Through mindfulness practice, we increase our capability of meeting our experience with curiosity, care, and non-judgment. Sean Fargo leads a guided mindfulness meditation to help us sense into this growing capability.
Can you note what is present for you with caring curiosity? Can you nurture your experience with gentle awareness? Sean Fargo leads a short mindfulness meditation to help us settle into this present moment with care towards whatever we are experiencing.
Can we accept everything that is present in our experience, be it fear or shame or stillness? Can we open to everything as it is – even if we’re scared? Sean Fargo leads a guided meditation to help us open to our present moment experience with care, curiosity, and acceptance.
Sean Fargo leads a gentle guided mindfulness meditation that invites us to allow our experience to be what it is. Whether we are feeling frustration, sadness, or something else, we can practice opening to the experience with allowance and caring curiosity - to whatever degree feels supportive for us and if the invitation itself feels supportive for us.
What do you value in your life? Sean Fargo leads a guided gratitude meditation, inviting us to note and give thanks for various things in our life that we value – from people to experiences to resources.
Find just a comfortable seated position, maybe taking a couple of deep breaths.
Closing the eyes gently or looking downward to limit visual distractions, just kind of softening into the body, feeling your feet on the ground, body on the seat and just kind of noticing what's present in the body for you, noticing any predominant sensations around the belly or the chest or the head and simply sensing into this experience and the body.
Now shifting awareness to the things in our lives that we value, the people in our lives who we value, the pets or animals that we value, the experiences of our life that we value, the teachers and elders who we value, the resources and opportunities we have that we value, these breaths that we're breathing that we value.
So many things, so many people, so many experiences that we value. Thank you so much.
Thank you so much. Thank you. Taking a deep breath or two, slowly opening your eyes whenever you're ready.
Can you open your awareness to a sense of ease within your physical body? Sean Fargo leads a guided meditation that invites us to find refuge in the body.
If you want to find a posture that feels relaxed and alert. I'm just taking a moment to settle into the body. Open to any sensations that you can feel.
Sometimes it's nice to drop the shoulders, soften the muscles of the face, relax the belly and feel the bottoms of the feet on the ground, noticing the sensations of pressure of your feet on the ground.
Opening the sensations of the legs, the weight of the body on the seat, sensing that downward pole, gravity. Just noticing whether the belly is rising and falling as you breathe, is the breath shallow or deep? Sensing in to the rhythm of the inhale, the exhale.
Pause between the inhale, the exhale. Pause between the exhale and the inhale.
See if we can explore the body and see if we can identify places where there's a sense of ease in the body. Is there a sense of ease, perhaps softness or lightness, some degree of relaxation somewhere in the body. Maybe there's a sense of ease around the belly, around the heart.
Maybe there's a sense of ease around the legs or the arms and hands. So opening to a sense of ease in the body. Maybe there's a sense of fluidity, spaciousness, or warmth, or coldness.
Allowing that sense of ease to expand, allowing more parts of the body to feel this sense of ease.
Even enjoying the sense of ease moment to moment. Finding this place of refuge in the body. Sensing this ease in the body. Knowing we can access this sense of ease throughout our day. As we breathe, soften and allow. Maybe live with ease.
Maybe taking a couple of deep breaths, maybe wiggling your fingers or toes, and slowly opening your eyes whenever you're ready.
Can you welcome this moment with openness and caring curiosity? Sean Fargo leads this guided meditation to help us welcome what is here for us right now.
Find a posture that feels relaxed and alert. I'll be taking a couple of deep breaths, allowing the belly to soften and to relax. You can close your eyes, or look downward, or whatever feels comfortable for you. Softening the muscles of the face and around the eyes.
Feeling our feet flat on the ground. Feeling the weight of our body on whatever we're sitting on. Just noticing any predominant sensations around the body that you can notice. Just opening to whatever's here in the body. Welcoming this experience, however, it is.
Welcoming these sensations in the body, whether they're pleasant, or unpleasant, or neutral. We open to this body with this spirit of welcoming. Welcome. Welcome. This very experience, with fresh awareness.
Welcoming this moment fresh in our consciousness. Welcoming each new moment as it comes with openness and caring curiosity. Each new moment, welcome. Opening to the freshness of now.
And welcome to this moment, this experience, these sensations. Welcoming our hearts, our care for this life. Welcoming emotions, whether they're difficult or pleasant. Welcoming the fullness of our body, our minds.
Welcoming ourselves home to the present moment. Now, maybe, taking a couple of deep breaths, feeling our feet flat on the ground, maybe wiggling your fingers or toes, and slowly opening your eyes whenever you're ready.
By opening to gladness, we ease the nervous system and help ourselves to settle into meditation. This guided practice led by Sean Fargo begins with the cultivation of gladness, followed by space and silence to simply be.
Finding a posture that feels relaxed and alert, it can be standing, seated or lying down. You can close your eyes gently or look downward, just to limit visual distress.
And sometimes it's nice to take a couple of deep breaths. Relaxing the belly, dropping the shoulders, softening the hands, and the muscles of the face. And as we breathe in and out.
And I invite you to reflect on a person who has been very meaningful for you in your life. Someone who has supported you or inspired you, been an example for you, whether you know them personally or not, someone who makes your heart sing.
Someone you're grateful for in some way. You think of them and you feel this sense of warmth and gladness. Reflecting on their goodness, their qualities of mind and heart, and how they've enriched your life in some way.
And opening to this sense of gladness.
Perhaps feeling a sense of peace and warmth, as you reflect on the goodness of this person.
Noticing any changes in the body, the physical sensations we feel as we open to this gladness.
And perhaps there's more of a sense of calm, contentment, connection. And in this space of gentle awareness, can we notice ourselves breathing, in and out?
It can be helpful to notice the rise and fall of the belly. And maybe we feel it in the nostrils, the air moving in and out. Can we settle in one location in the body to notice this inhale and this exhale?
