Simple Breathing Meditation To Relax Your Body And Calm Your Mind
meditation actually refers to a state where your body and mind are consciously relaxed and focused. To reach this blissful state, all you need to do is just be present and allow all the thoughts and feelings to be there without identifying with them in any ways. Here is a simple guided breathing meditation that you can try to calm your mind in a hectic situation:
1. First of all, close your eyes, keep your body erect and sit on any comfortable position. Start to follow your breath naturally. "Breathing in, I know that I'm breathing in. Breathing out, I know that I'm breathing out." You just need to know and understand the general characteristic of breath, either long or short, fine or coarse, etc. You don't need to overfocus or overconcentrate on the breath as exclusion of everything else, nor to focus on nostril tip, upper lip, or abdomen. Just let the breath flows naturally and relax.
2. If a thought or feeling appears, just let it go. "Let it go" means just let it be there without interrupting it in any way. Allow it to come and do whatever it wants, but you don't need to pay attention to it. It's just a thought after all. You don't need to squeeze or suppress your mind in any way. Just let it be there by itself.
3. Next, just relax the tightness and tension in your mind and body. This tension is the form of craving that manifests in both your mind and body. We can see this tightness and tension clearly just after the mind starts to wobble around. This is how the "I like it or I don't like it" mind arises and creates huge amount of suffering in our life due to our attachment and craving to these fleeting phenomenas. Therefore, we just need to relax and let go all the tightness and tension and feel our mind opened and expanded in space of infinite emptiness.
4. After that, you can notice the tight mental fist wrapped around the sensation (feeling) and just let it be there, let it float like the bubble in the air. You don't need to verbalize it or make it more than what it is. It's just a feeling anyway. Let it be there by itself and just be aware of it without any resistance. Sonn you will find all the pain and unpleasant feeling in your body and will dissolve by itself without you doing anything.
5. Finally, re-establish your mindfulness and allow the breath to become predominant again. After that SMILE!!! DON'T FORGET TO SMILE. Smile can relax all the tension in your facial muscles and make your face more calm and serene. Just look at the Buddha statue. Every Buddha Statue is smiling, isn't it?
Take nothing seriously. Just let go, relax, and breathe...
You can also laugh when you see how crazy your mind is. Don't try to control the feelings with thoughts, because it doesn't work and it hurts. The source of suffering is trying to change and verbalize the feelings with thoughts. Feeling is just a feeling, thought is just a thought. If you can, try to examine passively these links of dependent origination: after contact arises, feeling arises (Pleasant, unpleasant or neutral), after feeling arises, craving arises (I like it or I don't like it /tension in body and mind), shortly after craving arises, clinging arises (the thoughts about why it's there and how to change it). If you understand this, you can let go more easily and joyfully.
Felix Makmur has been practicing meditation for over 5 years and he is the owner of the website Secret Meditation Techniques Revealed, where he provides tons of FREE meditation resources, including guided meditations, audio programs, free CDs, free Ebooks and more.
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