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These three meditations from the Buddhist tradition will help you develop greater depths of calmness and self-awareness, and will help you to cultivate greater appreciation for yourself and lovingkindness for others.
As is traditional in Buddhism, these guided meditations do not contain musical accompaniment.
Mindfulness of Breathing
This practice is in four stages. After setting up our posture, we become more aware of our bodies and relax as deeply as possible. We become aware of the breath naturally flowing in and out, and then:
1. Count just after each out breath. Count up to ten breaths, and then start over at one.
2. As with the previous stage, but count just before each in breath.
3. Let go of the counting, simply following the breath.
4. Focus on the place where we first feel the breath entering and leaving our bodies (usually the rims of the nostrils).
Whenever we become aware that our minds have wandered, we let go of our distractions and come back to the breath once again.
Metta Bhavana Practice
"Metta" is essentially untranslatable. It means "love", "friendliness", "lovingkindness", and "empathy". It's an attitude of caring, concern, and cherishing. It's something we've all experienced to some degree or another. We experience metta every time we feel concerned about someone we know, or when we practice patience, or when we spontaneously help someone who is in difficulties. "Bhavana" means "cultivation" or "development", and so this is the practice of the "development of lovingkindness". It is based on the insight that all beings desire freedom from suffering.
The metta bhavana is in five stages. As always, we begin by setting up our posture, becoming more aware of our body and relaxing as deeply as we can. We become aware of our emotions, accepting that whatever we feel is where we are starting from.
We then:
1. Cultivate metta (love, care, forgiveness, etc) towards ourselves.
2. Cultivate metta for a good friend.
3. Cultivate metta for a "neutral person" (someone we don't have any strong feelings for).
4. Cultivate metta for someone that we experience conflict with, or for whom we feel ill will.
5. Cultivate metta for all beings capable of experiencing suffering and of desiring well being.
Walking meditation
Walking meditation is an unstructured practice where we use the experience of walking as an object of awareness — being aware of our bodies, our feelings and emotions, our thoughts, and our senses. If our mind wanders, we bring it back to our present experience. This helps us to remain "in the moment".
You can do walking meditation as part of a normal walk to work or to the grocery store, or you can set aside some special time to do the practice in the countryside or in a park. Other forms of walking meditation are described on the Wildmind site.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
590 of 596 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Stress relief in a jewel box,
By
This review is from: Guided Meditations: For Calmness, Awareness, and Love (Audio CD)
This is hands-down the best meditation CD I've come across. I'd give it 6 stars if I could. It's not tarted up with hokey sound effects and New Age music but is simply the teacher's (very pleasant) voice, guiding you to calm and relaxation. His approach is highly accessible for Westerners and really taught me how to meditate. I'm such a big fan of this CD, in fact, that I've bought at least four to give as gifts to stressed-out friends and family members. (One of the recipients was a voice teacher who said she could listen to him all night.) If you like what you hear, you should also check out the outstanding online meditation courses he offers on www.wildmind.org. I can't recommend the CD or the courses highly enough.
311 of 316 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Success in Your Meditations,
By A Customer
This review is from: Guided Meditations: For Calmness, Awareness, and Love (Audio CD)
If you would like an introduction to Buddhist Meditation, this is the cd for you! The cd contains three lead meditations, 1) The Mindfulness of breathing practice. 2) The Metta Bhavana Practice (Loving Kindness) 3) Walking Mediation.I found Bodhipaksas cd to be a breath of fresh air. His soft clear voice is perfect to lead meditations. He carefully sets up each meditation in easy to follow steps. This kind of clarity is only found with someone who has been doing something for a long time. It is easy to tell that Bodhipaksa is passionate about what he does. (Bodhipaksa is a member of the Western Buddhist Order, and has been a practicing Buddhist for eighteen years, and teaching meditation for more than a decade) Relevant to todays society, where the pace of life is way too fast, and stress is at an all time high. Relax and Rejuvenate with Bodhipaksa and this is guided meditation CD, it is like having your own private meditation teacher. Wendy Aitken BSc BEd
185 of 190 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Relaxing, but don't expect more,
This review is from: Guided Meditations: For Calmness, Awareness, and Love (Audio CD)
For folks who want to learn to truly meditate, there are better "tools", such as Sharon Salzberg's (Co-Founder of Insight Meditation Society) Insight Meditation: A Step by Step Course, which has two very good CD's and an excellent instruction manual. It's worth the price just for the CD's though. However, this is not to take anything away from a very sincere, and kind effort on the part of Bodhipaksa on this CD. For experienced meditators, you will find far too much voice and not enough silence. The CD is more of a hypnotic, relaxation inducing session (akin to hypnotherapy) with a lot of "suggestion" in terms of what you should experience or feel, and little or no "coaching" in awareness. This is certainly not a knock on the sincerity of the narrator and there is much benefit to be gained from this CD. It's more a question of skill level and what you wish from a meditation CD. If you simply want someone to guide you in relaxation while you suspend your attentive faculties, this works great. And, that is what I want at times! However, once you experience the awareness and insight aspects of meditation, you will actually see deep relaxation/drowsiness as a hindrance. (I know that is hard to believe, but true!) So, if you wish to become more skilled in Metta and/or Insight (Vipassana) meditation, then your safest and best bet is to seek out folks associated with the Insight Meditation Society or S.I. Goenka's network. Both of these organizations are highly successful, have long histories, have excellent reputations, and are strongly rooted in a long tradition. May you be happy and at ease.
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