[Disclaimer: There are many ways to understand what meditation is and how to practice it. Below is simply one view of how the mechanics of meditation practice can be organized and implemented.]

(A working definition of “Mindfulness”)

The ability and willingness to know things as they are.

(Implicit in every moment of experience)

  1. Appearance (as an object of awareness is known, it is…)

    1. Conceptualized (recognize/discern)

    2. Categorized (name/associate)

    3. Compared (recall/remember)

  2. Appraisal (as we experience an object of awareness, it is evaluated as…)

    1. Pleasant (leading to attraction)

    2. Unpleasant (leading to aversion)

    3. Neutral or Mixed (leading to ambivalence)

  3. Awareness (that which allows us to know all objects)

    1. Vibrant (dynamic and responsive)

    2. Receptive (open and spacious)

    3. Effortless (natural and automatic)

1 Basic Meditation Practice

“Be Here” (sit and breathe, and know that you are sitting and breathing)

“Wake Up” (curiously and clearly invrstigate whatever you notice and how that changes moment to moment)

“Let Go” (give up all striving, chasing, following, fighting, grasping, resistance, control, effort, agenda… and rest in and as your natural state)

5 Narrow Meditation Techniques

(and some ways of practicing them)

  1. Concentration: absorbed and undistracted attention applied to a single, stable object of awareness (Release & Return)

    • Body (“Just-Breathe”, Posture)

    • Thoughts (Mantra, Visualization)

    • Senses (Sight, Sound)

  2. Noting: steady, precise, and undisturbed attention to the changing objects of awareness (Acknowledge briefly & Know deeply)

    • “Open Awareness”

    • “Narrow Focus” (Senses, Sensations, Mind States, Thoughts)

    • “Movement Meditation” (e.g. Walking)

  3. Goodness: conditioning attention to more habitually notice and cultivate mental states that are both pleasant and wholesome (Stir and Savor)

    • “IDEAS” (of skillful behavior):

      • Intention & Inscription (journaling)

      • Diet & Daily routine

      • Exercise & Educate (self)

      • Acts of kindness & Attentional training (meditation)

      • Social connection & Sleep (quantity and quality)

    • “Taking-Sending”:

      • Visualize taking in the “heavy & thick” suffering of others on the in-breath; and sending out the “light & cool” energy of contentment to others on the out-breath (thinking these words in the mind at first) — choose specific people to visualize:

        • people you can easily feel compassion for

        • people you have difficult feelings toward

        • people you don’t know well

        • yourself

        • all others (expanding out geographically)

      • As pleasant sensations of emotion may arise in the body; locate, appreciate, and enjoy them as long as they last

    • “FEASTS” (to cultivate positive emotion in bodily sensations):

      • Find it (you may already feel good)

      • Evoke it with thoughts

      • Activate it (“flipping the switch”)

      • Support it with physical rest and/or flow

      • Trigger it with pleasant and wholesome sight, sound, and/or touch

      • Show it with a subtle smile

  4. Self-Inquiry: playful curiosity about the quality of bare awareness, true desire, or the center of subjectivity (Evoke and Investigate)

    • “Awareness of Awareness” (spaciousness to sensitize): Explore the simple and bare quality of awareness that arises with every moment of wakefulness or knowing — like water containing and saturating all sea life or space being filled by and making up all matter (start with “awareness of…” then, drop the “of…”)

      1. “Nature Knowing Itself”

    • “Effortless Compassion” (goodness that is essential to who we are): there is compassion within every suffering by virtue of the fact that there is a natural desire to alleviate suffering — notice discomforts and pain that are present right now; now notice the “impulse” that contains a natural wish to move away from suffering, craving, and confusion and to move toward relief, fulfillment, and contentment

      1. “Nature Loving Itself”

    • *“What is ‘Who’?” (pointing-back to sensitize): investigate the sensations associated with the basic sense of “I am” and search for the center of that subjectivity (“where/what/who am I?”) — “Essence”

      1. “Nature Being Itself”

  5. Surrender: sustained release of any intention to control, resist, or acquire (Receive-Release)

    • “Simple Silence”

      1. Let all experience move freely through awareness without fighting or following any of it: drop any desire for things to be other than they already perfectly are in themselves by responding to whatever happens with Silence

      2. Sensitize with “Intention-detection” (using the breath) to actually know when you are following/fighting and when you are not

    • “Unknowing” (Christian Contemplative Prayer)

      • With support object (use objects for prayer, then use them to become prayer — can be used in combination)

        • Breath of Spirit (letting the Spirit wordlessly pray for you)

        • Prayer Word (recite a devotional word/phrase first for protection, then for solace)

        • Image Visualization (anchor attention to a chosen visual/mental image)

      • Without support object

        • Forgetting all of the “many knowable somethings” (even the sense of being who you are), direct a blind gaze of loving intention toward the “One Unknowable No-thing” (beyond all that is perceivable and understandable)