This breath, these sensations of the belly or the nostrils, rising and falling like waves of the ocean.
May we be safe, may we be healthy. May we be happy, may we live with ease. And checking back in with the body, taking a couple of big breaths, noticing your feet on the ground, or your butt on the chair seat. Maybe wiggling your fingers or toes, and slowly opening your eyes whenever you're ready.
Sean Fargo leads a guided mindfulness meditation to enhance curiosity of the present moment, observing sensations as pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral. Can we be with whatever the feeling tones of our experience might be?
Close our eyes gently or look downward to limit visual distractions, maybe taking a couple of deep breaths with the belly, settling into the body, perhaps noticing any predominant sensations anywhere in the body. It's taking stock, what we can feel, noticing whether sensations feel pleasant or unpleasant or neutral.
We're not judging these sensations to be good or bad, right or wrong, we're simply noticing what they feel like and whether they feel pleasant or unpleasant or neither.
Just being with whatever sensations are predominant, not trying to change them or hold on to them, not thinking why they're here but just dropping all of that and just feeling them, sensing them, just noticing the physicality and staying with them.
Allowing unpleasant sensations to be here. Allowing pleasant sensations to be here. Perhaps increasing curiosity for neutral sensations. Noticing how these sensations are changing, allowing them to change as we bring this gentle awareness to the body.
(silence)
Noticing what predominant sensations there are now in the body. Where are the most predominant sensations? Are they pleasant or unpleasant or neutral? Can you just hang out with them? Tending and befriending.
(silence)
May we be safe. May we be healthy. May we be happy. May we live with ease. Now maybe taking a few more deep breaths with the belly, lengthening the exhale, feeling your feet on the ground, the weight of your body on the seat, maybe wiggling your fingers or toes, softening your jaw and slowly opening the eyes whenever you're ready.
Gil Fronsdal leads a Guided Meditation Dharmette: What's Not Wrong. Some people are oriented to noticing what's wrong, searching for the problem to fix it. That's the orientation of their eyes.
Some people specialize in what's wrong with themselves. Spending time looking at oneself, with a certain kind of conceit.
Another orientation is, what's wrong with everyone else. Or what's wrong with the situation.
So the degree to which these attitudes or these kind of frameworks people use can actually be very powerful to change the framework and maybe even take it to an experiment with the opposite. And so, this wrong and what's wrong, the interesting one to say instead, what's not wrong.
More from: Gil Fronsdal
Gil Fronsdal leads a Guided Meditation Dharmette: Space. The idea of making space for things to appear, some people are afraid when they are approached.
There are people are afraid and if you approach them too directly or try to fix them or do something for them or try to be really friendly, it actually doesn't work so well. Sometimes, just sitting back maybe not ignoring them but not needing anything to happen but just being present in an unassertive way unassuming way and then allow something to happen, allow people to breathe, allow something to bubble up and come up, and the same thing is true for ourselves.
There are aspects of the human being that have the chance to come forward and show themselves if we not always there trying to fix or improve or understand or plan or defend or analyze or bring with us all the knowledge we have. Sometimes, too much is a problem.
More from: Gil Fronsdal
Gil Fronsdal leads a Guided Meditation Dharmette: Relating to It. There're only two things over going on, there's what's happening & the relationship to it.
The relationship we have to whatever that's happening is actually a very important part of the experience for ourselves and sometimes, for others as well.
And to be able to look at the connection we have, the attitudes assumptions desires aversions judgments, the whole middle place, the thick, the space, if the relationship is the space between me and that whatever that is, that relationship is thick.
How am I relating to this? What relationship do I have?
More from: Gil Fronsdal
Gil Fronsdal leads a Guided Meditation Nothing at Stake. When you discover what's not needed, maybe you can let go of that and become much simpler.
There's a slogan: Nothing's at stake right now. Have nothing at stake as you practice. Nothing needs to happen. Nothing tied or hooked into the practice. If I do the practice then, I'd be happy ever after.
What do you have at stake when you meditate? What are you trying to accomplish that you're depending on in a way that's actually not useful. That you're depending on that agitates the scene and makes it more complicated than it needs to be, that interferes with your ability to see things as they actually are. Because if we have expectation about what things that we have at stake then it kind of clouds the vision or kind of has us leapfrogging the present moment not noticing what's here.
More from: Gil Fronsdal
Gil Fronsdal leads a Guided Meditation Dharmette: A short instruction being mindful, Abide Conscious not Self Conscious. Be Conscious, not Self Conscious.
It's possible to be aware, without the static or agitation of self preoccupation, means too caught up or self-concern, or being too self-conscious. Being pulled-in or caught up in own little inner drama of self-preoccupation that we're not really present and available or smooth and fluid in how we live our lives.
To get a sense of, to see how self-consciousness works is in fact one of the purposes of Mindfulness practice. Without seeing what we do, there's no possibility of moving through it or healing from it. or being wise about it. And instead of the static or agitation of being self-conscious, to dwell conscious, to dwell aware, be mindful, to open up into a field of awareness that in a sense hold it all.
More from: Gil Fronsdal
Gil Fronsdal leads a Guided Meditation Dharmette: Noticing. He starts with a story about an extraordinarily ordinary person and how practical noticing is.
Be Mindful, be attentive, if you make mistakes, it's okay.
Gil expounds on a story about his Zen teacher, his first meeting with him and how it became a transformative or pivotal point in his life's experience of becoming a Zen teacher himself. How he characterizes this man as very extraordinarily ordinary, completely at ease and just being there.
He explains how this noticing is a special part of awareness and mindfulness between people. Either you notice others and or people notice you, especially when you are a sort of public figure you ought to behave in a way that because people notice you, to notice your own shortcomings. In Buddhism, the practice is like how you are representing the Buddha and how the Buddha projects his presence.
