a practical guide to meditation that really works

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Overcoming the Basic Challenges andMisconceptions of your Spiritual Practice

A Practical Guide to

MEDITATION

That Really Works

Fully Revised and Updated for 2013



A Practical Guide to Meditation That Really Works

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Version 2.0 - January 2013

A Practical Guide to

MEDITATION

That Really Works

Overcoming the Basic Challenges andMisconceptions of your Spiritual Practice

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A Practical Guide to Meditation

That Really Works

Overcoming the Basic Mistakes and Misconceptions

of your Spiritual Practice

CONTENTS

1. Introduction…………………………………………………….

Chapter Page

4

2. Part 1: Why Meditate?…………………………………………. 5

3. Part 2: Setting Up a Meditation Space……….………………. 12

4. Part 3: Practical Essentials of Meditation ..….………………. 14

5. Part 4: Building Purpose…………...….………………………. 18

6. Part 5: Barriers to Meditation…………………………………. 20

7. Part 6: Ten Basic Meditations….......….………………………. 26

8. Part 7: Final Notes…………..…………………………………. 40





Introduction

There was never a better time in history for

people to meditate. Humanity is reaching a

point in our evolution when we must choose

how we wish to live: in growing awareness or

in continuing non-awareness and ignorance.

In ignorance we will simply repeat the

problems of the past, the same problems that

created the recurring suffering of our world

today. In awareness we too will have problems,

but we will also be developing the

consciousness to know that every single one of

them begins inside you and me. To solve those

problems we must concentrate less on what we

create and more on who we really are.

As a somewhat reluctant meditator myself, I

have come to realize the pitfalls of meditation,

as well as the tricks of the ego that would much

rather be watching a movie or bungy-jumping

than listening to my breathing or visualizing

love.

I have experienced the good days and the bad

days, the triumphs of spirit and the ignominy of

ego. I am writing this guide, not because I am

an expert in meditation, but because I want to

share my experiences of how to make the

development of consciousness more that just athirty minute routine you might commit to each

morning but a way of life where every moment

counts and freedom is awaiting every one of us

within both the mundane and the extraordinary

experience of life.

I first published this guide in February 2011

and, as we enter 2013 I thought it time to bring

it up to date with my current thinking. So much

changes in a year in my life, that I have had

good cause to learn very quickly that nothing is

permanent and to honor that universal truth as

the first step to honoring the nature of one’s

own being.

You see, meditation to me is a tool of living

happily. It is the precursor to applying the

awareness of meditation to the challenges of

life that lie beyond it. Only when we accept

that the world we make within us is the world

we will experience outside of us can both the

world individual begin the process of

evolution.

The trick is to start practicing and to stopcomplaining that you can’t meditate. You can.

We all can. It is absolutely essential that we do.

Michael Paul Stephens

April 2013







Part 1

Why Meditate?

Have you ever tried repairing a machine that

you knew nothing about? What if you didn’t

even know what it was for? Could you repair it?

Imagine looking upon a car for the first time in

your life and someone saying to you, “Well?

Make it work!” It would be difficult, right?Probably impossible. The same thing is true

about fixing yourself. If you do not know

yourself, how can you fix you?

The thing is, most of us live in this shady belief

that we do know our self and we know our self

very, very well. But what if this wasn’t true at

all and the fact that you don’t know yourself is

the very reason why you suffer in life?

You don’t suffer, you say? Life is an endless

procession of joy, angels and chocolate ice

cream? Congratulations!

But perhaps you might consider the possibility

that, rather than having no suffering at all, you

may simply be unaware of how you suffer and

shrug off your personal woes as part and parcel

of normal life. Well, there is no doubt that

everyone on Earth suffers, but what

distinguishes one human being from another is

the degree to which we suffer and whether we

are in the process of letting it go or

accumulating more and more.

Emotional pain, physical trauma, energetic

blockages or mental aberrations: each person

on Earth suffers in our own unique way but all

of our suffering is connected to the same

problem. Sadly, few of us ever become aware

of what that problem is and much fewer realize

that the condition is diminishable and finite

when we learn how to let it go.

The grim truth is that many of us becomevictims of suffering, spending our days

desperately attempting to protect ourselves

from it through shame, blame, justification,

rationalization and insurance! We apply an

inordinate proportion of our life aiming to

negate its impact by accumulating wealth,

possessions and status that distract us from our

base fears of hunger, sickness, poverty and

death. However, this does not remove the

cause sat all. It merely covers up the resultingpain and suffering.

But what if this suffering had other reasons for

being? What if it played a significant spiritual

role in the development of each human being

to fulfill their personal potential? What if it

wasn’t a problem to be covered up at all, but

one to be simply starved of the very fuels that

stoke its flames and build its power over our

lives?

All the normal solutions to life’s suffering have

been tried by people all over the world, again

and again, across the eons of history but still

the pain remains the same.

Let’s go through the list...

• You may have tried pleasure as the solution,

but the high only lasts for a short while beforethe regular discomforts of life come back. In







this way we constantly seek a high that is,

ultimately, unsatisfactory. If it was truly

satisfactory, it would never end.

• Maybe you’ve tried buying stuff to ease the

desire to be more attractive or the fear of

being behind the times. But no matter how

much stuff you buy the dissatisfaction always

creeps back in, as if you were not treating the

cause of it at all!

• You’ve may even have tried changing

locations and jobs but as soon as you think

you’ve got suffering licked, there it is again,coming back to haunt you like a boomerang

hurled away in despair but eventually

smacking you in the head as it returns to

illicit the same painful result.

The conventional solutions to life’s problems,

those recommended by the brightest

politicians, economists, atheists and scientists

continually fail to fill the unfillable void within

each of us but where are the other solutions?There don’t seem to be any because the

conventional wisdom of our world is

irreparably flawed. It has chosen to perceive

suffering, not as a choice but as something

inevitable.

This is not only wrong, it is dangerously wrong

and condemns billions of people around the

world to engage, not only in the constant

creation of personal suffering, but also tolegitimize and engage in systems of economy,

politics and society that reinforce these

conditions in an endless spiral of suffering and

spiritual decay.

If we want the world to change, we first need to

understand that you and I are the ones with the

power to do that. We must expand our

perception of what creates suffering in the

world and take steps to remove those causesfrom our own lives first. This is where the

purpose and process of meditation begins and

ends. Sadly, an overwhelming majority of

people are entirely unaware of this and thus

remain entrenched within ideas that are slowly,but surely , killing them.

It is true that everything and everyone suffers

simply because we are physical beings but

suffering is a purposeful natural phenomenon.

It can be both diminished and extinguished in

life by those committed to first rooting out its

causes and reducing them and eventually

eliminating them all together. This is a process

that comes from within, not by meeting theillusory needs that we perceive as coming from

the outside.

You see, people live their lives obeying only

certain natural laws and completely ignoring

others. Imagine if you were to ignore the Law

of Gravity for a day? You probably wouldn’t live

through to the end of it. You’d walk off tall

buildings, try to leap wide chasms and catch a

falling tree or two! Ouch!

The one law that we constantly fail to observe

is the Law of Impermanence. This law is simple.

It says: “everything changes.” It shouldn’t be

too hard to live by this law because most of us

already know it as a theory but really, how

many of us actually apply it to our mind, body

or energy system?

Application is the only thing that mattersregarding knowledge. Knowing without doing

is useless and even counterproductive. We

begin to believe we are too intelligent for any

subtle solutions to escape our wisdom. But true

wisdom is only found in doing and as anyone

who observes the world will quickly realize,

what we are doing on Earth is not very wise at

all. Our actions define us and our physical

reality not the theories with which we have fed

our brains. Most of us virtually ignore the Law







of Permanence despite knowing that it contains

a truth that is ineffable.

A great example of how we ignore it is the way

in which our minds and emotions cling on to

people, objects, situations and our self image

despite knowing that all of these things will

naturally change. Look at the huge sums of

money people spend on their skin in order to

avoid wrinkles and cling to their youth?

Consider the great suffering by a family when a

family member dies, despite all of us knowing

it is a natural process that is no crying matter atall. Look at how we crave that new car as a

solution to our problems and then fear it being

scratched or stolen when we finally possess it.

While these situations may seem very different

to us, each of them is a direct result of suffering

that arises either through desiring to have or

maintain something or desiring to push away or

be free from something. In short, this process of

desire and aversion causes all suffering and yetit is a process to which the whole world has

become ensnared. Entire societies actually

encourage people to participate in an endless

cycle of addiction to the very causes of

suffering from which we are seeking our

freedom!

Consider the huge volumes of suffering

generated through this process? For example,

where do you think fear comes from? It is thefeeling that arises in us when we expect our

present reality to change in an undesirable way.

Society plays upon this fear suggesting that it is

a very healthy way to live by fearing sickness,

unemployment, debt, divorce, being late,

poverty, criticism, embarrassment, spiders and

all manner of other projections that stem from a

desire to permanently maintain what we have

or permanently avoid what we don’t have. Thus

we can be sold things that seem to protect us

from these desperation conditions like face

creams, condoms, drugs, investment plans,

pensions, fast cars and education but none of

them really remove the root causes.

In fact, our reliance upon them and our faith

that they do simply elevates the potential

suffering to a whole new level.

Why should we fear any natural phenomenon?

We should not. Indeed, fear will only arise

when we are not truly conscious of it and thus

cannot control it. Fear is only a lack of wisdom

dulling our faith that the present moment is aperfect creation of cause and effect.

Why do we know that everything changes and

yet expend so much of our lives fighting

change? We cling to what we want and push so

hard at what we don’t want, as if we are

capable of creating a life divided from the very

laws of cause and effect that brought us to this

earth in the first place. That isn’t wisdom. It is

madness.

The kind of control that we apply to life is not a

useful one. We try to bend and mold life from

the outside in, changing the external reality as

if it will ultimately offer us anything except a

superficial comfort.

But, in a world where everything changes, this

will only ever create temporary satisfaction

based upon a misconception. Sadly, seven

billion people are all trying the same

technique, changing the world on the outside

so that they can be happy on the inside. No

wonder the next time you look at the world

around you the part you had perfectly in place

in your life gets moved by someone else and

the frustration, anger and fear plays out all over

again.

This is a way of living that leaves yourcontentment entirely up to the whims of other







people who are also trying to change the world

for their own person expectations. There has to

be a better way where everyone can win.

What has to change in the world is the idea

that the desire to become something that you

are not will end your suffering. We think:

“When I become rich/a banker/married/

educated/loved”, or whatever, “I will be

happy!” when the fact of the matter is plain

and simple: how do you become a “better

person” when none of us really knows who we

really are now? We don’t look. We don’t

observe. We have never looked or observed. Sohow do we know what we should become and

whether it will serve us any better than who we

already are?

It is no wonder that our external solutions don’t

work and have never worked when the person

we really are doesn't really need any of the

artificial solution we create for ourselves in our

desperate pursuit of happiness!

The truth of the matter is very simple. You

cannot know who you are unless you look in

the only place you exist. “Where is that?”, you

may ask. But the question is flawed. “When is

that?” is a far better question because you do

not exist in a place as much as in a time and

thus, knowing that time with a hitherto

unattained intimacy is the only way to know

who you are and what you are becoming.

In a very real sense, the suffering that you

experience in life through emotional stress,

sadness, anger, bitterness and jealousy are not

problems to be overcome, which is how we

normally try to solve life’s issues. We think that

if I can resolve my conflict or fix a situation, I

can feel better about life but this is another

external solution to an internal problem.

You suffer because mostly because your mindtakes you away from the present moment and

your experience of the unity within it. Of

course, when physical problems occur, there

will always be suffering. But this suffering is not

helped by thinking of all the terrible things thatcould, might or may happen, for example. It

would be far better to let go of all thoughts and

simply observe what is happening but few of us

are taught how to do that or why it would be

beneficial. Indeed, most conventional wisdom

says we can only be happy once we have

solved the pain problem but this can very often

exacerbate and engender greater pain, not less.

When you think about it, every emotion youwill ever experience will be a feeling attached

to a concept in your mind that: the present

moment is somehow imperfect. Reread that

and understand what I mean by it because it is

fundamentally important as to why you should

ever bother mediating in the first place.

Take sadness for example. It is an emotion that

chooses to believe that the present moment

would be a better time if what you have lostwas somehow back in your reality. This reads:

the present moment is imperfect because of

what I have lost. In other words, my ego’s

desire causes me sadness.

Frustration is another good example. This is the

emotion that chooses to believe that the present

moment continues to be less than what you

desire it to be. Frustration arises when you

cannot create the conditions that you think you

need to be well or happy in the present

moment.

Finally fear, as previously discussed, is a great

example of how we project something into the

future and feel a sensation that chooses to

perceive the arising of that condition through

the sensation of aversion. We feel fear because

our ego doesn’t want that kind of present

moment to exist, so it tries to push it away.







You could go through all the emotional states

and discover the same message. Emotions are

like emails from your spirit telling you that you

are failing to live in the present.

While we can all agree that emotions are an

essential part of being human, we can also

agree that fear, sadness and frustration are

hardly augmentations to life’s experience

however natural they may be. It is ultimately

true that being free from emotional attachment

would create a better present moment for us all

and, far from creating the kind of robot that we

might fear arises from the process of letting goof emotional reaction, what is actually created

is a person who becomes far more sensitive

and aware of the world around them.

From this state arises the natural peace of a

mind that refuses to engage in the pursuit of

endless desire, aversions and suffering because

it has realized that the temporary nature of all

things extends to emotions and suffering, if we

can find the mindfulness to let them go ratherthan holding onto them as I, me and mine.

Meditation is misunderstood because it is often

seen as being a religious practice by those

people who lump together all kinds of spiritual

pursuits in one homogenous mush. This is like

saying that fitness is a religion and if you go to

the gym religiously you must be some kind of

zealot because who but a fanatic would

actually plan a work out, visit a location

especially designed for the practice and work

so hard on it that their body actually changes

shape, mass, size and all manner of inner

workings!

Of course, we do not see fitness in this way, nor

should we see mediation in that way either. The

truth of the matter is that if you wish to be

present you have to work out the muscles that

are not fit enough to keep you there. In this

case, the muscle is not a physical element but

consciousness, an energy that we all possess

but few of us are truly aware of.

One of the fundamentally basic purposes of

meditation is (read the next part of the sentence

very carefully) to observe without judgment

who you are in the present moment . There, I’ve

said it. The secret’s out. It’s not about becoming

Buddha, reaching enlightenment, single-

pointedness or emancipation from the chains of

suffering, it is about simply listening to who

you are here and now.

This is a crucial practice in the task of letting goof attachments and emotional suffering as they

arise. You see, all attachments are born, grow

mature and die within us from moment to

moment. What we can observe in the

development of these attachments are our

desires and aversions arising and falling.

However, if we are not conscious in the present

moment we will be unaware of them and thus

allow them to proliferate along with the

suffering they generate.

Therefore, meditation is one way of attaining a

greater groundedness in the present moment.

As sensations are born within you, you can

allow them to quickly pass through the stages

of growing, maturing and dying out again but if

you are unaware, you will allow your mind to

engage those sensations and start an internal

dialog of shame and blame. This doesn’t ‘work

out’ these emotions. It expands and deepens

them so that you store them up for another day.

Eventually, the amino acids that you produce

when you are emotional will congest in the

body and cause sickness and disease.

In a very literal sense then, meditation is not an

act of doing much at all. It is allowing what you

have already accumulated to arise and dissolve

in the face of your present awareness. It is like

removing the ignorance accumulated in your







mind and body by a prescription of

consciousness.

Many people like to think they are in some way

incomplete. They desire self-improvement and

betterment but the truth of the matter is that

everyone is already perfect and meditation is

designed to allow that perfection to shine

through. What covers it up are the layers of ego

that we place in its way. Meditation is a process

of allowing those layers to dissolve like peeling

an onion, layer by layer.

Having said this, meditation is also deeplyconnected to our mental and physical

wellbeing. Indeed, the medical benefits of

meditation are recorded in hundreds of studies

across the world, so don’t just take my word for

it.

• STRESS: “Meditation decreases oxygen

consumption, heart rate, respiratory rate, and

blood pressure, and increases the intensity of

alpha, theta, and delta brain waves—the

opposite of the physiological changes that

occur during [stress]”.1

• SLEEPING DISORDERS: 75% of long-term

insomniacs who have been trained in

relaxation and meditation can fall asleep

within 20 minutes of going to bed.2

• BLOOD PRESSURE: Meditation significantly

controls high blood pressure at levels

comparable to widely used prescription

drugs, and without the side effects.3

• PERIOD PAIN: Women with severe PMS

showed a 58% improvement in their

symptoms after five months of daily

meditation.4

• HEART ATTACKS: Meditators over 6-9

months showed a marked decrease in the

thickness of their artery walls, while non-

meditators actually showed an increase.

Thischange translates to about an 11% decrease

in the risk of heart attack and an 8% to 15%

decrease in the risk of stroke.5

• PAIN MANAGEMENT: Relaxation therapies

are effective in treating chronic pain, and can

markedly ease the pain of low back

problems, arthritis, and headaches.6

• AGING: Meditation may slow aging. A study

found that people who had been meditatingfor more than five years were physiologically

12 to 15 years younger than non-meditators.7

The list goes on and on. The medical benefits of

meditation are known: you will attain greater

wellbeing by regularly meditating: fact .

You have spent most of your life to this point

practicing being there and then and wondering

why suffering keeps popping up its ugly head toremind you to do a little bit more of that and

little less of this, but, if you were to listen to the

subtle messages and change now , those

messages would obviously become less and

less frequent. Physical pain would decrease,

stress would alleviate, emotional pain would

subside, threat of illness and sickness would

recede, in short; your life would change and all

because you paused living there and then for a

while and started living here and now.

Of course, while meditation has many great

benefits, it is not magic. It is a practice that

aligns your entire being in the ways of nature

that most of the world is currently ignoring,



1 Herbert Benson, M.D. Harvard Medical School, author of The Relaxation Response2 Dr. Gregg Jacobs, Psychologist, Harvard3 Journal of the American Medical Association4 Health, September, 19955 Stroke Journal, reported in Psychology Today, 20016 National Institutes of Health, 19967 International Journal of Neuroscience, 1982





hence the sense of conflict between man and

nature. It is the act of watching who you are in

order to learn, without any shadow of doubt,

totally and through to the marrow of your bone,that everything changes, that everything that

lives also dies, that everything you possess will

one day be lost, that everyday gives birth to a

new one, that every speck of sadness will one

day become joy and that every hope or fear

that can be realized will be realized if you wait

long enough - so, enjoy the journey.

If you do that, life becomes extraordinarily

pleasant.

You cannot enjoy a journey when you’re

worried about who’ll be meeting you at the

station when you arrive or whether you left the

gas on at home. That is what causes suffering.

You can only be happy now and meditation is

learning the art of being now.

You don’t need to focus on creating happiness,

peace, concentration, clear-mindedness or anyof the other barriers to your attainment of them.

Happiness will arise all on its own because

your inner nature is peaceful. Peace will arise

when it’s ready because your true nature is at

one with everything. Joy will come along when

suffering dies as suffering is merely the

manifestation of your struggle to become.

Thus, meditation is about not trying to become

anything. It is about finally allowing yourself tobe who you are, perfect, light and magnificent.

It’s an effortless process that requires just a little

effort.







Part 2

Setting Up a Meditation

Space

I don’t know about you, but if someone had

told me when I was 20 years old that sitting

and listening to my mind, body and energy was

the key to my spiritual freedom, well, let’s say it

would have taken more faith than I possessed

to believe it possible. So, I understand the

difficulty in changing a mindset that wants to

do stuff, change stuff, get stuff completed and

feel as if the effort is towards something.

For anyone starting anything new, I think it

takes a little faith. It is sad that we live in a

world where the preferred view is that faith is

non-scientific, therefore it cannot have any

other value than as superstition.

But for me, faith is a vital ingredient in what it

means to be human, whether we believe in it

or not. Think about it. Without faith, you would

never make a choice, start any new ventures,

be creative or intuit anything. Indeed, you

would not get out of bed, cross the road or take

any risks whatsoever.

What is clear in our world is that you cannotwait for things to appear. You have to have faith

that you can create them before they will

appear.

A good friend of mine said recently that faith is

living in gratitude for everything you have in

life. It is a great way to live. You give thanks for

what you have and meet every event and

person knowing that the universe doesn’t do

excess. It is perfectly neat, perfectly

economical, perfectly waste-less. It is a perfect

mechanism of giving back what is put in. So,

living in the present and being grateful for it is a

great way to respect that law.

Faith is the magic ingredient that turns logic

and planning into belief and allows the energy

of potential to be actualized into reality. This is

why, as you begin on your journey of

meditation, it is important for you to build faith

in something or someone that represents your

course or the foundations of what you believe.

I don’t care whether that person is Christ,

Buddha, Nelson Mandela, Mother Teresa orSarah Palin, each of us needs a figure who

represents the values that we are aspiring

towards and has demonstrated to us that they

can be lived in the human form. This gives faith

a face. Then, your personal path becomes one,

not of wondering whether the goal is possible

but of allowing it to be realized from within.

Part of this process of faith is setting up a space

that meets the needs of your meditationpractice. When you dedicate a particular space

to an activity, it is both literally and figuratively

creating space in your life for it. The practice

becomes a part of your existence and the space

you create will help support your practice

because of it.

Many people that come to see me and my wife,

Koong, are ungrounded, meaning that the

foundations of their life are shaky and much ofthis is often down to the state of their home. If







Part 3

Practical Essentials of

Meditation

Times to Meditate

If you want to change your life, change your

diary. This is the clearest message I can give to

you. It is the oldest trick in the book to keep

telling yourself that you don’t have time to

change. It is also a poor excuse. What you

really mean is that you can’t be bothered.

Important things get prioritized, that is clear, so

work out what is important in your life and

then change your diary to accommodate those

things. Hopefully a regular awareness practice

will be among them!

But , don’t be too strict or hard on yourself.

Make the pledge that you will commit your

time and effort, but, if you really don’t feel like

it or have something important come up,

change your schedule. You don’t want

meditation to become a chore. Just ask yourself

what your motivation is. Are you missing your

appointment with yourself because you want to

or have to? If you cannot meditate for some

reason it is no good at all making yourself into

a victim of your own self-loathing. It rather

defeats the point, doesn’t it?

Find a middle path to your practice. Like

working out your body, keeping a regular

practice ensures the effects multiply and grow

but going to the gym three times a day every

day, because “it is your duty” or “a matter of

life or death”, well, that’s just being zealous

and will result in the opposite of what you are

trying to attain. Peace cannot be created by

being at war with yourself, your time, your

schedule, your space or anything else. Just be

cool.

I like to meditate in the morning. This time is

when I am most alert. There is no fixed time for

it, although the Buddha did suggest between

3-5AM as being the best time! You will find

your own time but book it into that diary of

yours. Don’t go through your day waiting for an

opportunity. It will never arrive, and then,

neither will you.

Before bed is another good time, when the day

has died down and quiet may have descended

in the house. However, be wary of the

tendency to become lethargic or fall asleep. It

is a barrier to practice and sleepiness can

create frustration as you will learn in the

hindrances to practice later on in this guide.

Finally, how long should you meditate? Well, it

is up to you, but I would recommend at least20-30 minutes but that is not to say that ten

minutes is not worthwhile. Any time that you

commit to the process is better than nothing.

Whatever time you do decide to commit, make

sure that you keep to it for that session. You do

not have to meditate for exactly the same

duration each day but be sure to decide before

you sit down. If you decide 20 minutes,

meditate for twenty minutes. This is important







as without a set time the meditation will not be

as smooth.

Keep a clock nearby so you know what the

time is. If you wish to set an alarm, this is a

good idea, but make sure it is something gentle

that will not be a sudden shock. This is very

important. Bringing you out of a meditation

sharply can be very upsetting for your energy

and destroy the refreshing benefit of calm

relaxation that you may attain.

Sitting, Standing or Lying?

Yes, is the short answer. To be honest, it doesn’t

matter which posture you adopt because you

can be aware of yourself in any of them but

there are certain practicalities to be aware of

and certain postures are better at certain times.

Lying down is more likely to make you sleepy,

so avoid it if you are prone to being plagued by

sloth or torpor. This has been one of my greatest

hindrances, which basically means my mindgets heavy and sleepy, so lying down is a

position I have rarely used. This is not to say it

is inferior to other positions and is certainly

great before bed in order to have that 10-

minute awareness check before drifting off into

a wonderful sleep.

Standing is very possible, especially if you plan

to open your eyes, and there are some great

meditations that make use of it, as you will see.Walking is one of them, especially for those of

us (yawn :o) who have a tendency towards

falling asleep. Another is grounding, which can

be very powerful. If you do plan to meditate

standing up, choose wisely and perhaps learn

to meditate with your eyes slightly open, which

will help with balance.

However, sitting is the favored position for

many meditators. Some levels of awareness canbe quite intoxicating and disorientating, so in a

strong sitting position your body should stay

upright, especially if you adopt the tougher

sitting postures such as the lotus or half lotus.

These postures offer stability although they arehard to impossible for beginners. If you start

young, however, it is a lot easier!

It is also perfectly acceptable to use a chair

when meditating, especially if you find sitting

in a cross-legged position painful. There are

also some great meditation cushions that you

can buy from specialist shops, including a

mediation stool which I have found very useful

when sitting for long periods. More on these inthe next section.

In conclusion, choose a posture that feels best

for you. One of your challenges as a meditator

will be to bring your body to a point where the

posture itself is not a barrier to your meditation.

In theory, no posture should be a barrier at all,

if you are simply observing how things feel in

your mind, body and energy, but in practice,

few of us want to sit through 30 minutes ofexcruciating knee or back pain when there are

easier ways to become acquainted with the

practice before moving on through postures

that may help you attain higher levels later on.

Again, don’t be too strict with this. If you want

to lie down one day and sit the next, do it! Do

what feels right for you at the time. There is no

right or wrong way. It is much better that you

meditate in one way or another than not at all.

When you are sensitive to your needs, sitting

when sleepy, lying when needing to relax for

example, the practice will take care of itself.

Getting Comfortable

Meditation is not a chore. It should be

enjoyable. It should, OK, eventually, be

pleasurable but there are a few tricks that can

be employed up front to avoid some of the

inevitable pain that occurs when your body is







asked to sit in a posture that, for the first 92

years of life you have singly refused to practice!

Firstly, don’t be cheap on a good cushion. If

there is one thing absolutely guaranteed to

screw up your back it is a soft, limp, squishy-

thing of a cushion. You won’t notice it for about

the first 4 minutes but after that you will realize

that your body is moving ever-so-slightly with

every breath and pump of blood, causing your

back muscles to make slight adjustments as the

cushion moves. While these may be the most

minuscule, even imperceptible movements,

your back won’t care. It will just hurt.

I like to use two cushions, one to place my

bottom on and the second underneath and

large enough for my legs to rest at a slightly

lower level. This posture naturally pushes my

hips forwards slightly, straightening the back

and creating a solid base, when coupled with

good, solid cushions, of course.

There are plenty of cushions designedespecially for meditation. However, a good,

old-fashioned study chair will do just as well.

You don’t need a cushion at all, if you choose

to sit upright. Just be sure that chair is solid and

won’t move. Don’t use your office swivel chair

or the Fitball. It won’t work.

Another great device is a meditation bench,

which you sit on and tuck your legs underneath

the seat, as if you were kneeling. The seat takesyour weight, not your knees and it gets over the

problem of painful knees and legs, while also

helping to straighten the back naturally.

Another part of being comfortable is to wear

the right clothes. Loose fitting clothes are

probably preferable but you have to be aware

of climate and temperature of your meditation

space. It is also preferable to wear natural fibers

whenever possible as human-made fibers arenot so cool energetically.

If you have chosen to sit, there are also

numerous postures that you can choose. There

are a number of different cross-legged postures

that are common but, once again, I urge you tofind the right position for you and not feel that

there is some accomplishment in being able to

sit for an hour with your legs wrapped around

your ears or something like that. This is fine, if

you are in a circus, but unnecessary for

meditation.

The old fashioned cross-legged posture you

used to sit in while watching TV as a child is

one of the most basic positions. Try it out andsee how it feel. If you find that your back is

getting sore, stiff or collapsing in the middle, try

leaning against a wall for support. Over time,

you will get used to the position and not need

the support any longer.

You can put one leg in front of the other, if you

so choose. This is called the Burmese sitting

posture. Another is the half lotus, where you

bring one leg over the other, like the child’scross-legged position, but end up with the

bottom of your foot pressing into the opposite

thigh and the bottom of the foot facing up to

the ceiling. This can be hard on the ankles at

first, so be warned.

I won’t even go into the full lotus position.

The final point about creating comfort is to be

aware of the shape of the posture that you havechosen. Stretch your back, swivel your arms,

move your hips until any kinks are ironed out

and relax into your posture. Sit with your back

straight, but not tight or even forcing it into a

concave shape. This creates tension and you

will feel it as the meditation progresses. Be

aware of tension in your shoulders, neck,

stomach or any other areas where there should

be no tension. Focus on it and let it go.







Part 4

Building Purpose

When I was about 24 I read in a wonderful

meditation book that I should keep a

meditation diary, which I did. It was a good

suggestion because it helps us to look back on

the experiences we have, draw on the strong

ones and put the less strong into context.

However, I took it all a little too seriously.

I started giving myself grades in order to have a

more empirical gauge of my success.

Obviously, to my logical brain at least, a

meditation with a score of 8 was better than

one with a score of 4, so it made sense to me

that I should keep shooting for 8, 9 or 10!Right?

Wrong! What I didn’t realize at the time was

that such an approach was setting me up for

abject failure all created by my own

expectations. One day I had one of the most

amazing meditation experiences. I felt totally

focussed and I drifted through a world of light

and color that left me full of bliss, on a high

that I assumed had been a product of mydiligence, hard work and the fantastic decision

to grade my effort out of ten and really push

myself towards excellence (that’s irony by the

way.)

Most skills that we learn are such that you can

expec t a lea rn ing curve where the

improvement is generally upwards and things

become easier as we practice but what I did

not know was that meditation is not like really

that. It is like peeling an onion. When you get

through one layer, you have a breakthrough but

there is always another layer and the challenges

may come back even harder than before

because the layer is deeper ingrained into us.

So, the next day I expected the same result and

it set me up for failure. After all, wasn’t I right to

assume that the more I practice concentration,

the more concentrated I will become? Yes, if

the point of meditation is concentration, but it

is not . The point of meditation is to use

awareness to let go of attachments and

sometimes, when you are feeling at your

absolute worst, you may be letting go of farmore attachment than when you are feeling

bliss.

In meditation, there is always what you might

call ‘improvement’, but it is not improvement

in ways that I was gauging my success,. I

thought I had to become more focussed,

concentrated and therefore, inevitably, I would

attain more and more of these wonderful

experiences. But that is not the way.

When you do attain these blissful experiences,

which if you keep going for long enough you

probably will, clinging to them and expecting

more is about as useful as clinging to your

mountain launch pad while hoping to fly. It

becomes the very antithesis of what you are

trying to do, which is to let go of your

attachment to becoming anything tomorrow,

next month or ever and simply experiencing







who you are right now. Sometimes that will be

in bliss, other times that will be in absolute

misery, but it is better to be totally aware of it

and let it go, than to be totally oblivious to itand prolong the process as if it is really who

you are.

So it is vital that you create a purpose for your

meditation that avoids the usual gauges of

success/failure, improvement/decline or

attainment/non-attainment.

I understand that this may be anathema to

some people. We have trained our minds to begoal centered and predictive, but this is only

one possible outcome of training, not the only

one.

Meditation is the process of retraining your

mind to live with the true nature of nature, so,

different or abnormal processes or purposes are

bound to feel a little weird at first. You will be

fighting a life-long volume of conditioning that

makes anything outside of that conditioningfeel ‘wrong ’ or ‘uncomfortable’ but as soon as

you feel this, remember, this is what change

feels like.

Your purpose for your meditation, at least

initially, should be nothing more that

experiencing your own private present

moment. You’re going to take a look at who you

really are and that can be ugly, beautiful,

focussed or splattered all over the place; it’sanybody’s guess who you will meet on any

given day.

Just sit down being prepared to greet the ‘you’

who you are today without judgement, without

emotion, without reaction and you will begin

to realize that whoever you are right now is

good enough.

Indeed, it is all you are and that cannot beanything less than perfect.







Part 5

Barriers to Meditation

Ego is a many-splendored thing. It is more

devious than you ever thought possible and it

will throw up countless barriers to make

meditation seem weird, impossible, sleepy or

too much effort without even breaking a sweat.

Here’s some of the barriers you’re bound to

meet and ways to help get through them.

External Barriers

Let’s start with those external barriers that can

become a huge pain. First of these is finding a

place quiet enough for you to sit and listen to

yourself and not the neighbors TV or your kidplaying the trumpet.

Of course, you could break off your meditation

mid-way through and scream for your family to

‘Shut up!’ before returning to your meditation,

but that may be counterproductive in the

pursuit of peace and quiet.

Firstly, do what you can with the environment

that you have. Most of us who live in a city orlarge town will find it very hard to create a

completely noise-free environment. However,

you can reduce interference and interruptions

by doing some very obvious things like turning

off your mobile phone, unplugging your landline, switching off the TV and radio and closing

the door to the room in which you are planning

to meditate. This will help.

However, bear in mind that you are unlikely to

be able to remove every possible distraction.

Indeed, you don’t really want to.

As you will learn, including rather than trying

to exclude sensual experience is the key tomeditating without frustration or dashed

expectations.

Kate, a dear friend of mine and a highly

experienced meditator was encountering all

sorts of external interruptions in her early

morning meditation, not least of these was

morning prayers at a local mosque blaring out

across the neighborhood and a host of early

morning delivery trucks and shop shuttersbeing rolled up doing everything they possibly

could to distract her from her meditative object.

Often, a meditation is about bringing your

mind to an meditative object, like your breath

or a candle but frustration can easily set in

when you perceive outside disturbances as

being the cause of your distracted mind.

So, what do you do? Seeing as you cannot stop

a mosque from calling its people to prayer or

change the delivery time of the trucks that bang

their doors and rev their engines, you should

deal with those disturbances as a part of your

meditation and, rather than focussing on one

object of meditation, focus on them all.

This is exactly what Kate did and soon the

frustration was gone.

You cannot change the outside world, and if it

keeps entering your meditation, embrace it







rather than feeling the frustration of continually

failing to exclude it.

Remember once again, the point of meditation

is not concentration but observation. When you

embrace this, you will embrace everything that

is in your present moment as being essential for

your personal evolution.

Sensual Barriers

Another aspect of external distraction is sensory

desire. One of those that is most common for a

student of meditation is physical pain! When

you start sitting cross-legged for a period of

time, you may feel your body screaming for

submission.

Of course, you could always move your body,

which is fine, but we can also use pain as an

object of meditation. When you realize that the

motivation to be free from pain is aversion,

another aspect of desire, pain actually makes a

great study of how ego works to create moresuffering, not less. If you do this, you will note

that pain is not a constant feeling but an ever-

fluctuating one. It has many qualities that we

do not usually recognize in our panic to be rid

of it.

Whatever you are doing in life, your senses will

always be in the process of seeking stimulation

in one form or another. It is the way we have

been trained to think and feel, so duringmeditation, why should this process stop?

Seeking pleasure through the sensual

stimulation is like taking out a loan from the

universe. As with any loan, you must repay the

debt with interest. The interest we pay takes the

form of suffering which arises when we are

separated from the object of our desire or all

the pleasure from it is used up and we are left

with that hollow feeling of needing somethingelse from which to rekindle the lost pleasure.

Thus, we set out on the endless pursuit of the

endless experience...

A good example is going out for an ice cream.

Once you have had one, you probably don’t

want another. More ice cream would just make

you sick. So, even if you crave ice cream, you

have a real yearning for it, once you have eaten

the ice cream you will feel great. It will have

done it’s job. Now what’s next? The excitement

and expectation of the experience is over. Your

senses have been stimulated and you are now

left with a gap that your senses will slowly

begin to fill with desire again.

Now I want this and then that and after this and

that I will need these and those. It is never

ending, always borrowing from the universe

and repaying the loan with sadness that it is

gone or emptiness that must be filled again

with objects of desire.

So, it could be said that sensations are like

addictions that our mind clings to. We keepfeeding the senses and so we keep going

through the same cycle of suffering. Of course,

when we start meditating, this conditioned

situations doesn’t just stop because we expect it

to. It is not that easy. Your mind will be well

training in grasping at pleasurable experiences

and sitting without judgment and emotion is

certainly not what you would initially call

‘pleasant’

So, thoughts keep coming at us. We are

uncomfortable. We are hungry. We are cold.

We want to be at peace. We want to be doing

something else. We are bored. Desire and

aversion is the mind we discover because that

is the mind we have been cultivating for our

entire life up to this point.

During meditation, like a spoiled child, the ego

demands to have the senses stimulated and thisis what gives rise to emotional suffering.







However, if you simply observe each sensation

as it arises, both desire and aversion, without

judgment, without clinging, without pushing

away, this is the cultivation of a cool mind.With a cool mind you can eventually

extinguish the fire of clinging and desire that

perpetuates suffering when it fails to get its own

way.

Be sure, this takes practice! In fact, a life time

of it. While meditation will have quick results

in some areas, the mind will resist being

present with as much zeal as you have put into

training it not to be present. It doesn’t want togive up its pleasures. It must be worked with

like you work on your body in a gym. There are

no instant cures or quick fixes. Only when we

can let go of these sensual attachments can real

peace emerge from the war of desire.

Ill Will

Ill will is like hatred towards people or objects.

There are meditations that are specificallydesigned to help us grow our heart energy

through love and forgiveness because ill will

can unrest any mind if it cannot treat the object

of its meditation with love and compassion.

Every meditation that you conduct will have an

object of meditation, that is, something you will

concentrate on. The point of the meditation is

not to attain concentration but to be aware of

your ego arising to break your concentration.

Your mind, like all minds on this earth, will

wander away from a meditation object because

you have never noticed yourself training your

mind to seek out more and more desires almost

by autopilot. As soon as you stop doing this, as

in a meditation, it is a shock to the mind and so

it resists. Your job as a meditator is not to catch

it, scold it and drag it kicking and screaming

back to the object of meditation, but to be

aware of how and when the mind is straying

and gently remind it of your purpose.

One of the ways we do this is to imagine the

mind as a blue sky and when thoughts or

feelings enter that blue sky we make them like

clouds that slowly fade and are blown gently

away. This is a calming metaphor and avoids

the tendency of goal-oriented minds to view

any distractions as a failure to concentrate. This

labeling of experience in this way is very

debilitating and will eventually cause more ill

will to grow. You will begin to loathe your

practice because you are ‘not very good at it’,or ‘keep failing to concentrate.’

The trick to avoiding ill will against the object

of your meditation (I hate staring at that boring

old candle! Or My stupid mind can’t

concentrate on my breath!) is to develop love

for it.

Many meditations involve watching the breath

in some shape and form. If you treat the breathlike it was your toddling child, how would you

treat it? Would you stop watching it? Would

you drop it and become distracted by sensory

desires? Of course, you wouldn’t. You would be

diligent and loving. If it did wander off, you

would gently bring it back to your attention.

Ill will can be quite subtle but it is a serious

hindrance because of its insidious nature. We

may find it hard to believe we can hate ourown breath or body parts that we may be using

as our meditation object, but we can and we

may not even know it.

As you are meditating, treat the object of

meditation with respect and love and it will

instantly be easier to connect with.

Energetic Barriers







Having low energy is a barrier to meditation

that has been a particular friend of mine over

the years. This low energy, perhaps due to

physical tiredness, energetic weakness or lackof motivation, can cause the mind to become

easily distracted from the object of meditation

to the point where it is even possible to fall

asleep (not that it has ever happened to me, of

course. Ahem!)

The point of meditation, if you understand that

the mind has two functions: doing and

knowing, it is to maintain the mind in a state of

knowing but to dull the state of doing so thatenough space opens up to truly know the

nature of the object of your meditation.

Tiredness can cause both the doing and the

knowing to become dull and lethargic. That’s

why you fall asleep.

To overcome the energy barrier of lethargy the

first thing you do with meditation is fix the

object of your meditation before you begin and

set yourself a time limit. This becomes a kind ofgoal but without the usual criteria of success

and failure.

The second thing you do is approach the object

of your meditation with the mind of the child.

To the child everything is new and exciting. My

five year old boy, Jacob, is a perfect example.

Even if he’s half falling asleep inside, he will

summon up the energy to force himself to be

alert and boisterous if there is something he

really wants to be doing.

So, before you kick off your meditation, bring

into your mind the idea that you will be

meeting the object of your meditation for the

very first time and you will learn entirely new

properties about it that you have never

experienced before. You are about to embark

on a journey of discovery! This is how you can

develop a sense of delight in exploring the

mundane and that is a sensation full of energy.

If you are prone to a little sloth, prior to

meditating a third approach is to make sure you

have that cool shower to wake you up. Use it

as a mindfulness exercise, feeling what you aredoing as vividly as you can. This primes the

mind for the upcoming meditation.

Also, quickening the pace of your breathing

during meditation can be a good way to bring

the mind into some active energy. Alternatively,

slow down the breathing and make the breath

deliberately long and slow, feeling with greater

intensity the breath as it goes in and out of your

body. This can build alertness in the mind andshake off any cobwebs.

Perhaps you might try an open-eye meditation,

or a walking meditation. Both of these are very

effective and certainly get over the problem of

falling asleep.

Finally, think about changing the time and/or

location of your meditations. It may be better to

meditate earlier, before you get tired or in aplace with better or different energy, such as in

the garden or a local park rather than in the

confines of four walls.

Good energy for meditation really does make a

difference.

Restlessness

The classic simile for the nature of mind is it

being like a monkey. It is always grabbing at

things that fascinate it; sensory objects,

stimulants, colors, shapes, running endlessly

and seemingly without a break from one things

to next like a ceaseless game of word

association played all on its own. It is

restlessness of the mind that, I would argue,

many people find most difficult to come to

terms with because they perceive this

restlessness as a failure to concentrate or tofocus. So they give up.







It is understandable, of course, especially if you

have been led to believe that meditation is

about being calm, focussed and serene. Thus, it

is somewhat of a shock for people to sit andrealize that their own mind, the thing they think

they know the best about themselves, is

actually completely out of control and filled

with accumulated junk that they didn’t even

know they owned.

What if you went about your meditation with

the intention of being grateful for what you

have, not desiring what you do not have?

Disappointment in meditation is always acreation of trying to be something that you are

not, or discovering parts of yourself that you

don’t like and don’t want to see. True

meditation is discovering who you truly are

without judgment, without disappointment,

without expectation.

So, the practice of observing whatever it is you

find when you are meditating is crucial to

overcoming the monkey mind. What you mustavoid is trying to force the mind to stop

thinking. It is like pushing against a wall of ego.

The harder you push, the harder it will push

back and you will never break down a wall just

be pushing. It will take time, but you must let

the wall rot away, which it will do if you stop

building it with more and more energy.

Simply observe the monkey mind, observe who

you are, observe its changing nature and, over

time, it will calm itself because the energy that

you have fed it over the course of you life thus

far will one day be exhausted.

And then you will be able to observe what is

left.

Doubt

The last but certainly not least of the barriers isdoubt. This can take many forms, each of which

undermine the whole intention of your

meditation. Prior to meditation, you may

wonder, “Why bother?”, or “I hope I don’t

have an unfocussed session again” whichinstantly places doubt and expectation on the

whole endeavor.

What is clear is that starting your meditation

with a doubtful mind will impact upon

everything that happens as you begin sitting.

This is why cultivating compassion for the

meditation object, compassion for the mind

that observes it and confidence in the process

of meditation is essential.

Many people may find that meditation as a

beginner is not as rewarding as they thought it

might be. Others will take to it instantly. It is

crucial that you maintain a mind that is open to

what it receives, which may be bliss, or it may

be frustration. Treating both with compassion

and acceptance avoids doubt.

A second way that doubt creeps in is during themeditation proper. If you begin with plenty of

confidence and good will, this can soon ebb

away, particularly if your ability to focus on the

object of meditation is hindered by other

barriers such as a lack of energy or a monkey

mind. It is easy for the beginner practitioner to

want to give up and scream “This isn’t doing

me any good. It’s just making more frustrated

than before I started.”

This may be true. But what you encounter

whenever your mind begins to sow seeds of

doubt, or lurches from object to object or

begins to drain energy away from the

meditation object, is not a realis t ic

interpretation of what you are experiencing. It

is merely your ego arising with the objection in

order to demand attention.

When you ego desires sensual stimulation itmay tell you: “Wouldn’t it be better if you







stopped this nonsense and went to see a movie

instead”. When it seeks to sabotage your effort

it may say: “This will never work. How can

doing nothing create something?”

There are many ways for sabotage to occur but

all the barriers to meditation are the ego

placing hindrances in your way, some of which

may seem insurmountable but, of course, they

never are.

You have spent many years in the future, and

many years in the past. Being present is a skill

which is unfamiliar to the beginner and evensome of the more experienced meditators who

are seeking something through their practice,

and therefore it seems a little tough. It is even

tougher when you don’t make that connection

between the very real benefits of meditation

and the need to expand them in your present

moment. It doesn’t seem possible when you’re

in the clutches of monkey mind during your

meditation, that simply observing the monkey

at work is a powerful way by which to diffuseits energy, but it is indeed.

The ego will always offer you attractive ways by

which to fuel its need for sensual stimulation

and activity but it cannot fuel it if you simply

watch it working away, becoming more and

more tired, more and more exhausted, more

and more used up.

There will, of course, be many, many layers toyour ego and just when you seem to have got it

licked, it comes back renewed, as if born again.

But don’t despair, don’t doubt. Faith is a crucial

tool in your practice.

Look at your masters on your shrine. They had

difficulties too. They had a monkey mind. They

had doubt. They had ill will. Their greatness

stems from overcoming them. They could do it.

And so can you.

Practice anew and take each session as a new

day, fresh through the eyes of the child and full

of boundless potential.







Part 6

Ten Basic Meditations

The following is a description of ten diverse

meditations that I have found very useful

throughout my life. It is by no means an

exhaustive list but is intended to offer you a

nice cross-section of choices when deciding

which meditation will suit you on any given

day.

As you become familiar with them I am quite

certain that you will find some that you like,

some that suit you and others that you don’t

like and are unsuited. That is quite normal.

Bear in mind that this will change as your

practice progresses. I have chopped andchanged my meditation techniques over the

years and have begun to know how, eventually,

the different techniques you learn from each

begin to integrate into a single, flexible

approach to meditation that you can allow to

adjust and evolve just as you yourself adjust

and evolve.

Remember, all meditations are best practiced

using a middle path. The mind should not betoo strict or too lax. You should be

compassionate with yourself and your abilities.

Through love and diligence you will progress

best, not austerity or apathy.

The Ten meditation contained herein are:

1. Mindfulness with Breathing

2. Candle Meditation

3. Chakra Meditation

4. Awareness of Being

5. Loving Kindness Meditation (Metta)

6. Walking Meditation

7. Awareness of Doing

8. Grounding9. Centering

10. Wellness Breathing







Meditation OneMindfulness with Breathing

It is said that the Buddha himself attained

enlightenment through this meditation.

Needless to say then, it is one of the mostpowerful, but also one of the most difficult to

master. That is not to say that the beginner

cannot use it. Indeed, it is often the foundation

of many retreats and has been for 2,500 years.

What is often not taught is that there are three

different techniques, any of which you can use

and all of which will help you to attain the

same thing: self-awareness.

The point of following your breath is simple.

With awareness you will begin to gain insight

into the true nature, individuality and

connectedness of every breath. You will begin

to notice that each breath is different and

unique and that the very nature of breathing,

and therefore of the person who breaths, is

impermanent and changing.

Impermanence is the very antithesis of ego that

holds onto things and says this is ‘me’, this is

‘mine’, as if these things existed in a permanent

state. It is liberation from these ideas that

Buddha attained through observing his

breathing. So can you.

Part 1: Following the breath

I will assume for each of these meditations that

you have gone through your meditation

preliminaries; preparing your space, getting

comfortable and conducting any rites and

rituals that you need to.

The first part of Mindfulness with Breathing is

to observe the breath as it goes into your body

and out of your body. You do this by simply

training your mind on the sensation of the

breath passing in through the nose, down into

your lungs and into the pit of your stomach,

where the energetic properties of the breath,

called prana, feed the body.

A good technique to use is to imagine that the

breath is a ball, rolling all the way down into

your stomach and possession a cool sensation

before rolling up from your lungs in the

opposite direction as a warm sensation.

Watch this process from one breath to the next,

returning your mind to the breath as and when

it diverts or attaches to a sensation or emotion.

As you observe your breathing, you will

probably find that there are gaps in your

sensitivity, places on the journey of your breathwhere it seems to disappear. Do not be

frustrated by this, but keep observing. Over

time these gaps will be filled as the subtle

nuances of sensation begin to be revealed to

you.

Also, these gaps will probably move around

from place to place. This is quite normal. Take it

as another indication of the transient and

changing nature of living and of life. This is

exactly what you are learning in real time.







Another little trick to start you off, one that you

can dispense with as you become more familiar

with the meditation process, is to begin this

breathing by counting the breath in your mind.You want to try to get to ten breaths without

losing concentration. As you breath in and out,

that’s one. In and out again, that’s two etc. If

you lose concentration, go back to one and

start again.

This technique is excellent if your mind is really

tending to wander and can help you build up a

rhythm and some confidence. You might want

to start a meditation with two or three rounds often until the mind calms down, or you can

conduct the whole meditation counting. It is up

to you.

Part 2: Observe the Breath Enter, Observe it

Leave (Being the Gatekeeper)

Once you have become familiar with the first

technique, the second is to learn how to

observe the breath like a gatekeeper. You dothis by watching it at two particular points in

your body where the process of breathing

starts and ends.

As you breath in, observe how the breath feels

as it enters your body through your nose. Bring

all of your attention to that point on the in-

breath.

Then, on the out-breath, shift your attention to

the pit of your stomach at your navel, where

you observe the breath leaving the body.

This is a variation on the first part in that you

are becoming more focussed on particular

areas on your body. It can be a little tricky at

first, as shifting the focus can seem to limit the

sensitivity you are building up, but as you

begin to master this technique, you will see

how it leads to the third part.

Part 3: Observation of the Breath at the Nose

The final part of this technique is to fix your

attention at the point on your nose where the

sensation of breathing is strongest. This may be

your nostrils, inside your nose, or even your toplip. As you begin breathing, note where the

sensation is most vivid and use that point as

your meditation object. Follow the breath in

and out at that point only, observing the

changing sensations from each moment to the

next and each breath to the next.

You can use these three meditations

individually or together, progressing from one

to the next as you master each stage orchoosing which is best for you and sticking

with it for some time. It is really your choice.

An Additional Technique

Once you have become familiar with the three

techniques and feel comfortable with each,

there is a great warm up technique you can use

for Mindfulness with Breathing that quickly sets

up your mind to observe the process ofbreathing with more care and attention.

This technique is to practice watching the short

breath and the long breath.

It will not have passed your notice that different

depths and lengths of breathing affects the way

the body, mind and emotions feel. For example,

short breathing might be connected to anger or

frustration, while longer, smoother breathing

might be connected with relaxation and peace.

In this breathing technique you deliberately

manipulate your breathing first to shorten and

quicken and then to relax and calm it

lengthening the inhalation and exhalation

breath to five or six seconds.

Each round of breathing (short or long) will last

about a minute or two. You must take care that

the short breath is not too fast in order to avoid

hyper ventilation. If you ever feel dizzy or sick,







Meditation Two

Candle Meditation

The Candle Meditation is a simple open-eye

meditation. All you do is light a tea candle and

place it on the floor in front of you at a point

where your eyes would be angled roughly 45

degrees down to the floor. You then adopt asitting meditation position and close your eyes

before slightly opening them to reveal the

burning candle on the floor. This candle then

becomes your object of meditation.

This can be quite effective for the wandering

mind as, in the flame, the mind is observing a

phenomena that is obviously always changing.

This can keep it more occupied that, say,

breathing, which at first can be very subtle oreven fairly numb.

Eventually, as you focus your attention on the

flame, everything around it fades and you begin

to achieve a single-pointedness, However,

don’t go seeking this outcome. It will happen

naturally as you surrender to the process.

Simply watch your mind, observe your body,

observe the flame and let what will be, be.

A variation on this is to use anything on the

floor to focus upon. I have often focussed on a

crack in the floor, a piece of carpet or a speck

of dirt as a meditation object. It became apopular technique of mine, demonstrating how

meditation objects can be anything that is

available. It needn’t be anything special at all.

As long as you maintain the technique of

observing yourself as you observe the object,

the result will be the same: single-pointed focus

and awareness of the ever-changing nature of

reality.







Meditation Three

Chakra Meditation

Chakra meditation is a classic visualization

technique used to clean your energy field and

empower your energy body. It is great for

developing bodily awareness, your personal

visualization ability and to realize the power of

your aura and its effect in your life.

In your body you have 7 major energy centers

called chakras. These centers respond to your

emotional, physical and energetic conditions as

well as influence them. Each has a

corresponding color that, when visualized in

the physical bodily location of that chakra,

helps to open up the energy and nourish it.

Each chakra has energetic, physical and mentalproperties connected to it. So, if you can learn

how to stimulate the energy in each area and

attain a harmony in all seven, this is a major

contributing factor to good health, quality of

life, contentment, emotional stability, even the

opening of opportunities, love or income!

The Chakras are all located along the spine

(kind of!) with the first and the seventh having a

single location at the tailbone of the spine andthe crown of the head.

The other five each have locations both

emanating from the front and back of the body.

Imagine that they are spinning cones of light

that feed the aura surrounding your body.When these energies spin in a healthy way, you

too will be healthy. But, if your energy becomes

depleted in one or other area, this can cause

complications in how you feel and behave.

Technique

Begin your meditation by bringing your

attention to your breathing and conducting

three rounds of breathing mindfully asdescribed in the Mindfulness with Breathing

Meditation.

Next bring your attention to your root chakra.

This is represented by the color red. It is

located at the base of your spine - the coccyx

or tail bone. The root chakra is your

groundedness and is responsive to your sense

of family & group safety/security, ability to

provide for life’s necessities and to stand up foryourself.

With every in-breath imagine a ball of glowing

red energy to be growing at the base of your

spine. With every out-breath, imagine that ball

becoming compacted into a tighter and more

powerful ball. Spend about 2-3 minutes

expanding the energy in that area.

Cycle through the other 6 chakras like this:

2. Sacral Chakra:

Color: Orange

Location: One inch below your navel

Responsive to your sense of blame & guilt,

money & sex, power & control, creativity, and

ethics and honor in relationships







3.Emotion Chakra:

Color: Yellow

Location: Solar plexus just under the sternum

Responsive to your sense of trust, fear &

intimidation, self-esteem, self-confidence, self-

respect, care of oneself and others,responsibility for making decisions, sensitivity to

criticism and personal honor

4.Heart Chakra:

Color: Green

Location: Center of your breast plate

Responsive to your sense of love & hatred,

resentment & bitterness, grief & anger, self-

centeredness, loneliness & commitment,

forgiveness & compassion and hope.

5.Throat Chakra:Color: Blue

Location: Your thorax

Responsive to your sense of choice & strength

of will, personal expression, following one’s

dream, using personal power to create,

addiction, judgment & criticism, faith &

knowledge, capacity to make decisions

6.Third Eye Chakra:

Color: Purple

Location: Between your eyes

Responsive to self-evaluation, truth, intellectual

abilities, feeling of adequacy, openness to the

ideas of others, ability to learn from experience

and emotional intelligence

7.Crown Chakra

Color: Golden white

Location: Crown of the Head

Responsive to your ability to trust life, values,

ethics and courage, humanitarianism,

selflessness, ability to see the larger pattern,

faith & inspiration, spirituality and devotion

Meditate on each of these chakras or, if you feel

particularly drained in one or two areas, focus

on them and invigorate by using the same

technique







Meditation Four

Awareness of Being

Awareness of being is simple, easy to practice

and applicable virtually anywhere. All you do

is cycle your attention through each area of

your body, and, as you do so, expand your

awareness to include all your senses

simultaneously. It is like putting together a jigsaw puzzle of sensitivity.

Technique

Start by concentrating on your toes. How do

they feel? Can you feel anything? Concentrate

on them, patiently, with intention, until you

can. Spend a minute just feeling what is there.

Next, move your attention to the soles of your

feet. Can you feel the blood pumping through

your feet, or your socks cutting into your

ankles? Are there areas of your feet with more

or less sensitivity? Do the sensations change or

remain constant?

After a minute, move gradually through your

body up to your calves, then your shins, and

slowly work your way through your body parts,

becoming more and more aware of wheretension exists, pain, coldness, hotness etc.

If you feel tension, pain, heat, cold, it doesn’t

matter , just examine it. There is no need to

push away any sensations, judge what you are

feeling or become despondent if you feelnothing - just move on to the next body part.

Move to your torso and cycle through your

organs. You may imagine that organs don’t have

much feeling, but you will be surprised. They

are all living tissue and you can feel them at all

times, not just when they are hurting. Build up

a picture of your body all the way up to your

neck and down to the tips of your finger tips.

Next, when you move onto your head and

neck, follow the same pattern of expanding

awareness of every sensation, but this time

include the taste in your mouth, the smell in

your nose, the colors behind your eyes and, last

but not least, the sounds coming in through

your ears.

Reach out your ability to sense as far as it will

go beyond the room and across the street,including, never excluding and never judging,

every sound, color, smell, taste and sensation

flooding into your body.

When you have a complete sensual picture

from the soles of your feet to the crown of your

head, you will have enlivened and become

more aware of who you really are. This

awareness brings with it a sense of peace in the

present moment where there is nothing toworry about or fret over.

This meditation is great for a twenty minute

session, or, you can also learn how to practice

it in just 60 seconds! If you practice three of

four times a day like this, you will soon be able

to ‘remember’ the peace and awareness the

process develops and be able to recall the

feeling instantly whenever you feel ungrounded

or upset.







Meditation Five

Loving Kindness Meditation (Metta)

Loving kindness is known as “Metta” in Sanskrit

It is the act of growing compassion in one’s life.

Nobody deserves your anger or hatred,

certainly not your poor heart that, each time

you hold onto your hatred or bitterness, stores

up the resulting energy, which will eventuallyaffect its health. Why do you think heart

disease is one of the leading killers in the

western world? No, it’s not just fast food. It’s

slow love. And love in your life surely starts

with you.

What if you could feel compassion for

everyone you meet, no matter who they are?

Wouldn’t that make your world a little freer of

anger, jealousy, frustration and resentment?

Of course it would, and it is only because we

have become so accomplished at holding onto

our judgments about other people that this

seems so idealistic.

In fact, we can learn to love even our greatest

enemies, if we learn how. All it takes is a little

bit of effort and the belief that we can do it.

In loving kindness we consciously generate

love from within for three different people.

Sometimes you might to choose three people

before you begin, especially if you have someforgiveness to practice on particular people.

However, you can also practice this meditation

and see who comes up as you go through it.

You might be surprised.

Techniqueue

• Start by getting comfortable, perhaps

practicing 5 minutes of Mindfulness

with Breathing or Being in order to getyourself in the right zone.

• Now, begin breathing green light into

your heart as you have practiced in the

Chakra Meditation. Visualize with every

in-breath, green light filling up your

chest. Perhaps visualize a green rose in

the middle of heart, opening up each

time you inhale.

• Once you feel relaxed and full of green

light, bring into your heart the image of

a person who you love very much.

Visualize them standing opposite you in

your heart space and hug them with as

much love as you can generate. Feel

also their love flowing back at you. This

is an important step and reminds you

that you too are also worthy of love and

appreciation by others. Spend about 5minute on this step.

• Next, bring into your heart the face of a

person who you are emotionally neutral

about. This may be a co-worker,

someone you saw on the bus this

morning, or a relative who you hardly

know. It doesn't matter. Bring that

person into your heart alongside the first

person and hold hands in a triangle.Generate the same degree of love for







the second person as you did for the

first, looking back at the first if you need

to be reminded how unconditional love

feels. Spend another five minutes onthis part.

• Finally, bring into your mind a person

for whom you hold onto a painful

emotional reaction. This reaction is just

a learned and repeated response, based

upon judgment and memory. Whatever

you think that person deserves, you

don’t deserve to feel pain for them

anymore. So, bring that person intoyour heart alongside the first two people

and yourself and practice generating

some love for them. This may be

difficult at first, but so is riding a bike.

Each time you fall off, brush yourself

down, and get back on.

This meditation is cumulative in effect. You

don’t just top yourself up with love and go out

and be Jesus for the rest of your life. It takescontinuous effort and practice.

After a while, you may just begin meeting

people with an open mind and, more

importantly for you, an open heart.







Meditation Six

Walking Meditation

Walking meditation is great for those of us who

have a tendency towards sloth and torpor. It is

far more difficult to fall asleep when walking!

The beauty of it is that it can be done anywhere

and at any time. If you couple this withAwareness of Doing, together they can be a

very complete awareness regime that stretches

across your whole day.

Technique

At first, walking meditation should be

conducted very slowly. It should be an almost

mechanical, scientific study of the process, as if

you were studying a movie frame by frame.

It is best done without shoes and, if possible,

outside, but this is by no means essential. It is

great to practice walking meditation on the

beach or on grass, as the sensations can be

more heightened than on a plain floor or inside

your house.

When you start this meditation, begin with a

four point process of deliberate feeling:

1. Lift the foot,

2. Place the heal

3. Place the foot

4. Bend the toes before lift

Take each part of the process in turn, focussing

all of your awareness step by step. Your

intention is to feel every minute detail of

walking using your feet as the meditation

object.

At first, be very deliberate and conscious of the

four parts to the process but as you get used to

the meditation it can begin to flow flowing and

you will see that each part of the practiceactually flows into the next in one fluid

movement.

This then becomes very practical in your life

and you can meditate walking wherever you

are. This reminds us that meditation is intended

to become an integrated part of your extended

life, not just a thirty minute daily practice.

As with all meditations, walking and the

sensation of walking is merely the object by

which you grow awareness of change and

movement. As Mindfulness of Doing suggests

in the next practice, Walking Meditation is a

great way to bring awareness into your

everyday movement and personal expression.







Meditation Seven

Awareness of Doing

There is a great line in the 2010 Karate Kid

movie where the master (Jackie Chan) has been

training his student by instructing him to take

off his jacket, hang it up, put in on the floor and

pick it back up again.

After many days of this without explanation,

the student is very frustrated and finally refuses

to do it anymore. The master begins to fight the

student and the student, by following the

instruction of the master to ‘Hang up the coat’ ,

‘Put it on’ , ‘Take it off’ and various other

instructions, has learned many of the

movements of Kung Fu and can defend himself

against his master most effectively.

When asked how he had learned this by

picking up and wearing his coat the master

explains, “There is Kung Fu in everything.”

This line stuck with me and profoundly

epitomized the connection between our action

in life and the observation of the consciousness

that conducts it.

So, just as with Kung Fu, there is meditation ineverything. With everything that we do in life

there is the potential to be mindful while we

are doing it. Both the Martial Arts and

meditation both serve to realize the same

insights into the nature of energy, movementconsciousness and the intimate connection

between them.

However, few of us find this learning in the

mundane, preferring to seek more glamorous

pursuits that stoke our desires and pander to

the modern craze of multi-tasking, which is

basically non-awareness turned into a

professional art-form!

I remember well sitting in the departure lounge

of Singapore’s Changi airport and seeing a

window cleaner performing his task with such

skill, awareness and dedication, I could tell that

he had found compassion in his object of

meditation and mastery in its application.

On the other hand, how many people have we

all encountered who find only boredom in their

tasks when a world of insight, compassion,learning and wisdom exists in all that we do if

we care to look and use it as such? Sadly, these

are minds that seek sensations, not insight. The

mind that seeks insight finds awareness and

compassion in everything.

So, the next time you are brushing your teeth,

brush your teeth. The next time you are eating,

eat. The next time you are cleaning dishes,

clean dishes.

Start extending your meditative practice into

your day; application. Your thirty minutes in the

morning is designed to be practice for 23.5

hours of application afterwards.

Find the essential nature of each action by

performing it with awareness and you will find

pleasure in everything that you do, not just

temporary p leasure through sensualstimulation.







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Grounding

So many people these days have learned that

they need to solve all their problems using their

heads. We gather so much information and

knowledge that we become very confident that

the mind has all the answers. This places lots of

energy in the head region.

Coupled with the tendency for modern people

to bury their emotions and lose connection

with their family, the energetic comparison is

like having a building with all its weight at the

top. The likely outcome is a collapse. This is

what is called being ungrounded. .

If you store a lot of energy in your head and

little in your foundation, strong emotionalevents will un-ground you. You will tend to try

and ‘work out’ emotions rather than feeling and

letting them go.

Grounding is designed to deal with emotions

by channelling the energy into the ground

while building a stronger connection to the

reality of life on Earth and a better balance

between mind, body and energy.

Technique

Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart, eyes

open, knees slightly bent (not locked) and relax

your body.

Imagine that you are a tree and roots are

growing from your feet into the ground. With

each in-breath the roots grow deeper, beyond

the floor, into the soil, into the rock, into the

very core of the earth that created your body

and feeds and nourishes you every day.

Imagine that each breath, draws energy up

through the soles of your feet, all the way up

your legs and into your Sacral Chakra, one inchbelow your navel.

Maintain this breathing and visualization for a

minute or two. Keep visualizing your roots

growing deeper and wider. Feel solid but

natural, empowered but in control. In a few

short moments of grounding you should feel

your body calming down, your mind balancing

and your emotions subsiding.

As you practice this frequently it will be easier

to bring yourself back to this state creating

instant relief and empowerment. As this

exercise can be easily practiced sitting down at

work, on the bus, in the car or anywhere really,

it is a great exercise to fall back on several

times during the day.

Whenever you feel a strong emotional response

to a situation, simply start breathing in through

your feet, come back to the breath, watch the

way your breathing changes as you become

emotionally excited. Soon, by grounding and

breathing with awareness rather than thinking

about the emotion, letting your head get

involved and justifying or rationalizing it, you

will regain your composure and the emotion

will have passed through you rather than

holding onto it as if it was a part of you.







This is how you learn to transform a learned

reaction, which is automated and insensitive,

into a powerful learning observation, which

occurs with awareness and sensitivity.







Meditation Nine

Centering

You are an energy being and working with

energy is what you do. Unfortunately, most of

us believe we are primarily physical beings and

work virtually exclusively on developing ourphysical energy. Sadly, this eventually weakens

our energy body, which places our physical

body at risk of illness however powerful it may

seem to be.

While the Grounding Meditation creates a solid

foundation and connection to the earth, the

centering meditation helps create power.

Rather than meditating on the earth, this time

we begin to open up the crown chakra thatconnects us with our higher self, and begin to

draw energy into our system through universal

energy.

However, please remember that this exercise

should always be conducted after the

grounding exercise, as working only with the

crown chakra can result in headaches, light-

headedness and out of body experiences in

people susceptible to such things.

The crown chakra is our connection to our

higher self, so playing with this energy center

without working with the others can create

imbalances. Alternatively, you may like to usethe chakra balancing exercise as a precursor,

for the same reason.

The point of this exercise is not to revel in what

we can do as energy being, but to create

practical ways in which we can create power.

Technique

To begin this exercise you focus your attention

on the crown of your head and imagine that

there is a cord connecting you to your higher

self. Visualize it pulling up upwards,

straightening your spine, creating an uplifting

sensation.

Now visualize that your crown chakra is

opening up like the aperture of a camera. Feel

it widening on your head and a bright golden-

white light beginning to pour along the cord

and into your head.

Visualize that energy traveling slowly down

your back, feeling it every inch that it travels.

Observe it all the way down to the base of your

spine, traveling between your legs and up into

your belly where it becomes a colored light of

your choosing. Don’t think too much about the

color. Just let it become the first color that you

can visualize. It will be the right one.

Finally, with the in-breath feel the energy flow

into the ball of light in your sacral chakra and

with the out breath feel that energy condensing

into a greater and greater power.

Once more, this meditation is flexible enough

to be very mobile and can be conducted

anywhere and included as part of the

awareness of being meditation, including allyour senses. I used to love doing this







meditation riding my motorbike around the

countryside of Phuket, breathing in the

awesome power of nature!







Meditation Ten

Wellness Breathing

This final meditation is one that I frequently use

with clients who sees me for a reiki session. It is

a powerful visualization that I learned from one

of my masters and helps with cleansing and

purifying our physical, energetic and mental

bodies.

Many meditation beginners will wonder why

simply visualizing color or feeling is a practical

way to create any meaningful change in life but

you must remember that we are visualizing all

kinds of suffering in our lives at all times and

suffering is exactly what we create.

Why shouldn’t we be able to visualize

wellbeing, contentment or happiness? T is nodifferent than a sports person visualizing their

victory, a technique that has attained proven

results in sports psychology.

Most of us don’t try or don’t bother simply

because we believe, perhaps subconsciously,

that life is a physical issue that has to be

worked out and solved and that simply creating

feelings can’t make a difference. This is wrong.

It can make a difference and, when we practiceit often enough, it does make a difference.

The rule that you should live by if you are

serious about creating change though

meditation is “You will see it when you believe

it” not “You will believe it when you see it”,which is the motto of most western-minded

people. This not only helps you to overcome

one of the five hindrances to meditation but

empowers you to live life in faith that our

power is just as important as our plan.

Technique

Wellness breathing is very simple. Firstly you

visualize that the room you are in is filled witha beautiful healing light that is there just for

you. You can make this light any color that you

feel you need. It can change color. It can be

multicolored. It is entirely up to what you feel

you need.

Next, visualize that you are breathing in this

light through every pore of your skin. See it

going into your skeletal system, illuminating

your bones and joints. See it going into yourorgans, your heart, lungs, liver, kidneys, paying

particular attention to any area where you have

physical issues you would like to resolve. See it

also going into your mind and relaxing you.

See it as if through a microscope going into

your cells and your DNA, until your entire

body is glowing with light that is healing a

refreshing.

The next step is to continue breathing in thisbright, white light but changing the out breath

to visualize smoke being released from your

body. The smoke represents anything that you

wish to be free from. It may be emotional pain,

physical sickness, a problem in life, issues at

work, past trauma, anything at all that you feel

the need to release.

Continue with breathing in light and breathing

out smoke, either as part of a meditation or asthe entire session.







Part 7

Final Notes

Meditation is not a hobby or a past time. It is

no less a part of a well life than eating and

sleeping. We have just forgotten how our

ancestors used to practice such skills daily and

replaced our faith in these techniques withmedicine and repairing our body when it goes

wrong.

Many people will do well with meditation if

they persevere, but I have found many practices

become intermittent if people do not

reorganize their lives, at least a little bit, to

create the right environment for different habits

and states of personal expression to become

more likely.

What this means is, if you are an alcoholic and

you want to stop drinking, you have to stop

going to the pub every night, right?

Likewise, if you are serious about getting to

know the true self hidden under all those layers

of ego, you may have to change some of the

environments that you frequent, people that

you hang out with and stuff that you listen andwatch that has created you current reality. It is

not rocket science. If you want to create light,

you have to burn some things away. You cannot

change without changing something.

One of the best ways to keep your meditation

going is to surround yourself with people who

meditate. This may not be instantly possible if

you are generally surrounded in life by people

who believe that meditation is a pointless waste

of time.

Many people will live in difficult environments

where finding ways to divest themselves of the

causes of their suffering is complicated. But, Iguarantee you, doing the same things in the

same way will not get you better results than

those you are currently attaining. There is

always a better way, if you are prepared to put

in the effort.

A better way of ensuring success is to create a

community Share Circle. There is a guide to

building one of these on my website. It is an

entirely free and no-strings-attached offeringfrom myself to the creation of community-

based wellbeing groups that meet on occasion

to share their practices, insights and feedback

and by doing so, support each other's

spirituality.

There is no reason why there cannot be one of

these on every street in the world. Practicing

awareness of some sort should be no less

essential than brushing your teeth or taking ashower. It is really that important that we raise

ourselves out of the global and personal morass

by, at the very least, being aware of what it is

that created it.

I see the institution of meditation in people’s

lives as, one day, becoming no more strange

than education or exercise. As awareness of

these practices grow and more and more

people realize that they are missing some vitalingredient to contribute towards a longer term







happiness, some will discover that what they

are missing is appreciation of who they really

are and what they mean. There can be little

genuine happiness without this realization.

I hope this guide has been useful to you. If you

have any further questions or follow up, feel

free to contact me through my website.

Wellness wishes,

Michael Paul Stephens

November, 2013


a practical guide to meditation that really works

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