Buddhism in Everyday Life: 3 Ways to Practice Meditation Throughout the Day

Buddhism in Everyday Life

The immediate image that many people may have of Buddhism is of monks in robes: people living in a rarified environment, far away from the busyness and chaos of our everyday lives. Yet in the Dhammapada, a collection of sayings from the Buddha, he says that every action is preceded by a thought. In this sense, Buddhism or a Buddhist perspective is in every moment of our everyday life.

The essence of Buddhism is the practice of meditation, mindfulness/awareness: to watch one’s mind and notice what arises, without having to act on it.

The essence of Buddhism is the practice of meditation, mindfulness/awareness: to watch one’s mind and see what arises and notice this without having to act on it. Bringing attention to every detail of our life and every movement of our mind is an act of loving kindness to ourselves and to others. We spend most of our time trying to manage the external situation, what others are doing, but when we practice, we are turning our attention back towards ourselves.

We can do this on the cushion when we practice meditation, and we can do this in everyday life, by cultivating our awareness of our thoughts, feelings and actions as we go about our daily lives. This is what the Buddha meant when he said, “If the world is covered in thorns and you do not want to hurt your feet, you can either cover the world in leather or put on a pair of shoes.” We can either attempt to control others, everything that is happening in our world, or we can put on a pair of shoes by learning to work with what arises in our mind: our thoughts, feelings, and behaviours.

1. Buddhism in Everyday Life: Awareness of Our Thoughts

Thought is so habitual that we don’t even notice that we are thinking, or, indeed, projecting our thoughts onto others or the situation. We are lost in the film. It is like looking through a pair of tinted sunglasses: everything is coloured by the lenses. Everything is coloured by the filter of thought through which we see things. If we are down and it is raining we might feel depressed; if we are a gardener, we might be delighted.

This reminds me of a story one of my early meditation instructors, Werner Wunsche, told me: “It’s raining. Joe is depressed. Peter is happy. Joe and Peter work hard all week. Joe works for his boss who he feels pushed around by but he can stand this because every Saturday they play golf together and Joe always wins. Every Saturday Peter visits his elderly Aunt and takes her out for a brief walk which he doesn’t enjoy and it’s a four hour round trip. No-one else visits her so he feels obliged and he has an eye on the inheritance he might get from her. Because it’s raining he has an excuse, they can’t go walking and he doesn’t like driving in the rain, so he has four hours for himself to do what he wants to do. So Peter is happy and Joe is depressed and all that is happening is it’s raining.”

The rain doesn’t make us depressed; it is the meaning we give to the rain, what we layer on top of that event, that causes our emotions. What we think creates our reality. When we experience thought, we can either be aware of this or be on automatic pilot and be driven by this. By noticing our thoughts and learning the familiar patterns of how we think we can start to understand how we configure our world, how we make sense of it. We can get to know the projector.

When we understand that our way of interpreting things shapes what we experience, then we have some control over our minds.

This is like the movie Groundhog Day, whose main character gets the chance to live the same day over and over again and to try different ways of responding to the same situation. However, what is precious about life is that we can’t relive everyday. When we understand that our thoughts, our way of seeing, shapes what we experience, then we have some control over our minds. We have a clutch, the ability to disengage the wheels from the engine, a pause, a break between our thinking and our action. Rather than be on automatic pilot, we can be aware. We have a choice; we are not driven, we are driving.

When we are driven, we have no flexibility, no choice. Our experience is driven by the underlying thoughts that we hang onto, often thoughts of right or wrong. This is illustrated by a Buddhist story: Two monks were going for a walk when they came across a woman standing by a river. The water was fast and quite deep, and she was afraid to cross. One of the monks offered to pick her up and carry her over. He carried her over and put her down on the other side and she thanked him for his help. After several minutes, one monk says to the other, “We are not supposed to touch women or carry them. You are breaking your vows.” The other monk replies, “I am not carrying the woman. I put her down 10 minutes ago. It is you who are still carrying her.”