More from: Gil Fronsdal
Gil Fronsdal leads a Guided Meditation Dharmette: Don't Pick it Up and Don't Reject it. How to apply Buddhist practice for particular suffering?
One of the formulations of Buddhism or applications of it or transformations of it is whether particular practice or particular attitude for what represents practice for some Buddhists, and that is the practice of acceptance.
Somehow, the idea of learning how to be accepting and having an accepting awareness is very important for a lot of people here in the United States. And somehow, it releases, relieves some kind of lack of acceptance, sometimes a lot of self-judgement, a lot of self-criticism, lot of reactivity. That is so beneficial, that for some people that is like life changing to learn to how to practice self awareness.
If you study the ancient teachings of the Buddha, you don't find this emphasis on acceptance. It's hard to find it. The teaching of acceptance can lead to a little bit off-centered. Sometimes acceptance becomes complacency, some things should not be accepted.
More from: Gil Fronsdal
Gil Fronsdal leads a Guided Meditation Be Still & Gaze Upon Everything Kindly. Buddha represents being still, tranquil in body & mind, eyes gazing kindly.
The Buddha statue is kind of symbolic, a teaching in its own right. Exhibiting confidence without assertiveness. It represents being still, tranquil in body, tranquil in mind. They eyes are half-open and the idea is gazing upon the world with kindness as we know the Buddha is a kind and compassionate person. This summarizes the teaching: Be still and gaze upon everything kindly.
Be still, don't be frozen, don't hold yourself tight, relax into the stillness and tranquility, and gaze upon everything kindly, So whatever goes on whatever comes up it's a training not to be in conflict or beaversive or be critical of whatever that's happening.
And with that kind of attitude, we are kind of like beginner all the time, starting over again. Partly in meditation, we're constantly starting over.
More from: Gil Fronsdal
Gil Fronsdal leads a Guided Meditation Attention Focused Narrow. There's a saying, in doing mindfulness practice, we should look at reality but don't stare at it.
Sometimes you have to look first and after looking relax and just see. Looking is intentional so seeing is not intentional, but see clearly. So how does it happen and how to get there.
People who do mindfulness practice have 2 general options of being mindful. One is looking carefully with focused attention, another is having open awareness to have a wide attention, expansive awareness. The 3rd one is a combination of the two, if you focus on a particular point maybe the sensation of the breath on the chest or the belly. The expansion and contraction. One idea is to focus on and then kind of look at it carefully.
Another is to have a consciousness wide and broad, but don't narrow it, but let the sensations of breathing come into the center of that expansive awareness.
More from: Gil Fronsdal
Gil Fronsdal leads a Guided Meditation Pausing. To practice generosity to the people you're with and if you're alone to be generous with yourself.
Ask yourself, what is the kind thing to do here, what is the generous thing to do?
One of the very important things of being kind is not doing much at all. Simply pausing, making space and taking time to appreciate the people you're with. If you're rushing to talk and to fill the space. If you talk busy and try to be the good whatever, you might miss some of the more profound ways that's possible to connect with people that you stop and just kindda like rather try what you're supposed do, dont' do, stop and breathe even if its for a few seconds or few moments stop and breathe and take the person in that you're with take the people in and see if you can just kinda pause and receive them in awareness, register them and be aware of them and appreciate them. One of the great gifts you can give anyone is to appreciate them.
To take the time to learn how to stop and appreciate the person you're with and pause and maybe there's a simple unthreatening way of gazing or looking upon them with admiration, respect, value and kindness.
More from: Gil Fronsdal
As we struggle to find happiness, we discover the importance of peace, love, and contentment. Let us hardwire our happiness through this meditation.
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… Relaxing as you exhale.
Recognizing that you’re in a protected setting among good people. You’re also a strong person, you have strengths that can enable you to deal with challenges so that you can afford to let unnecessary anxiety fall away.
Letting unnecessary bracing or guarding or tension or vigilance fall away. Letting any unfounded sense of threat fall away. And coming home and resting more and more deeply in a growing sense of peace. A level of peace, a space of peace that can contain anxiety or uncertainty.
With peace at your core.
Letting a growing sense of peace move to the back of the mind and focusing now on encouraging gently and authentically a growing feeling of contentment, a sense of well-being with no wish for this moment to be any other than the way it is. You can help grow this sense of contentment by bringing to mind things that you feel grateful for or glad about.
Encouraging feelings of gratitude or gladness to fill your mind.
Thinking of things that make you feel happy or contented.
As contentment grows, there’s a falling away of any frustration or disappointment or drivenness. No need for any of that.
And then let this sense of contentment move to the back of the mind. And finding a growing sense of love, calling to mind beings who care about you even if it’s an imperfect relationship.
Calling up experiences of feeling included or liked or loved.
Opening to receive these experiences of feeling liked or loved. Being warm and caring toward yourself to let yourself actually feel these things.
Also, being aware of your own warm-heartedness, your compassion and kindness and caring and love for others.
Loved and loving.
And as your mind and heart and body are increasingly filled with love, there’s a falling away of any kind of struggle with other people, envy falls away, hurt falls away. Any kind of chasing of others or trying to be important or impressive, all of that falls away, no need for it.
Greening the heart in effect with love.
And then as we take just a few more moments to finish up, a more global or integrated sense of peace, contentment, and love altogether. Your home base, a sense of coming home. Disturbance or deficit falling away. Craving falling away. Present, here, at home.
There’s a saying in Tibet and elsewhere that if you take care of the minutes the years will take care of themselves. And that’s our opportunity. Minute by minute, breath by breath, to see the good that is available to us and to be a friend to ourselves in part out of service to others to grow the good over here, so we have more to offer to them. And to look for that good and really letting it land and coming into intimacy with it for many reasons, simply to enjoy life more, to show up more for the good that’s there instead of missing it as it goes on by.
