Meditation in four easy steps

Learning to meditate can be broken down into four straightforward steps. Each flows naturally into the next, and together they form the practice known as Mindfulness-Based Stillness Meditation (MBSM). Here are those four steps in their most essential form:

    Step 1. Preparation.

Settle into a supportive setting, adopt a comfortable posture, turn your attention inward and relax.

    Step 2. Relaxation.

Choose the simplest, most practical method for relaxing your body. Let your mind follow along. Release. Without strain.

    Step 3. Mindfulness. 

Naturally, you can move on to focused mindfulness practices: awareness of sound, of bodily sensations, of emotions, of thoughts and of stillness. Alternatively, you can take the more open route into simple, undistracted awareness — just notice with bare attention whatever enters your awareness, whether sounds, sensations, emotions, thoughts or stillness. Whatever arises, simply stay aware, open and present.

   Step 4. Stillness. 

Resting in this undistracted awareness, you notice the movement — the activity and phenomena arising within and around you — and you also notice the all-pervading background of stillness. The stillness becomes more familiar over time. You smile, warmed by the comfort and ease that flow from this knowing, this direct experience of the essence of meditation.

MBSM in even simpler terms:

Once we have prepared well, we relax.

As we relax more deeply, mindfulness grows.

As mindfulness develops, stillness naturally reveals itself.

We rest in open, undistracted awareness.

That is Mindfulness-Based Stillness Meditation.

 Meditation — the Direct Approach.

Keep in mind that meditation can be practised through the Direct Approach, which uses no method, or through the Gradual Approach, which relies on learning and applying techniques. Having summarised the specific technique — the four steps of MBSM above — here is the essence of the direct approach.

There is nothing to do. Just be aware. Open. Undistracted. Aware.

It is as simple — and as difficult — as that.

Happy meditating!

BRISBANE AND THE NEW BOOK

On a personal note, it was a joy to return to Brisbane last weekend to present workshops at the wonderful Relaxation Centre. After a year spent on other things, it was a real pleasure to reconnect with Lionel Fifield and his amazing volunteers, to catch up with people who had attended earlier workshops or Foundation programs, and to meet plenty of new faces.

It was also exciting to hold the first copy of the new book and to present a day on "The Mind that Changes Everything". It gives a great structure to a workshop on how the mind works and how we can use it to best advantage, and I look forward to presenting it again in other parts of the country. All the advance copies we were sent sold out at the first evening talk — good and bad news, since none were left for the later events — but the book will be in shops or available online in a few weeks.

RESOURCES


BOOKS:          The Mind that Changes Everything - Ian Gawler

                         Meditation - an In-depth Guide  - Ian Gawler and Paul Bedson

CD:                  Meditation - a Complete Path - Ian Gawler

DVD:               Meditation Live - Ian Gawler


RELATED BLOGS:  Meditation - How much is enough?

                                      Meditation and Satisfaction


COURSES:       Residential & non-residential: The Gawler Foundation

WORKSHOPS with Ian:   www.iangawler.com