Join a Global Community Focused on Mindful and Compassionate Living
Wildmind is an online meditation center — a place where anyone can learn to meditate or deepen their existing practice.
Wildmind is a Community-Supported Meditation Initiative. We're supported by a community of sponsors, who receive many benefits, including:
- Access to all of Bodhipaksa's past online meditation courses, of which there are currently around 30.
- 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 any new meditation courses that Bodhipaksa develops through Wildmind.
You can get all this by sponsoring one or more Community Shares. These are only $6 a month each, which makes the benefits you receive a tremendous bargain. More than 90% of our Community Shares are already sponsored. Make sure you don't miss out by sponsoring one or more shares today!
Check Out Recent Posts on Wildmind's Blog
Grief as a spiritual practice
My sister, Fiona, passed away last month, unexpectedly. Yes, she was being treated for cancer, and had been for several years. But each time the cancer had reappeared in some new part of the body, the surgeons and doctors, with the aid of chemotherapy and radiotherapy, had managed to knock it back. The last time…
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Why you don’t have free will (and why that doesn’t matter)
Free will is “the unimpeded capacity to choose between different possible courses of action.” We tend to believe that everyone has free will all the time, except under certain exceptional conditions, such as being hypnotized, or having a mental illness. I’m going to argue, however, that we don’t have free will, and that this doesn’t matter,…
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A letter to Jacob
I get some interesting emails. Usually they’re kind and appreciative. I particularly enjoy hearing from people who have found things I’ve written, or guided meditations I’ve recorded, to be helpful. Often people ask questions, and I’m happy to reply to them to the best of my ability. Sometimes the emails I get are critical, though,…
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How and why to cultivate gratitude
“It’s not happiness that brings us gratitude. It’s gratitude that beings us happiness.” Why Practice Gratitude? Gratitude is good for us. Our minds have a built-in “negativity bias,” so that we tend to pay more attention to things that aren’t going right. In fact, if we can’t find something that’s going wrong we’ll make something…
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How to recognize, respect, and love your inner demons
This is the first time I’ve posted here in a while. Virtually all of my energy is going into supporting Wildmind’s community of supporters — people who make a financial contribution every month in order to support me to explore and teach meditation and Buddhism. This article is condensed from a couple of pieces of…
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New Year aspirations (rather than resolutions)
When I was younger I used to think that New Year’s Day resolutions would almost automatically bring about change. It was as if thinking that you wanted to change was enough to make it actually happen. I guess I thought this was possible thanks to the “magic” involved in moving from one year to the…
Read MoreTry Out the Bodhi Mind Meditation App
The Bodhi Mind meditation app—for iPhone and iPad—gives you access to more than 200 guided meditations, recorded by Bodhipaksa, the founder of Wildmind.
The Bodhi Mind app available for download on the app store.
You’ll find all the guided meditations from Bodhipaksa's CDs and meditation courses, plus materials that he's recorded for other purposes. Some live recordings from retreats and workshops have been added, with more on the way!
The app is free to download.
All of the meditations are available for a two week trial. After that you’ll have access to a selection of tracks, and you can unlock the rest by signing up for a subscription.
Recommended Posts From Wildmind's Blog
Tonglen: a practice of compassion for self and other
In response to the coronavirus crisis, I put together a free course on how we can find calmness and balance when things around us are falling apart. It consisted of 28 guided meditations, accompanied by just a few written words for context. The materials were delivered by email. I also recorded a compassion practice to…
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10 things science (and Buddhism) says will make you happy
I’m a science geek as well as a Buddhist geek, and recently when I was leading a retreat on how to bring more joy into our lives I found myself making a lot of references to an article published in Yes magazine, which touched on ten things that have been shown by science to make…
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Four steps to self-empathy and self-kindness
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 occurred to me to have empathy for myself. And this was…
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Practice when life gets tough
Sometimes life comes at us full force and overwhelms us. That’s what happened to me the last few months. Things happened that were so overpowering that all my usual routines went out the window just so I could get through each day. My work, my social life – and yes, my sitting practice – pretty…
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The sacred pause
In our lives we often find ourselves in situations we can’t control, circumstances in which none of our strategies work. Helpless and distraught, we frantically try to manage what is happening. Our child takes a downward turn in academics and we issue one threat after another to get him in line. Someone says something hurtful…
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Self-compassion for writers (and other tortured souls)
I was talking to a Buddhist friend recently who’s a wonderful writer. She creates amazing blog posts that usually start off deeply personal but go on to teach important and universal lessons about life. I have a lot to learn from her about combining the personal and the instructional, and in many ways I regard…
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The art of self-forgiveness
Everyone messes up. Me, you, the neighbors, Mother Teresa, Mahatma Gandhi, King David, the Buddha, everybody. It’s important to acknowledge mistakes, feel appropriate remorse, and learn from them so they don’t happen again. But most people keep beating themselves up way past the point of usefulness: they’re unfairly self-critical. Inside the mind are many sub-personalities….
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When meditation seems impossible
My partner goes for a run and comes back looking despondent. ‘I struggled all the way round,’ he says. ‘It was as if I’d never run before.’ He has run several times a week for 3 years now. ‘I know how you feel,’ I say. I’m not thinking about running, though, but meditation. I’ve been…
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Be lived by love
Feeling both the world and myself these days, one phrase keeps calling: lived by love. Explicitly, this means coming from love in a broad sense, from compassion, good intentions, self-control, warmth, finding what’s to like, caring, connecting, and kindness. Implicitly, and more fundamentally, this practice means a relaxed opening into the love—in a very very…
Read MoreExplore the most 20 popular topics on Wildmind's blog
Mindfulness · Science and Meditation · Meditation and Health · Benefits of Meditation · Mindfulness in Daily Life · Meditation for Stress · Neuroscience of Meditation · Spiritual Practice and Happiness · Meditation and Compassion · Psychology and Meditation · Meditation for Children · Meditation for Anxiety · Buddhism · Lovingkindness Practice · Meditation and Education · The Dalai Lama · Meditation at Work · Meditation and Brain Science · Self-Compassion · 100 Days of Lovingkindness
About Buddhist meditation
In 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.
About Buddhist meditation
In 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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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!