Also, to grow various resources, psychological resources and our strengths inside to deal with life, to be more effective, to be more successful, to be more skillful in relationships, to do that. And also, if this interests you, to gradually internalize so much good inside that craving falls away, there’s less and less of a basis for it. There’s no basis for it. And you’re more and more able to, as it said, walk increasingly evenly over uneven ground through equanimity.
Not underestimating the power of little experiences gradually internalized and accumulated over time.
Quoting the Buddha here he said, “Think not lightly of good, saying it will not come to me. Drop by drop is the water pot filled. Likewise, the wise one gathering it little by little fills one’s self with good.”
May you and I fill ourselves with good. May we help others fill themselves with good for our own sake and in widening ripples known and unknown seen and unseen eventually hopefully helping the whole wide world.”
More from: Rick Hanson
Available for download, audible media of 10-minute meditation with just bells. Good for a worry-free 10-minute meditation.
Sourced from http://www.freemindfulness.org/download
Do you prefer to meditate in silence, sitting in stillness without a teacher guiding you through a process?
Below are free audio mp3’s that you can download to your computer with various amounts of silence. All of these audios have bell sounds to notify you when the audio has ended, helping you to know how much time has elapsed.
Some of the meditations also have interval bell sounds every 5 to 15 minutes to help prompt you to regain focus in case it’s drifted off into planning, remembering, storymaking, etc.
I hope these are useful for increasing your ability to “just be” with the serene and blissful sound of silence! ????
New Silent Meditations With Bell Sounds:
Affirmations offer inspiration and support. “I am grateful for the gifts I receive from others” is an example of the evening affirmations of gratitude.
What are the things you are grateful for? Read and download the pdf below.
Also check our article about The Power of Gratitude & 7 Ways To Cultivate It.
Gratitude holds powerful transformative and healing potential – but how? On a spiritual and energetic level, gratitude is a shift in mindset and perception that tunes us in to the abundance, beauty, and love that is at the core of everything. As we begin to challenge conditioned belief systems that have us viewing and interacting with the world from a place of fear or lack, we welcome a new perspective that is rooted in love and acceptance. Making this shift helps us to rise to a new level of witnessing the events in our lives, even challenging ones, creating space for understanding, growth, and healthy evolution.
Scientifically, much research is being done to support the benefits of gratitude that have been expressed throughout ancient traditions for centuries. According to reports referring to work done by UCLA’s Mindfulness Awareness Research Center, it has been found that making a habit out of expressing gratitude impacts the brain’s molecular structure. Gray matter functioning is supported through gratitude, which keeps us happy and healthy on multiple levels. Another study found that through modulating neural activity, gratitude meditation improves emotional regulation and self-motivation.
Marcia Rose talks about the 3rd factor of enlightenment: wise effort. Wise effort is so intricate to energy, i.e., ever present in every mental activity.
There seems to be a constant hum of activity in the majority of our lives. Even when we find physical stillness at the end of a long day, the mind often continues to race. Thoughts about things we should have done differently or fears we may have about things to come. They flood us without us being consciously aware of it. Many of these thoughts replay through our subconscious mind and so they go largely undetected.
Relaxation is not something we attain with wise effort, or figure out how to ‘get’; it is a way of being we practice coming into again and again. Over time, relaxation comes more effortlessly as we learn to embody mindfulness as a way of being. Through these mindfulness relaxation exercises and whatever other techniques we find work for us, we move deeper into an inner foundation of peace, harmony, and tranquility.
More from: Marcia Rose
Listen to Guided Meditation on Patience by Marcia Rose. With patience being the most important and necessary quality with mindfulness insight.
More from: Marcia Rose
We hope you learned patience from Marcia Rose, and how it relates to our mindfulness practice. Watch out for more guided meditations on our website!
Marcia Rose introduces the “drawing yourself” exercise. First is to draw a part of yourself, either the hand or the foot.
More from: Marcia Rose
This audio recording features a poem reading by Marcia Rose Monet Refuses The Operation by Lisel Mueller and Shoveling Snow with the Buddha by Billy Collins
In the usual iconography of the temple or the local Wok
you would never see him doing such a thing,
tossing the dry snow over a mountain
of his bare, round shoulder,
his hair tied in a knot,
a model of concentration.
Sitting is more his speed, if that is the word
for what he does, or does not do.
Even the season is wrong for him.
In all his manifestations, is it not warm or slightly humid?
Is this not implied by his serene expression,
that smile so wide it wraps itself around the waist of the universe?
But here we are, working our way down the driveway,
one shovelful at a time.
We toss the light powder into the clear air.
We feel the cold mist on our faces.
And with every heave we disappear
and become lost to each other
in these sudden clouds of our own making,
these fountain-bursts of snow.
This is so much better than a sermon in church,
I say out loud, but Buddha keeps on shoveling.
This is the true religion, the religion of snow,
and sunlight and winter geese barking in the sky,
I say, but he is too busy to hear me.
He has thrown himself into shoveling snow
as if it were the purpose of existence,
as if the sign of a perfect life were a clear driveway
you could back the car down easily
and drive off into the vanities of the world
with a broken heater fan and a song on the radio.
All morning long we work side by side,
me with my commentary
and he inside his generous pocket of silence,
until the hour is nearly noon
and the snow is piled high all around us;
then, I hear him speak.
After this, he asks,
can we go inside and play cards?
Certainly, I reply, and I will heat some milk
and bring cups of hot chocolate to the table
while you shuffle the deck.
and our boots stand dripping by the door.
Aaah, says the Buddha, lifting his eyes
and leaning for a moment on his shovel
before he drives the thin blade again
deep into the glittering white snow.
More from: Marcia Rose
Taking the time to wish ourselves and others well can be a powerful tool for achieving greater peace and serenity. This guided mindfulness exercise will show you how.
In our hectic and busy lives, it’s not uncommon to spend much of our time worrying about both the present and the future. Are we achieving enough today? Have we checked off all of the tasks on our to do list? Do we have enough time to complete all of the tasks we’d set for ourselves today? Do we need to work even faster in order to get everything done? And how much multitasking will we need to on top of everything else?
