video

Guided meditation … by the riverside

I recorded this guided meditation using Google Glass while sitting by the river that runs by my office. Glass, which is like a mobile phone that you wear on your face like a pait of glasses, shows a first person view, so you’re seeing what I saw during the part of the meditation that my eyes were open. In fact this is a meditation that, unlike most of those I lead, involves starting with the eyes open.

If you have any problem viewing the video, you can watch it on Youtube instead.

My purchase of Google Glass was made possible, in part, by a kind donation from Adrian Lucas, who runs a hydroponic microfarm in Florida, and who teaches other people how to do likewise.

Thanks, Adrian!

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Guided meditation: mindfulness of breathing

Bodhipaksa

The video below is another recording from one of the Google Plus Hangout meditations that I lead from time to time.

This one is a form of mindful breathing meditation. It follows the traditional form that’s taught on this site, but with more of an emphasis on setting up conditions for the jhana factors to arise.

I incorporate a few elements which have become distinctive in my teaching: the principle of paying attention to a broad band of experiences connected with the breathing, so that we use up as much mental bandwidth as possible in order to reduce distracted thinking. This week I add a little twist, which is paying attention to the three-dimensionality of the breathing: something I find really calms the mind, probably because it moves activity from the left to the right hemisphere of the brain.

Enjoy! And remember that we have a thriving online meditation community, where we share what’s going on in our practice and give each other support and encouragement. Please join us!

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Guided Upekkha Bhavana (Cultivating Evenmindedness) (Day 77)

This is one of the guided meditations that I led recently in a Google+ Hangout.

This particular one is a guide to developing the quality of equanimity (upekkha), or even-mindedness. There’s an introductory talk in which I outline four different uses of the term equanimity, and then I guided the class through an approach to meditation in which we lose our sense of separateness, so that there’s an element of anatta (not-self) brought into the practice before we begin to cultivate lovingkindness.

The practice also brings together mental stillness and non-reactivity, and metta, or lovingkindness. It’s important to remember that “even-mindedness” (or equanimity) is actually “even-minded love” or “equanimous love” and isn’t a state of uncaring.

PS. You can see all of our 100 Days of Lovingkindness posts here.

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Wildmind videos come to YouTube

Wildmind has begun creating YouTube versions of our mantras and of selected guided meditations. There’s a 10 minute limit on YouTube videos and most of our meditations are 20 minutes or longer, so we’re going to have to record some short tracks specially.

We started with a YouTube video of the Om Shanti mantra. If you like the mantra, please give the video a rating after listening.

You can view all of Bodhipaksa’s YouTube videos here.

We hope that these videos will help the benefits of meditation to reach a wider audience.

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