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MP3 Guided Meditations from Wildmind

We offer a large range of guided meditations in both MP3 and CD format on our online store.
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Sitting With Bodhi

Nourish your meditation practice as you join Bodhipaksa for 42 days of meditations designed to bring deep calmness. Every day you'll be sent a link to a new guided meditation, especially recorded for this event. Yes, every day! Each meditation provides a 10-minute lead-in to a particular way of approaching our experience. First, set a timer for as long as you want to sit — for example 20 or 30 minutes. Second, start the meditation. Third, after the guidance has ended, continue to practice until the end of your chosen time period.
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How to Stop Beating Yourself Up (Aug 12)

A Self-Paced Course In Self-Compassion

We all long for someone who will love us unconditionally. But what if that person is us? Self-compassion is the radically healing practice of treating ourselves with the kindness, respect, and gentleness that we would ideally offer to those we love. On this self-paced course, Bodhipaksa will introduce a step-by-step guide to self-compassion, so that we can learn to be more gentle with and understanding of ourselves.
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A Love as Deep as Life Itself (Jul 20)

The highest form of love in the Buddhist tradition is called upekkha — a word that literally means "intimately seeing" reality and the true nature of other beings. Upekkha is often translated as equanimity, or balance, but this does not even begin to capture the reverential, cherishing and other-regarding nature of this spiritual quality. Upekkha recognizes that if we truly want beings to be happy we should rejoice in and encourage the cultivation of insight in ourselves and others. It means seeing that all beings, ourselves included, are on the path to awakening — to Buddhahood.
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Recent Posts

A “feeling crap” meditation

By Bodhipaksa

I’m sure that sometimes you feel crap. The other week I was feeling particularly crappy. I have an idea what was causing me to feel that way, but that’s not particularly important. The thing is that I was feeling crap, by which I mean…

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Deceptive Facebook pages and weaponized mindfulness

By Bodhipaksa

As we should all know by now, Russian intelligence services have been attempting to manipulate opinion in Western democracies. The simplistic version of the story, as it applies to the US, is that, as Vladimir Putin publicly stated, the Kremlin wanted Donald Trump to…

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Tune your brain for happiness and effectiveness

By Bodhipaksa

A huge amount of research over the last few years has given us a better idea of what happens in the brain when we meditate, and how meditation brings us long term benefits. Meditation, for example: Helps to slow down aging of the brain…

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Five ways to forgive yourself and let go of painful regret

By Bodhipaksa

I’ve seen many people suffering because they can’t forgive themselves. Maybe they hurt someone in the past, or allowed someone to get hurt, or missed an opportunity, or made a bad choice. And they torture themselves about it. Sometimes people hold onto these regrets—and…

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“I Can’t Believe It’s Not Buddha” now available for pre-order

By Bodhipaksa

At last! Here’s the cover of my forthcoming book, which comes out on Nov 6. It’ll make a perfect gift for any pedantic Buddhists in your life, and will turn friends who are fond of fake quotes into mortal enemies! Link in my profile!…

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Four steps to self-empathy and self-kindness

By Bodhipaksa

One thing that’s changed my life more than any other is the practice of self-empathy. Simply hearing the term for the first time was a revelation for me, since I immediately recognized that I wasn’t in fact empathetic toward myself. It had never even…

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About Buddhist meditation

buddha statueIn a way there's nothing very "Buddhist" about the meditation you'll find on Wildmind. When you pay attention to your breath, or to the sensations in your body as you walk, or when you cultivate feelings of love for another person, you won't have a sense that you're doing anything very "religious." In a way these are simply "human" meditation practices -- ways that a human being can pay attention to his or her own experience, and gently cultivate greater awareness and love.

The simplest form of meditation we teach here is mindfulness of breathing. The essence of this practice is that we simply bring our attention to the sensations of the breathing, and when the mind wanders, as it will, we gently steer it back to the breath once again. However in the form we teach here, there are four stages, each of which has a specific purpose in helping us to develop calmness, energy, continuity of awareness, or one-pointedness.

The other main form of meditation that we teach is the cultivation of lovingkindness, in which we take responsibility for our emotions, and encourage the development of qualities of empathy, patience, kindness, and compassion.

We also teach you how to set up your meditation posture (an essential consideration in any form of meditation practice), as well as walking meditation.

And outside of these structured guides to meditation, we have a blog with a vast collection of news stories about meditation, articles on practice, and reviews of books, CDS, and videos.

Portrait of beautiful young woman doing yoga exercise - Meditating

Sit : Love : Give

Wildmind is ad-free, and we like it that way. We hope you do too. If you'd like to help support what we do, please consider giving a regular monthly donation to our Sit : Love : Give program. We teach meditation, so that you can sit mindfully and bring greater compassion and love into your life. And we hope that you express those emerging qualities in action in your life, including by giving back. You can give as little as $3 a month.

About the meditation practices you can learn on this site

Our Posture Workshop

Our posture workshop is where we suggest you start if you don't already have a meditation practice (and perhaps even if you do). We'll take you step-by-step through the process of setting up a meditation posture that will allow you to be both alert and relaxed.
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The mindfulness of breathing

The mindfulness of breathing is a fundamental meditation practice that everyone should know. The benefits? You'll find that this practice helps you to calm your mind so that there's less inner chatter (especially the stuff that makes you unhappy). You'll find also that you're less distractible and better able to pay attention.
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The development of lovingkindness

The development of lovingkindness (metta bhavana) works directly on our emotional habits, helping us to become more emotionally positive. You'll learn to be kinder to yourself: more patient, more understanding. You'll find that you're more considerate to others and that it's easier to forgive. You may even find (as others have) that others around you mysteriously become easier to be around. Hmmm.. wonder why that is?
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Walking meditation

Walking meditation is a great way to bring more meditation into your daily life; it's a practice that can be done even in a busy city street. In this form of practice we develop greater mindfulness of the body, but we also become more aware of our thought patterns, our emotions, and even of the outside world. It's a calming practice. Walking meditation can also be a lovingkindness practice, especially when you're walking in a public place.
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Mantra meditation

Our mantra meditation section is the most popular destination for our visitors. Mantras are simply phrases that we repeat (usually internally, but they can also be chanted out loud). As well as occupying the mind and thus calming it by preventing it from getting up to the usual mischief that causes us pain, mantras also have a symbolic value that evokes spiritual qualities.
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The six element practice

The six element practice is a profound reflection on interconnectedness and impermanence. It's a very beautiful form of meditation. It not only helps us to calm the mind and give us a reassuring sense of our place in the great scheme of things, but it can be unsettling and challenging as well. Yes, I know. Reassuring and unsettling. That's Buddhist practice for you!
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