As we’re worrying about our own performance, our daily tasks, and the uncertainty of the future, it’s not uncommon to grow upset or frustrated with those around us. Perhaps we’re unhappy because they’re not doing enough to assist us in achieving our goals. Maybe we’re just blaming those around us for their shortcomings as a reflection of our own frustrations. Regardless of the specifics, we often find ourselves growing irritated with our friends, family, and coworkers, even if we love and respect them on a deeper level.
When we choose not to engage in these behaviors, opting instead to consciously wish ourselves and others well, we can begin to reshape our experience of reality. Instead of finding ourselves frustrated with our current experience, both as it pertains to ourselves and to those around us, we’ll begin to feel gratitude rather than anxiety.
In this mindfulness exercise, Sean Fargo helps us learn how to wish both ourselves and others well. As someone who specializes in offering mindfulness teacher training to others, Sean assists listeners in extending feelings of gratitude and love to the people they’re close to. In the same way that we can learn to actively practice this kind of gratitude and well wishing towards others, we can do the same for ourselves.
Mindfulness meditation can be as simple as taking 3 deep, mindful breaths. In this free mindfulness exercise, Sean Fargo teaches us how to breathe mindfully.
Introducing mindfulness exercises into your daily life doesn’t have to be complicated. While it’s true that many people associated the practice of meditation with enormous amounts of self-discipline, self-control, and time spent sitting on a cushion, making mindfulness a part of your life doesn’t need to be difficult. In fact, there shouldn’t be any struggle at all.
If you’re new to the idea of practicing mindfulness, you might be wondering: what does it actually mean to live more mindfully? How do we suddenly become magically more present from moment to moment? Is there a special technique, or some kind of secret trick that we need to learn?
As it turns out, living mindfully is both incredibly intricate and surprisingly simple. But starting down the path towards a more peaceful and present existence can be as easy as taking three deep breaths.
There’s no reason to delay when it comes to starting a mindfulness practice. Why? Because your practice doesn’t need to be complicated. You don’t need special clothes, high tech equipment, a certain room, scented candles or incense, or any other trappings or complications. All you need is a couple of minutes and three deep breaths.
In this guided meditation, Mindfulness Exercises founder Sean Fargo takes us through a brief but powerful mindfulness meditation. In the space of just three breaths, we’ll practice developing greater awareness and mindfulness in our daily lives.
One of the great things about this guided meditation is its simplicity. Once you feel comfortable with the practice outlined in this video, you can take it with you and apply it anywhere. Whenever you’re feeling overwhelmed, anxious, afraid, or uncertain, the practice of taking three deep mindful breaths is something you’ll be able to put to use. We hope you’ll share this mindfulness exercise with friends and loved ones.
Appreciate your compassion with this self compassion guided meditation by Sean Fargo. Take your mind into a difficult situation and internalize.
Improve your motivation and look deep into your self, access the place of your accomplishments. Sean Fargo leads a guided meditation remembering motivation.
Let's begin by taking a moment to settle your body into a comfortable position (2 seconds). You may close your eyes or keep them slightly open with a soft focus looking downward a few feet in front of you (2 seconds).
Allow your spine to lift and for your shoulders to soften (5 seconds).
Today we will practice remembering motivation (2 seconds) Taking a full breath in (2 seconds)
and a long slow breath out (2 seconds).
Allow the mind to rest on the breath (5 seconds).
Call to mind something where you might be feeling a lack of motivation (5 seconds).
Perhaps it's with a task at work or a project you've been putting off at home (2 seconds). Maybe it's repairing a relationship issue with a friend or family member (5 seconds).
As you envision this issue, listen to these questions lightly and see what comes up (5 seconds) there's no need to figure anything out,
if nothing comes to mind just continue to focus on the breath
and notice what thoughts arise
letting them pass through your mind as if carried by a gentle breeze (5 seconds).
Ask yourself, “when it comes to this issue what is my greatest aspiration?” (10 seconds)
What about this issue is most important to me? (15 seconds)
What might be getting in the way of me addressing this issue? (15 seconds)
How do I want to show up in relationship to this issue? (15 seconds)
Notice how you feel when you consider these questions,
the specific sensations in your body (2 seconds)
and again there is nothing to figure out here just notice what comes up for you
as you ask these questions (15 seconds).
If this issue was in progress or completed,
what would that mean to me? (10 seconds)
If this issue was in progress or completed, what would that feel like? (10 seconds)
See if you can really feel that feeling, allowing yourself to fully absorb it (15 seconds).
As you experience these feelings of accomplishment
consider how you can access this place again the next time you face this issue (2 seconds). How can you use these feelings as a source of focus? (10 seconds)
Can these feelings serve as a motivation for you to engage? (15 seconds)
and finally ask yourself, “what is my intention going forward?” (15 seconds)
Let's finish with a full deep breath in (2 seconds)
and a long slow breath out (5 seconds)
*ding* (20 seconds)
Envision your purpose by a guided meditation positive future by Sean Fargo. This is a chance to connect within the place inside us toward a life of meaning.
Reflecting On A Positive Future. This inspiring meditation script is another powerful practice for teenagers and adults. It encourages the listener to visualize a positive future, deepening the self-inquiry with meaningful questions. It is well-suited for those who have some degree of mindfulness experience.
Sean Fargo leads a guided meditation “opening your senses.” It allows experiencing visceral sensations with open awareness, seeing, sensing and feeling.
This “coming to your senses” guided meditation by Sean Fargo is the intermediate level of open awareness practice. This meditation is helpful in dealing with addiction.
Sean Fargo leads a guided meditation Leading with Purpose. This meditation explores leading with purpose whether you’re in an organization or family.
