Fragrant Heart Blog

It’s the holiday season, and I wish you all a joyful and peaceful time with family, and loved ones. Staying equanimous and mindful during this busy season can be quite a challenge. The material pressures from our cultural conditioning can sometimes overshadow this time of the year. A meditation practice can be very helpful at this to bring you into present moment awareness. All meditation techniques have a one pointed focus so that the mind and body relax and become calm and peaceful. Anything that we do to create mindfulness and awareness brings us into the present moment.

Here are some tips that encourage you to be present and aware as you go about your day.

1. Breathe. Come back to your breath throughout the day. Notice how you are breathing. If you are feeling rushed, or overwhelmed take some deep breaths and breathe the breath all the way down into your belly. Put aside a minute and just focus on each in breath, and each out breath. Every time you become aware of the breath you come back to the present.
2. Pay attention to what you are doing. Whatever you do throughout the day, be it going to work, attending a conference, playing with your children, or something as simple as cleaning your teeth, do it with focus. We’re encouraged to multi-task. It became a catch phrase and something to be admired. I used to become quite fragmented trying to attend to more than one thing at a time. When you give all your attention to what you are doing at any given moment you will be in the present, focused and aware. You will also find that you are calmer and more peaceful. You may even slow down and get things done more quickly.
3. Smile. I’ve written a few blogs now encouraging smiling. I find for myself it is so uplifting and not only gives me joy but others too. Smiling will release endorphins, and make you feel happier. It’s so simple. Are you smiling?
4. Let go judging yourself. How often do you hear your inner critic complaining about you, and judging you? How often do you hear it condemning you, and putting you down? Give your inner critic permanent retirement because the more you listen to it, the more it will have to say. It loves the past and all the mistakes you made. Let go the past, and self-judgment. To help you do this remember to smile, pay attention to what you are doing, and breathe.

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Approach your meditation practice gently in all ways. There is a tendency in us humans that if we’re not doing something ‘right’ we’ll beat ourselves up about it. Remember there is no absolute right, or wrong way to meditate. There are many techniques with guidelines, but because meditation is an evolving process it will become your personal journey, which is totally unique, and correct for you.

Be Gentle with Your Posture

Take up a posture that is comfortable for you. If you can sit cross-legged fine – if that’s not part of your flexibility, or inclination, choose another way to sit during meditation. However you sit be really, really comfortable. Even try lying down sometimes and see what that’s like for you.

Be Gentle with Your Mind

Then there’s the mind. Yes, it will wander off again, and again. Minds have a habit of doing that! Always accept and allow whatever the mind is doing. All sorts of thoughts will arise including angry thoughts, and sexual thoughts. And there’s no need to rush off for absolution from a priest, minister, or rabbi for those thoughts. They are part of being human. Accept and allow whatever thoughts or emotions arise. Witness them, observe them, breathe into them, and gently bring yourself back to your one pointed focus, whether it’s the breath, or something else. Don’t run away; stay as present as you can. Some days your mind will be busy, chaotic, frantic, and all over the place. It’s okay. Next sitting it will be different again, so allow whatever arises to arise without condemnation, guilt or shame.

Approach Meditation without Expectations

Meditation is an evolving process. How you begin meditation on day one will be quite different on day seven, day fourteen, and day three hundred and sixty five. If you expect an outcome from meditation you could be disappointed. Expectation always has an element of fear with it, that you might not get what you want.

Rituals and Props

There are a lot of rituals around different meditation groups and practices. They can be enhancing, but they are absolutely not necessary for meditation. If lighting a candle, or wearing a particular garment, for example, creates an ambience that you enjoy, then go ahead. However, never feel that you are lacking in some way without certain rituals and props that are often traditionally associated with meditation.

Let Go of Perfectionism

And lastly let go trying to be a perfect meditator. There’s no such thing. Trying to be perfect means trying to discipline yourself. When you do that you will make your meditation practice difficult, and probably give up altogether. Never, ever make yourself wrong, try to attain some ideal image, or condemn any parts of yourself. Be loving and tender with yourself in your meditations, and be loving and tender with yourself in every aspect of your life.

