Home Practice

The invitation is to keep practicing mindfulness of breathing, using one of the guided meditations below, which are of varying lengths (between 6 and 15 minutes). If there are days where you feel you can't fit in a formal practice, perhaps you can pay attention to feeling just a few breaths in your body.

Please remember that it is completely normal for the mind to wander and it's part of the practice to bring back the mind gently, yet firmly, to train your attention and awareness. Meditation can feel like really hard work at the beginning - but it does get easier with practice!

If you prefer practicing using your phone, you can download the 'Insight Timer' app for free where you can find tons of guided meditations, including the first two meditations below.

There is no need to read about 'how to meditate', but if you'd like to read more about common questions asked about meditating, you can find a lot of information in this document (compiled by Tara Brach, one of my favourite meditation teachers).

1) A brief practice to establish mindfulness by paying attention to first looking at your hand, followed by feeling sensations in the hand

2) A talk on 'What is Mindfulness' followed by a ten-minute Mindfulness of Breathing practice.

Home Practice

Informal practice: Bringing mindfulness to one of our daily activities, such as eating, brushing your teeth or taking a shower. Can we do some of this activity mindfully, with our senses open, taking in whatever can be perceived, e.g. taste, sounds, smells. Perhaps also noticing - does bringing mindfulness to the activity make it more pleasant or unpleasant?

Formal practice: The invitation is to practice the body scan, using one of the guided meditations below, which are of varying lengths.

1) A guided body scan practice (that is often done lying down, but can equally be done sitting or standing)

2) A talk on Mindfulness of the Body, exploring how the body can act as a barometer if you pay attention to early signs of sensation and emotions as well as the body as our loyal home.

In terms of practices, we did a mindful walking and a mindfulness of sounds practice.

Home Practice

Informal practice: Bringing mindfulness to pleasant experiences in daily life and seeing if we can truly savour them, taking in the sensations in their fullness (e.g. the taste, smell, look and sound of delicious food as we're eating it).

Formal practice: The invitation is to practice mindfulness of sounds (which is a useful practice in its own right and good preparation for mindfulness of thoughts, our topic for next week). Of course, you can also experiment practicing mindful walking, e.g. doing a five-minute walking practice before a sitting practice or doing a walking practice in nature.

1) An introduction to mindful walking

2) A talk on Feeling tones (pleasant/unpleasant/neutral)

3) Guided mindfulness of sounds practice

1) Introductory talk

2) Guided practice: Mindfulness of breath, body, sounds and thoughts

3) Talk: Mindfulness of thoughts and thinking