Just Like Me guided meditation by Sean Fargo focuses on the appreciation of your likeness with others. To feel the shared experience as human beings, open channels of compassion.
Once you realize that people are "Just Like Me", you can develop unconditional love and compassion towards others. Love comes in a variety of flavors as our life experience can attest to; however, beneath whatever form love takes on the surface of our human existence, it’s the unshakeable, unconditional form of this feeling that many of us are after.
Through a variety of mindfulness exercises for love and compassion, we come into greater resonance with this powerful force of love that rests at the core of each of us. We have come up with 8 mindfulness exercises for love and compassion and you can click here to jump right away.
Sean Fargo is the Founder of Mindfulness Exercises, a former Buddhist monk of 2 years, a trainer for the mindfulness program born at Google, an Integral Coach from New Ventures West, and an international mindfulness teacher trainer.
Sean Fargo leads the integrated body scan meditation. This meditation promotes calmness and peace of mind. It scans the whole body from the bottom upwards.
Sean Fargo leads a guided meditation focused attention and concentration. This meditation is useful to increase focus and mindfulness.
Sean Fargo leads a walking meditation with compassion as the theme. Find a place to walk that is safe to listen to this instruction.
Sean Fargo leads a guided meditation Tranquil Body Scan. This improves calmness and awareness with your body. It also energizes your body in the process.
We're often focused on the wrong things, so instead of asking what the world needs, ask yourself what makes you alive. Explore it through our mindfulness exercises.
In this guided meditation by Sean Fargo, we are invited to ask ourselves: what makes me come alive? While we might often feel called to give the world what it needs, we often miss the truth that what is really needed on this earth – now more than ever – is a rise in our collective aliveness of being. By serving ourselves in an authentic way, we serve the world.
Depending on who you ask, the world needs different things. It can therefore be quite challenging to figure out how we can best serve the earthly community we are a part of. However, rather than look outside ourselves for what is needed, we can facilitate inspired, positive evolution on this planet by looking within to better understand what we -– each as a unique human being ¬– have to offer. When we are alive in our being, we exude peace, happiness, and contentment, which serves the world in countless ways.
This guided meditation is a stepping stone that can help us to answer that question: what makes me come alive? By tuning into the inner world through exploring any feelings, sensations, images or thoughts that arise as we mindfully reflect on this question, we gain clues as to how we can contribute in a way that resonates with our deepest yearnings. By committing to our own personal journey through continued mindfulness practice, we enhance our ability to listen to our most inspired personal truths.
Reduce your agitations when catching sleep. Arouse your thoughts of thankfulness. Bring happiness to your life by the power of gratitude for sleep.
Sean Fargo leads this mindfulness practice of gratitude to help improve the quality of our sleep. Often times, when we struggle to fall or to stay asleep, the primary cause is a racing mind. When the mind is overwhelmed by fear, frustration, stress, or any other challenging feeling or emotion, the relaxation required for sleep is usually the last thing we arrive at.
As we practice gratitude, we naturally move the mind from a state of fear and lack to an awareness of the abundance and blessings that exist in this very moment. This shift in awareness helps to soothe the mind, which initiates the body’s relaxation response. As the heart slows and our ‘fight or flight’ system comes to rest, we find ourselves naturally moving closer towards a state of being (in both mind and body) that is conducive of deep rest and eventual sleep.
From gratitude practices to body scans, there are countless mindfulness meditations for sleep. Gaining a holistic understanding of our personal sleep challenges can also help as there are other factors that play into why we may struggle to get the rest we need. Learn more about the factors that contribute to a healthy slumber in our comprehensive guide to mindfulness and sleep.
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Acknowledging the good that you already have in your life is the foundation for all abundance. What goodness do you sometimes forget or take for granted?
What is the foundation of all abundance? Contrary to any subconscious beliefs we may hold that it is what exists in the outer world that determines the presence of abundance, it is actually our perception of abundance that determines this. By harnessing gratitude for all that we presently have (both internally and externally) helps us to see that abundance is already with us.
We can begin to shift our perception of abundance by practicing gratitude. Gratitude practices can be as simple as giving thanks before each meal or making a list of all that we are grateful for. We can also practice nightly journaling about all the blessings that came our way throughout the course of the day. As we start to expand our awareness of the goodness that exists around and within us, we begin to attract more of it. Recognizing the good that exists in each moment helps to improve our experience of peace and contentment.
Wherever we are, we can practice gratitude by closing our eyes for even just one minute and mentally noting all that we have to be thankful for. Note things both large and small, both inner and outer. The more you practice this, the more natural this mindset of appreciation and abundance will come. Create a daily routine for some form of mindful gratitude practice. Even one mindful minute a day is enough to inspire positive changes in the way we view the world around us.
Imagine what your life would be like now if you hadn't experienced the positive events, and affirm them by doing this unique mental subtraction meditation.
We don’t often take a moment’s pause to consider how all of the positive events we’ve experienced have shaped the lives that we now lead. In contrast, when negative experiences occur in our lives, we tend to attach ourselves to them with great conviction. What if we switched this around? What if we allowed negative stories to be released, instead witnessing and focusing on the positive events that we have been blessed with? In this guided meditation, you will be guided to make mental subtractions that would have resulted from a particular positive event not having had occurred, enhancing gratitude and appreciation for whatever wonderful moment once happened.
As we practice mindfulness, we might become more inherently aware of any tendency we may have to focus on the negative. When we catch ourselves engaging in this type of mental activity, we can either, 1) return our attention to the simplicity of this present moment, or 2) compassionately redirect our attention to the positive, noting what we have to be grateful for. This type of gratitude practice increases our sense of inner peace and harmony as we begin to re-frame the stories we tell ourselves.
In addition to this guided meditation, there is a wealth of mindfulness exercises that can inspire peace, calm, and contentment within. In addition to guided meditations and mindfulness talks, we can further explore our inner world by using mindfulness worksheets that encourage us to take a deeper look at what moves through us.