The one monk is holding onto his thought that carrying a woman is wrong. The other monk knows that to help someone is not wrong and is not breaking his vows, and can let go of both the action and the thought. Often we hold onto our thoughts as solid truths, and remain stuck with them rather than being able to let go and open to the next moment, to the flow of experience.

2. Buddhism in Everday Life: Being with Our Feelings

Feeling is what gives our life meaning: it’s how we orientate ourselves in relation to others. Feelings are also what drives our behaviour and where our life can feel out of control. An example is when we feel road rage. A driver has cut across us and we feel frightened; they could have crashed into us and we feel rage, the desire to protect ourselves which is often expressed as anger at the other person. The anger attempts to push away the hurt so that we can feel better.

This happens between two people, between two groups, and between two countries. When we are hurt by others and lash out and attack back, even in subtle ways, we create a cycle of violence. Someone has to break the chain by being able to feel the pain, the hurt that someone has caused, and understand that this comes from their own hurt, their pain.

As Shantideva said, 

“Although it is their sticks that hurt me, I am angry at the ones who wield them, striking me. But they in turn are driven by their hatred; Therefore with their hatred I should take offence.” 

Shantideva, The Way of the Bodhisattva

Thus, when we deeply understand where people’s behaviours come from, we feel compassion or understanding for what caused their behaviour. We understand it arose from their confusion or their attempt to try and be safe.

The value of the anger is it tells us that we are hurt, we are vulnerable. The ability to feel our hurt, to relax with our vulnerability is perhaps the most important quality to cultivate in order to create a kinder world. At some point we have to face the truth that we feel hurt, we feel vulnerable. When we are able to do this, to relax into our vulnerability we no longer need to defend ourselves and being with our vulnerability becomes a strength rather than a weakness.

“Vulnerability is not winning or losing; it’s having the courage to show up and be seen when we have no control over the outcome. Vulnerability is not weakness; it’s our greatest measure of courage.”

Brené Brown

We often see everything that happens as being for us or against us: it’s personal, permanent and pervasive, as if deep down if something goes well its a sign that we are a good person or special or lovable and more often when things go bad it confirms our feeling that we are bad or wrong or stupid in some way. As Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche said, “Success is not a reward and failure is not a punishment.”

There is a famous Zen story of a samurai warrior who went to visit a monk named Hakuin. When he arrived at the monk’s village and found him sitting in meditation he shouted, “I want a word with you. If you are so wise, tell me all you know about heaven and hell.” The monk said, “Why should I tell a stupid man like you?” The warrior was furious and drew his sword shouting, “I’ll cut your head off for insulting me.” Without flinching the monk said “That is hell.” The warrior instantly realised he had been caught in the grip of anger and relaxed. A smile came to his face. The monk said, “That is heaven.”

Heaven and Hell are not so much external situations but internal feelings, states of mind. Two cars can be stuck in a traffic jam and one driver could be furious and irritated and another could be quietly listening to the radio. It depends on the context, the situation we are in, and the personal meaning we bring to this.

How to soothe ourselves? 

Feelings arise in the body. In order to soothe ourselves, to relax our body, we need to bring attention to the upset or pain.

Thus, in order to live well, to be at peace with ourselves and others we need to practice soothing ourselves, learning to hold and comfort ourselves when we feel hurt, distressed, lonely, and so on. Feelings arise in the body. They are responses from our nervous system, our animal body. In order to soothe ourselves, to relax our body, we need to bring attention to the upset or pain. This is how the whole mindfulness movement started: when people found that when they attended to the pain directly rather than struggled against it they were less distressed; they felt less pain.

The practice of meditation—either on the cushion or in daily life—is precisely this: practicing sycnhronising our body and mind, our feeling and our attention. When we can place our attention on our moment-by-moment experience, our bodily experience, our feelings, our thoughts, the movement of our mind, we relax; there is no fear. Even if we feel anxious or afraid, when we feel into this, place our mind on the physical sensation that we are experiencing in our body in that moment, the body and mind relaxes. I know this is not easy: our habitual patterns are deeply ingrained. This is why it is called a practice, a path. We are learning to drive, moment by moment.

3. Buddhism in Everday Life: Noticing Our Actions

As the Buddha says, although we often don’t notice it our actions are driven by our thoughts: underlying thoughts create feelings that drive our behavior, what we do. So because it’s hard to notice the underlying thoughts often the best we can do is to reflect on what we did: “How come I got angry when So-and-So said that?” We have to rewind and notice the sequence of moments that made up our experience. This is another way that we care for ourselves: we take ourselves seriously and we notice how others impact us, how they trigger our wounds, and we then attend to those wounds.

Another way we care for ourselves is to take ourselves seriously and notice how others impact us, how they trigger our wounds. We then attend to those wounds.

In the Buddha’s time, there was a famous murderer called Angulimala who was terrorizing local villages. He had a necklace of fingers around his neck, taken from the people he had killed. He was driven by trying to control others to make everyone afraid of him so that he would never have to be hurt. The monks were too scared to go out and beg for food. The Buddha was not worried and walked into the nearby village to beg for food. He heard a man starting to run from behind him. It was Angulimala. Angulimala shouted, “Why aren’t you running? I am going to kill you.” The Buddha said, “I have stopped running a long time ago. You are the one who is still running: running from your mind.”

In order to work with how we behave we need to notice the underlying thoughts or feelings that are driving our behavior: the emotional impulse or motivation behind why we say something or do something in any particular moment.

Bringing Buddhism into Everyday Practice

Buddhism is in everyday life, it is in every moment. We do not need to pump ourselves up that we are better than others or put ourselves down for being less than others. All we have to do is walk the path, noticing our thoughts, feelings and actions and what brings us joy and what brings us distress.

If you would like to more deeply explore bringing Buddhist practice into your everyday life, please see Meditation in Everyday Life and Contentment in Everyday Life, two courses you can take at your own pace through Shambhala Online:

Thank you for reading!

This article is part of the Shambhala.org Community Blog, which offers reflections by Shambhala community members on their individual journeys in meditation and spirituality.

Buddhist Home Shrines: How to Set Up a Buddhist Shrine at Home

buddhist shrine green cups

A Buddhist home shrine can be a refuge, a gentle invitation to return to the moment, and a reminder of our higher principles. In this article, I will share my family’s process of creating a Buddhist home shrine, discuss what we learned, and share the resources I gathered to help us along in our process.

Making a Buddhist Home Shrine for the First Time 

As is so often the case when studying aspects of Buddhist practice, the information and advice I gathered as my family began this process was varied and flexible. Home altars range from simple, even sparse, to elaborate and ornate. I will highlight five components that are consistent amongst different traditions:

  1. Central purpose of a shrine
  2. Characteristics of the space (and mindset while creating the shrine)
  3. Most basic objects to include
  4. How to source and arrange objects
  5. Upkeep and tidiness

We’ll explore each of these aspects in the sections that follow. We’ll also look at some examples of Buddhist home shrines, and I’ll share my family’s process of creating our own.

1. What Is the Purpose of A Buddhist Home Shrine?

The primary purpose of a Buddhist home shrine is to aid one’s practice. This is accomplished by creating a space that is calm, pleasant, and free of distraction. The specific objects we choose to include give us visual cues that remind us of our principles, goals of practice, teachers, and more.

How does a Buddhist home shrine aid one’s practice?

It is very easy to get carried away by our thoughts or to get wrapped up in the to-do list. We all experience stress and have interactions that leave us feeling frazzled, frustrated, or angry at times. The serene, inviting, and positive space that exists around a shrine can call us back to the present moment, reminding us to return to our breath and creating space to calm down. Specific objects on a shrine remind us of particular principles we are working to embody and/or teachings that are dear to us.

The mind likes to reinforce common thinking patterns as a matter of expediency. When we care for an altar and spend time sitting near it, we create a memory of the psycho-emotional state elicited by that practice. Each time we repeat the practice, it becomes easier to enter that state, and after a while, simply looking at or thinking of one’s altar can elicit a similar experience.

Pictures of one’s teachers are often present on home shrines. Our teachers often bring out the best in us, so these can serve as inspiration to live in accordance with our higher values.

The article, Setting Up Your Home Altar, in Tricycle magazine gives a thoughtful perspective on the intentional psychological and spiritual states one can create or encourage through the purposeful construction and arrangement of a Buddhist home shrine.

A shrine can act as a focal point for balancing and uniting the family.

While my wife, Trang, and I have had makeshift altars in the past, a primary factor motivating us to create and tend a more formal shrine is the desire to engage our 8-year-old daughter, Ixora, more consistently in Buddhist practices. 

A primary motivation for us to create a shrine was the desire to engage our 8-year-old daughter more consistently in Buddhist practices. 

The objects, images, and concepts associated with a Buddhist altar provide a framework for discussing important life lessons, centering after difficult interactions, clarifying goals, and more. As such, an altar provides a physical space where we can regularly model and lead Ixora in sitting with things as they are and approaching life with the mind of compassion.

Routines and familiar places are important for children, and the nature of the routines and the particular characteristics of those familiar spaces have a profound effect on psycho-emotional development.  We find that having an intentional practice of meditation and reflection, along with a space that is conducive to the mental state brought about by Buddhist practices, is very helpful in teaching and reinforcing ethics and skills for self management and self love.

Additionally, we intend to use our home shrine to remember and honor loved ones who have passed, especially those our daughter will not remember unless we tell her stories about them.

Interestingly, I learned from my explorations for this article that ancestors are not generally included on Buddhist home shrines, except in certain cultures. But, I’m getting ahead of myself…we’ll return to this topic later in the article.

Self Objects & Self Concept

A home shrine can be a powerful way to reinforce one’s understanding of one’s nature as wisdom and compassion.

The objects on a Buddhist home shrine can be thought of as self objects–the things and people in our lives that produce our self concept, the way(s) we think about ourselves and understand our lives in relation to the outer world. If we want to embody Buddhist principles, then having a home shrine can be a powerful way to reinforce one’s self concept as an embodiment of wisdom and compassion, thereby encouraging behavior that is in line with those ideals. 

2. Where & How Should a Buddhist Home Shrine be Situated?

A wise way to begin the process of deciding where to put one’s home shrine is to make sure that a Buddhist shrine would be appropriate and helpful in the place we have in mind. 

When Not to Set Up A Buddhist Home Shrine

An article on the Dharma Drum Mountain Global Website explores a number of ideas around Buddhist home shrines, including when and/or where it may not actually be appropriate to install one. The author invites us to consider the purpose of our home shrine and whether the construction of one in our space will actually be conducive to our aims, namely the cultivation of wisdom and compassion in order to relieve suffering. 

If we live in a shared space with others who are not Buddhists, then any animosity or discomfort that may arise in response to the creation of a Buddhist shrine would be counterproductive. This is equally true if one’s living space is so small that the addition of an altar would make things more cramped. 

Siting a Home Shrine

Once we have determined that our general space is suitable, we can decide the precise placement of our home shrine. The general guidelines for altar placement seem to be fairly consistent between sources:

  • A clean space that is free of distraction (distractions could be anything from general clutter to children’s toys, pets, a computer, a TV, etc.)
  • Facing a door or window
  • Plenty of light
  • In plain view when entering the room
  • Not in front of a window
  • Not in the bedroom
  • Not facing bathroom, stove, or bed

We had very few options given the layout of our home, so choosing a location for our shrine was easy, even though we could not adhere to all of the guidelines (as you can see, the site we chose for our altar is in front of a window). 

Thankfully, this process is meant to be flexible and practical, so we won’t worry about it.

What kind of attitude should one adopt while creating a home shrine?

Setting up a Buddhist home shrine should be done in a state of calm reverence; wait for a better time if the participants are unable to engage with a helpful mindset. 

Admittedly, my family’s first attempt at putting together a proper Buddhist home shrine was a lesson in recognizing when NOT to persist. It was the end of a long, tiring day, and we were starting to become hurried and irritable in an attempt to finish the process and get to bed. