Practising Mindfulness Meditation is as simple as breathing. The only difference is that you need to breathe mindfully while practising Mindfulness. It requires one to experience the awe in every moment and in each ordinary task such as walking or sitting.
People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don’t even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child—our own two eyes. All is a miracle.
-Thich Nhat Hanh
A short Mindfulness Practice
There may be many ways to practice this but to begin with, I will try to present a fundamental breathing practice. Follow the below steps, to start with, a primary method of Mindfulness Meditation
- Find a place to sit comfortably for 5-10 minutes without any disturbance. You may choose this app (on Android) or this app (on Apple iOS) to time your meditation session. Preferable keep your phone on Airplane mode as well to avoid any disturbance.
- Choose a chair, or you may choose to sit in the lotus position(sukhasana) on a mat as well. No matter where you sit, all that matters is that your spine is straight and the body is relaxed.
- Calmly close your eyes and start to focus on your breath, keeping the focus on the area between your nose and upper lip.
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- Experience the air going in and out of the nose. See if it is warm or cold.
- Focus only on the breath and nothing else, as if you have nothing else to do.
- Be the gatekeeper at the entrance of your nostrils and do not let a single breath go unnoticed.
- Continue the practice for 5 minutes, to begin with, and you may make it longer as you continue
- Once done with the method contemplate over the sensations of the body you experienced. If this was your first practice, you might have noticed some very unusual sensations in the body like a pain in legs, a pain in the lower spine, etc. This is a good sign for the beginning, and you will get better in practice as you continue.
Why choose breath to focus upon
Breathing is the only neutral aspect of the body which does not change with time. It is the only constant. It is a unique capability that we hold to bring us back to this very moment. When told to focus on breath, you may never focus on a breath of past or a breath of future. Because there is nothing like that which exists. Breath is here, breath is in the now. It is one the most obvious yet the most critical spiritual tool each one of us has been bestowed upon. Choosing the present makes you free of the bondage of worries of past or ruminations of the future.
Being in the now will help us grow deeper in our spiritual practice. Soon, we will be sharing more details on the subject.
Till then, do share your experience in the comments section below.