Allow yourself to feel benefited from the gift of gratitude. Allow yourself to feel appreciation. This is Day 7 gratitude.
In this guided meditation on gratitude, Sean Fargo invites us to move into a deeper awareness of all that we have to be thankful for. While we might be aware on some level of all of the blessings that exist in our lives, how often do we take the time to reflect on and appreciate these things, people, and energies? This meditation is the opportunity to do just that.
Though a simple practice, the effects of gratitude are profound. Gratitude strengthens our relationships, improves our mood, reduces stress, and draws us deeply into the present moment. It helps to shift the lens through which we look at life, and the more that we practice this shift, the more natural it becomes.
In each moment of practice, gratitude increases our sense of peace and contentment with the present moment – exactly as it is – and helps us to find stillness beneath any tendency we may have to grasp at or pull away from something.
If you have arrived at a place in life where this has become second nature, you might consider taking your ability to witness gratitude a step further by sharing it.
Experienced mindfulness practitioners might like to share their insights and wisdoms surrounding gratitude, loving kindness, or any other mindfulness practices through emerging in the world as a mindfulness teacher. If you are interested in learning more, take a look at this one-on-one, customizable mindfulness teacher training program.
Everyone wants to be loved. There is no one who does not want love. The same is true for happiness. Here are some daily practices for love and happiness.
In this guided meditation led by Sean Fargo, we are invited to remember our shared humanity – that all humans yearn for love and kindness. It is sometimes hard to connect with this knowing due to any walls we have built around our hearts.
This simple practice is a moment to step away from the judgments we hold – about both ourselves and about others – so that we can tune back into this deeper knowing.
As we practice loving kindness and compassion exercises, we harness a sense of peace and contentment within. Love and happiness truly go hand in hand. Why? Because any place where we restrict offering ourselves or another unconditional love forms a blockage or barrier within us.
When we are contracted or blocked in this way, the unconditional force of life is unable to flow through us freely. Through loving kindness exercises, we soften the heart and unleash a greater capacity for kindness and tenderness.
Heart-centered meditation practices and mindfulness exercises have a variety of benefits. Some of the effects of these practices include (but are not limited to):
Read more about the how mindfulness fuels the heart here.
See if you can take an inventory of the things for which you're grateful. This meditation samples 12 intentions of gratitude.
The things for which we have to be grateful are widespread. From lessons to people to the raw nature of the breath itself, we have much to be grateful for. This guided mindfulness meditation by Sean Fargo is an invitation to set intentions for living a full day with gratitude.
Through this meditation, we are guided to consider all the ways we can feel into our capacity for gratitude and how we might express it.
Simply by setting the intention to be grateful, we will likely begin to see shifts in our experience, or at the very least, in our perception of our experience. Gratitude fills us with a sense of lightness and love, aligning us with the heart center at the core of our being.
We can set multiple intentions of gratitude, but we can also begin with something simple:
I will welcome this day with my open and grateful heart.
At any moment in the day, we can tune into the heart center to explore our present level of awareness. In each moment, we can ask ourselves: what is within me that I have to be grateful for? What can I appreciate about the natural world around me? What lessons have I learned today that will fuel my growth?
Regardless of whether we perceive the day to be ‘good’ or ‘bad,’ we can expand our field of vision by opening to our experience with a compassionate heart.
For a deeper exploration of gratitude, consider the free Living With Gratitude course offered through Mindfulness Exercises.
This guided meditation by Sean Fargo is about How To Focus Your Attention. Relax and stay alert at the same time, focusing your attention to the breath.
You’re about to listen to a quick body scan meditation by Tara Brach. This guided meditation is beneficial for increasing connectedness with the body.
In this body scan meditation, Tara Brach reminds us that one of the direct openings to true presence becomes known to us as we heighten our awareness of the body. In this body scan, we are encouraged to open up compassionately and non-judgmentally to anything and everything that exists within us. Whether our experience is of tightness, contraction, tingling, pulsating, or flow, everything can be accepted as we release the mind and practice true mindfulness.
The Flow of Energy in the Body
The energy field within the body is in constant flow; no matter how firmly-rooted it may feel, the body is constantly shifting. As we begin to tune into this dynamic energetic presence within us, we heighten our ability to accept the present state of reality, coming to understand that everything that moves through us is impermanent. Opening ourselves up to the true nature of the energetic body through a quick body scan meditation is a perfect practice for both beginners and more advanced practitioners.
Guiding a Body Scan
Whether we are self-guiding a body scan meditation or are leading others through this practice, a quick body scan is a simple and effective tool to help center our attention and to quiet the mind. When guiding a body scan for oneself or for others, we can use the breath as a complementary tool to relax and heal the body. With each inhalation, we can envision life’s dynamic force entering the body and bringing vitality, and with each exhalation, we can envision all tension in the body being released into the surrounding universe for transformation. If we are interested in facilitating this type of work as teachers, we can strengthen our knowledge and skills in relation to leading mindfulness meditations through a mindfulness teacher training course.
More from: Tara Brach
Enjoy this free 10 minute meditation by Tara Brach. It doesn’t take much time to feel relaxed and relieve stress with this guided mindfulness meditation.
Given the pace of our daily lives and the sheer amount of stress that so many of us experience, there’s never been a greater need for mindfulness meditation. If you’re like most people, though, the idea of incorporating a meditative practice into your daily routine can feel like an almost impossible task. Doesn’t meditation require hours of focus? Is it even possible to derive any benefits from it without spending an hour in sitting meditation?
In fact, incorporating daily meditation into your life is easier than you think. To this end, we’re happy to offer you this free 10 minute guided mindfulness meditation by Tara Brach. All it takes is ten minutes of quiet reflection to feel an immediate difference in your mood, energy level, and overall consciousness.
