21 Day Meditation

This 21 day meditation is a good challenge to give yourself. It is accessible and no experience is needed. We start right at the beginning and develop it gradually. Ever thought about meditating? Now is the time. Be kind to yourself and meditate for ten minutes a day.

Meditation can help you concentrate, be present, calm your mind and sleep better.

We start where we are, right at the beginning: becoming aware of thoughts and trying to follow the breath. This is meditation, waking up to the present moment.

Ten minutes, guided by Guy Powiecki. No experience needed.

The process has already begun, and you are learning to concentrate better, getting used to time in silence and discovering yourself. The relationship with your breath begins.

Follow the breath.

Our meditation object in this class is sound. Sound brings an open and expansive attention to our meditation, and we start to learn how to work with it.

Simple. Listen to the universe.

We continue our work with sound, exploring what sound is and what happens when we hear. We start with a small area of concentration and gradually widen it more and more.

So, what is hearing?

Put simply, meditation is learning to pay attention to sense experience in the present moment. We have introduced two ways of doing this: sound, and the sensation of the breath.

This class develops the work with the breath.

Where do we feel the breath? What happens when we breathe? How does the breath shape us? We explore all of this, and we don't have to go anywhere. It is all happening inside us.

Be curious, investigate.

This class blends the best of working with sound as the meditation object and following the breath. We learn how to be both expansive and concentrated with our focus.

Find infinite space inside your own head.

So much of meditation is noticing distraction: noticing we are lost in thought and coming back to the object of meditation again and again. This is how we grow our mindfulness.

Notice distraction. Simple?

Watching the breath is a bit like watching a wild animal. We want to do it softly, from a distance, so it doesn't know we are there and doesn't change its behaviour.

Softly, softly, follow the animal.

Body awareness is a big part of meditation, and it is the focus of this class. We practise a body scan, exploring and investigating sensation in our own bodies.

Discover your own body.

More work with body awareness and body scanning, learning to identify and let go of tension in our bodies. Understand the universe by understanding your own body. These are some of the benefits of meditation.

Go deep, go wide.

Something different today. We try lying down meditation. Traditionally there are four meditation postures that represent the movements of life: sitting, standing, lying and walking.

Explore your body and breath in a different position. And don't fall asleep.

Back to the seat and back to the breath, with longer time in silence. Learning to meditate is a bit like learning to play a musical instrument: difficult at the start and it takes practice, but it makes sweet music in the end.

Find your instrument.

In this class we try standing meditation. Standing up brings a very different quality to the meditation and to your level of attention. The focus moves to the feet rather than the breath.

Stand to attention.

The time in silence is growing now. Your concentration has grown a lot, even if you are not aware of it. Being able to notice your thoughts shows that your awareness and concentration are improving.

Keep going.

Meditation is a bit like being a baby and experiencing things as a baby does: simple sense experience from before we had words, before our mind had labels to stick on everything. Pure, raw experience.

Go back to basics.

We practise the last of the four meditation postures, walking meditation. We move slowly and feel the sensations around the feet as you lift the foot, move it through the air and put it down.

Walking, nothing more.

The periods of silence are growing, and you are getting used to following the breath at the navel. We are back to seated meditation, growing with it all the time.

Enjoy the silence.

Another form of meditation is contemplation practice. You call up a positive state of mind by imagining someone, or a pet, who makes you feel good. It can also be a place or a remembered experience. When the feeling is there, we rest in it.

Practise positive mental states.

We have tried many meditation techniques now. For the last two classes, we stay focused on the breath at the navel, learning to concentrate on something that seems boring at first but becomes interesting with time.

Nearly there.

Congratulations. Well done for completing the challenge. Enjoy your last meditation session.

There is a short talk at the end on how to keep going. Hopefully you have felt some of the benefits and formed a good habit, something you can keep growing for the rest of your life.