Starting a Seated Practice

Why you may want to start a practice:

-Reduction of stress levels through various techniques that may be beneficial to your physical and mental health.

-Help to keep attention anchored in the present.

-Continued and prolonged practice of effortful self-reflection and self-control for cognitive improvement and general life-style changes, relaxation for reducing physiological stress allowing your body to heal.

-Its something to do and you might find benefit from a steady practice.

-Designate a specific area in your home to sit in, someplace and time you wont be disturbed

Types of Practices:

Samatha — Mind calming meditation.

Vipassana — Insight meditation

Zazen — The art of non-thinking, or emptiness.

Body Scanning — Slowly go through your body and focus on the sensations.

Visualization — Various techniques where you visualize something mentally and maintain focus on it.

Yoga Nidra — Guided meditation that prepares your body and mind for relaxation process, generally done laying down

Transcendental Meditation(nonsensical mantra meditation) — Silent Mantra based meditation

Metta — Loving Kindness meditation.

Walking Meditation — Walking back and forth focusing on the breath. One step with each full breath

Mindfulness- Being present and fully aware of what you’re doing.

Posture:

-Sit with an erect/straight back, comfortably for a prolonged period of time. In a chair, on a cushion, in half or full lotus.

-Place hands comfortably in lap, with fingers overlapping and thumbs touching

-or-

-Place hands with palms up on knees, usually with thumbs and index fingers touching, this is gyan mudra.

-Eyes can be open of closed

-Place tip of tongue at top of mouth where your front teeth touch the mouth roof.

-or-

-Curl tongue back into the mouth so it presses against your soft palette. This is Khecari mudra, a tongue lock.

Hints: If your legs feels numb or dead place one hand on the dead leg knee and the other on the dead leg foot.

Getting ready for stillness

-Find a comfortable quiet place.

-No need to be intense or serious.

-If thoughts come in gently place them aside and return to your breath.

-Anytime is a good time to meditate, starting and ending your day as well.

Meditation -

Start with three deep inhales and three deep exhales

Stage one:

With correct posture inhale through nose and mentally say ‘Ah’ exhale through mouth and mentally say ‘Va’. With hand on knees Touch thumb to fingers one at a time.

Stage two:

Keep thumb and index finger touching (Gyan mudra) continue mentally saying ‘Ah’ for inhales and ‘Va’ for exhales.

Stage three:

Breath deeply through your nose for remainder of the time.

Beneficial Apps

Headspace

Insight Timer

Some books worth looking into

10% Happier — Dan Harris

Waking Up — Sam Harris

The Mind Illuminated — John Yates

The Path to Nibanna — David Johnson

Mindfulness in Plain English — Henepola Gunaratana

http://www.vipassana.com/meditation/mindfulness_in_plain_english.php

Full Catastrophe Living — John Kabat Zinn

With Each and Every Breath — Geoffrey Degaff

https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/WithEachAndEveryBreath/Section0001.html

If you want to read some abstracts

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4769029/

‘Meditation and Yoga can Modulate Brain Mechanisms that affect Behavior and Anxiety-A Modern Scientific Perspective’

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6312586/

‘Mindfulness Meditation Is Related to Long-Lasting Changes in Hippocampal Functional Topology during Resting State: A Magnetoencephalography Study’

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18678242/

‘Mindfulness meditation training effects on CD4+ T lymphocytes in HIV-1 infected adults: a small randomized controlled trial’

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22820409/

‘Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction training reduces loneliness and pro-inflammatory gene expression in older adults: a small randomized controlled trial’

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5261734/

‘Increased Gamma Brainwave Amplitude Compared to Control in Three Different Meditation Traditions’