By mixing both Eastern spirituality and Western psychology, Tara Brach works to help people bring greater compassion, mindfulness, and attention to both their internal and external worlds. She provides readers and listeners with a unique approach to Buddhism here in the west, as she works to help us free ourselves from the bonds of suffering.
Tara Brach founded the Insight Meditation Community of Washington, DC in 1998. Today, the Insight Meditation Community of DC is one of the biggest meditation centers in the United States. Tara offers classes, workshops, and silent meditation retreats through IMCW, and she also travels around the world to offer talks and workshops at various U.S. and European mindfulness conferences. She’s also the host of a regularly scheduled podcast which attracts more than 1,000,000 monthly downloads.
In her work, Tara Brach focuses on the importance of healing oneself and the world around us with the help of loving kindness and mindfulness. She also works to bring mindfulness practices to bear on major global problems, including global conflict, sustainability, environmental issues, racism, and inequality.
More from: Tara Brach
Rick Hanson talks about the topic Just One Thing. The basic idea is to focus on just one thing each week. Ultimately, it’s your choice to focus on either the negative ones or the positive ones.
More from: Rick Hanson
Rick Hanson talks about Befriending Yourself. This practice aims to cultivate the deep sense of being a friend to yourself. Firstly, take care of yourself.
Befriending yourself can be so difficult but here are 3 ways to make it easier to come home to yourself:
1. Consider a loving-kindness or compassion-centered meditation at least 3 times a week.
2. Practice receiving praise and compliment with radical acceptance
3. Keep a gratitude journal
Source: Medium.com
After you listen to this audio, take time to read our post about 8 Mindfulness Exercises for Beginners. In this mindfulness beginners guide, we’re going to strip things back and provide everything you need to embark on your journey.
That includes 8 beginner mindfulness exercises that you can experiment with today, and plenty of further resources so you can dig deeper.
More from: Rick Hanson
Joseph Goldstein talks about Feeling Free and the 4th noble truth. The 4th noble truth is the way of practice leading to the end of suffering.
More from: Joseph Goldstein
Tara Brach leads a guided Standing & Walking Meditation. It’s a wonderful way to feel being present when standing or walking or while we’re on our way.
Standing and walking meditation is a great way to begin integrating the power of meditation into your daily life. It is the first stage of meditation in action, that is, learning to be meditative while “out and about” in the world.It is great to do while, for example, taking a walk in the park, at the beach, or in another natural setting.
Walking meditation is often recommended for people who are doing a lot of sitting meditation. If you are getting too sleepy, or your awareness is getting too “muddy,” walking meditation can perk you up. Alternately, if you are getting too concentrated and mentally “stiff,” walking meditation is a perfect way to loosen up a bit.
More from: Tara Brach
Tara Brach holds a Q&A session about Pain and Recurring Thoughts during meditation. There are times when pain is manifested due to bringing awareness and mindfulness into those particular thoughts.
“Whatever we don’t include in mindfulness actually grabs our identity.” Brach explains how when it comes to pain, what usually causes the associated tension are the thoughts and ideas we attach to the experience of whatever nerves may be firing. If we experience pain and wish it weren’t happening, we need to include this thought, or this wish, in our mindful awareness. By adding an element of loving kindness to this witnessing, we soften the sensation that is present.
When recurring thoughts continually crop up for us, Brach explains that we can continue to notice what is rising by naming or labelling the nature of the thought. This labeling helps us to clarify for ourselves that what is arising is simply a thought. After naming the thought, we can refocus our attention on our direct experience. If there is an emotion attached to the recurring thought, we can dive more deeply into the heart – into what is calling for our loving attention. In the same way that we harness loving kindness during experiences of physical pain, we can offer compassion to any emotionally charged thoughts we may be experiencing.
More from: Tara Brach
Gil Fronsdal talks about Settle the Heart First. Rest in the calm of peace first and settle the heart before speaking or letting go of regretful words.
More from: Gil Fronsdal
Gil Fronsdal talks about Entering Into Difficulty. One of the important areas of life is what we know and what we don’t know. How do we go through changes?
More from: Gil Fronsdal
Gil Fronsdal talks about Power and Worthiness. Strength, dignity, value, power, and confidence all these happen within you.
Do you like this meditation about power and worthiness? Also read our 7 Mindfulness Exercises for Relaxation.
Relaxation is not something we attain, or figure out how to ‘get’; it is a way of being we practice coming into again and again. Over time, relaxation comes more effortlessly as we learn to embody mindfulness as a way of being. Through these mindfulness relaxation exercises and whatever other techniques we find work for us, we move deeper into an inner foundation of peace, harmony, and tranquility.
There are many mindfulness exercises for anxiety, stress, insomnia, and relaxation that can facilitate our ability to experience relaxation. The exact techniques that work for each of us will vary according to who we are, why we’re stressed, and a variety of other personal factors.
More from: Gil Fronsdal
Gil Fronsdal talks about To Care & Not To Care. In Buddhist practice, both are important. Don’t measure yourself by the outcome. Measure with how you cared.
More from: Gil Fronsdal
Gil Fronsdal talks about Every Moment is a Chance to Restart. Every moment things start anew is a useful perspective that can be used in Mindfulness.
More from: Gil Fronsdal
Gil Fronsdal talks about Still Quiet Place Within. As the mind turn inwards for meditation, the still quiet place within helps us to draw peace and stillness.
More from: Gil Fronsdal
Matthew Brensilver talks about doing Dharma Practice for Oneself is Complicated. But doing it for the benefit of all beings including oneself is simple.
More from: Matthew Brensilver
Matthew Brensilver talks about History is Ending Today. The mind can easily assume permanence or continuity of things. But then Anicha (Impermanence) is actually a refuge.
More from: Matthew Brensilver
Binaural Beat for Third Eye Awakening. Binaural beats are auditory illusion perceived by the brain when two different tones are played into each ear.
Binaural Beat for Third Eye Awakening by Eric Bartel. https://free-meditation-music.com
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