relinquishing the usual habits of seeking pleasure and happiness will lead to more powerful and secure inner experiences.
Keep in mind that these stages do not come quickly or easily – it requires deep and constant practice to be able to make it to the level of purification. [22] X Research source
The flow of the entirety of the breath as observed from a fixed point. A good analogy to consider is a saw - when sawing through a log, you keep 100% of your attention at the point the saw makes contact with the wood while it goes back and forth, but you don’t follow the saw as it comes and goes as you wouldn’t know how far you have cut into the wood. The flow of energy that the breath creates and uses. A more experienced meditator can use the energy to flow around the body to soothe pain and refresh the body, eventually creating a sense of pleasure. The use of breath to relax both the mind and the body and increase awareness as it becomes more subtle. Your experiences of how the breath is formed in relation to the state of the mind. If the mind is tense, the breath is often tense. The state of the mind is often reflected in the breath. By adjusting the mind, such as considering thoughts of goodwill when angry, or appreciation when unhappy, you can adjust the breath to be more gentle and calm, which helps relax the body and mind. Your experiences of how your state of mind forms in relation to the breath and your nose. We seldom breathe through both nostrils at the same time, as one is usually closed. The mental intention that drives the in-breath and out-breath process in terms of voidness or emptiness (anatta). The mental process and body processes of breathing do not stop when we cease paying attention to them. The impermanent, changing nature of the mind and body. Not only is each breath different from the other, so you never have two breaths the same, the meditation practice is always different, so you never have two meditation periods the same. How the breath changes when we fix on a different object such a distraction, a thought or feeling, or sensations in the body.
For concentration to develop further, maintain applied focus until it becomes evident to you in some form and a sense of pleasure is present. This is often called rapture. If there is no sense of this rapture, it is unlikely the mind will enter much deeper into concentration. The form it appears in is different to each person. It may be a change in physical sensation, a mental image, a symbolic sense of movement or another form. This is not a thing the majority of practitioners experience often or sometimes at all. It is highly conditional on the temperament of the practitioner, experience and skills in meditation, location and potential distractions or other priorities that may be in the mind. Should it arise, you should focus all attention on that without analyzing its color, characteristics etc. It can be easily lost when you don’t give balanced and even attention to it. Mindfulness of breathing is difficult to develop so it requires practice to do well.
