Wildmind: A Community-Supported Meditation Initiative

In order to provide financial stability and to create community, Wildmind is in the process of transforming into a Community-Supported Meditation Initiative. In sponsoring Community Shares you'll be helping to support and expand this online resource. You'll also be getting:
  • A monthly newsletter that's just for sponsors, containing an exclusive article and a meditation download.
  • An online sponsors' forum where you can share your practice and get feedback, support, and encouragement.
  • Free access to new meditation courses that Bodhipaksa develops.
You'll also have the satisfaction of knowing that you're making 30 of our existing meditation courses available free of charge to the public. (You'll have access too, of course.)
Click here to learn more about this initiative

Check Out Wildmind's Online Courses

Stress Reduction Through Mindfulness (Enroll until May 4)

Research shows that we spend, on average, 48% of our time in distracted states of mind—caught up in thoughts that are unrelated to what we’re doing. Thinking is compulsive! The same research shows that these distracted thoughts are detrimental to our happiness. Compulsive thinking makes us unhappy! In extreme cases, our compulsive thoughts create out-of-control states of depression or stress.
Click here to enroll

Sitting With Bodhi: Mindfulness of the Body (Starts Apr 18)

Nourish your meditation practice as you join Bodhipaksa for a series of 28 guided meditations designed to help us find calm and centeredness through being mindful of the body. At a pace you determine, you'll be sent a link to a new guided meditation, especially recorded for this event. 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 15 or 20 minutes (or longer if you want). Second, start the meditation. Third, after the guidance has ended, continue to practice until the end of your chosen time period.
Click here to enroll

Living With Kindness (Starts Mar 25)

(Enrollment Open Until April 21) Living With Kindness: Tapping Into the Power and Wisdom of the Heart In this 28-session self-paced online course we’ll be exploring in depth the quality of metta — often referred to as “lovingkindness.” Kindness is a quality we can increase through training. We can become kinder and more accepting of ourselves. We can deepen our appreciation of and care for our friends. We can become kinder and more patient with relative strangers. And we can reduce the tensions between us and those who we find challenging.
Click here to enroll

Sit Breathe Love (Starts Apr 25)

28 Days to Establishing a Rock-Solid Daily Meditation Practice Sit Breathe Love is a 28 day meditation challenge helping you to set up the habit of meditating daily. The benefits of regular meditation have been demonstrated again and again in multiple studies. Meditating makes you happier, is good for your health, protects your brain from aging, boosts your intelligence, and helps reduce pain, stress, and depression. But it’s not easy to set up a regular meditation practice, so we’re here to help you!
Click here to enroll

Recent Posts

A new direction for Wildmind

By Bodhipaksa

Today I invite you to help transform Wildmind into a Community-Supported Meditation Initiative. This is urgently needed, because the way we’ve been doing things is no longer viable, to the point where a few days ago, I seriously believed I would have to give up…

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From fear and denial to love and acceptance

By Bodhipaksa

In the opening words to his book “The Road Less Traveled,” the late psychiatrist M. Scott Peck says: Life is difficult. This is a great truth, one of the greatest truths. It is a great truth because once we truly see this truth, we…

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Is there an Opiate Crisis? or is it just one crisis after another?

By Vimalasara

Hi there, apologies for not being so regular. I’m making a commitment to tune back in once a month. In the midst of a workload full of opiate crisis, a porn addiction crisis, stinking thinking crisis, work life is full. Although, I remind myself…

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Navigating the culture of outrage

By Bodhipaksa

A little over 35 years ago I heard the Dalai Lama speaking in Edinburgh. Someone asked him, “You’ve talked a lot about love today and you’ve talked a lot about the dangers of anger, but isn’t anger useful? Doesn’t anger get stuff done?” And…

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The Joy of Missing Out

By Bodhipaksa

At the moment I’m teaching an online course called Calm In the Storm, which is about finding peace in the midst of our turbulent and contentious times. I often benefit from teaching because it focuses my attention on particular aspects of practice, and as…

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“Aging with Wisdom: Reflections, Stories and Teachings” by Olivia Ames Hoblitzelle

By Vidhuma

The book’s title describes a daunting challenge. For our aging to have the blessing of bringing us wisdom – who does not wish for this? Most of us, by the time we have reached middle age, have had up close experiences with the aging…

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Read more posts

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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