Did you know that the way you breathe directly affects the levels of tension in your body? Breathing is so automatic that people are hardly ever conscious of how they are breathing. Throughout the guided meditations on Fragrant Heart there is always some focus on the breath. I spent years practising, and teaching a meditation technique which simply focuses on watching the breath. You can use this technique, In Learn to Meditate Over Five Days by subscribing to Fragrant Heart. Watching the breath is simply that, just observing the breath how it comes, and how it goes. In this blog, I would like to specifically concentrate on a particular form of breathing, called Abdominal Breathing. This is our natural form of breathing, and once mastered, or rather relearnt you will become more conscious of how you are breathing throughout the day. You’ll know when you’re breathing shallowly simply because you won’t feel as good as when you are breathing into your belly.

What are the Benefits of Abdominal Breathing?

Abdominal Breathing:

1. Reduces body tension and therefore enables your body to relax.
2. Increases oxygen supply to your brain and muscles.
3. Helps excrete toxins from your body more effectively via the lungs.
4. Improves concentration.
5. Eases you into your sitting meditation practice more quickly.
6. Increases your lung capacity enabling you to breathe more deeply.

Check your Breathing Right Now

Right now check out how you are breathing. Is it deep down in your belly, or somewhere up in your chest? Just stop reading, and be aware of how you are breathing for a few seconds.

How to Do Abdominal Breathing

1. Place one hand on your abdomen just below your rib cage.
2. Inhale slowly and deeply through your nose, breathing the breath all the way down into your belly. Inhale to the count of four; 1…2…3…4… You’ll notice your hand will rise as you breathe into your belly. Your chest won’t move as much.
3. When you have taken a full deep breath, pause for a couple of seconds, and then slowly breathe out through your nose, or your mouth to the count of four; 1…2…3…4... and pause for a few seconds before breathing in again. Sense your body relaxing as you do this.
4. Take ten full abdominal breaths. By counting, you will slow the breath down, and you will find that your breathing will become more flowing, regular, and rhythmical. If you start to feel light-headed at anytime, stop for half a minute and then start again. Your body is simply not used to breathing in more oxygen so don’t worry. This will soon pass.
5. When you are breathing easily with one set of ten abdominal breaths, then increase to two or three sets.

You could do abdominal breathing for five minutes every day by itself, or at the start of your meditation practice. The wonderful thing about the breath is that you take it wherever you go. When life gets hectic for you, and you start to feel overwhelmed and you’re back to the old habit of shallow breathing, then remember to breathe into your belly. You will feel all stress and tension melting away.

Throughout the Fragrant Heart website there is practical advice on adopting different postures in your meditation practice that are right for you. This week I’d like to encourage you to think about the placement of your hands when you are meditating. There are many different ways to do this and in the eastern traditions the hand gestures, or postures are called mudras.

Take the Stress out of Your Life with a Simple Mudra

Here is one that is a simple and reliable way of holding your hands as well as changing your emotional state from tense to calm, from stressed to peaceful. You can take this hand position into all parts of your life outside of your meditation practice to quickly centre and calm yourself.

How to Hold the Mudra

Here’s how to hold this mudra. Place the back of the right hand in the palm of the left, and allow the tips of your thumbs to touch lightly. In a seated posture rest your hands on your lap in line with our lower abdomen. Practise it now with your eyes gently closed. To help bring you into alpha state, into the right hemisphere of the brain, (where you can experience creativity and calmness), take your attention into your left hand and do this with a sense of calmness and purpose. Keep your attention there until you are aware of your left hand. If you are left-handed keep your attention in your right hand until you are aware of our right hand. Practise this mudra anytime when you are feeling calm, relaxed, and peaceful to anchor this in your body. Whenever an occasion arises when you become reactive, and upset just hold this mudra and you will instantly relax and feel calm.

Begin to Smile

Now still holding your hands together in your lap, allow yourself just the hint of a smile. Your facial muscles will relax, and amazingly so will your whole body. Your eye muscles will relax, your eyes will soften and when you open your eyes you will look out through them and view the world quite differently.

Bring this mudra to your life and your meditation practice, and also bring your smile!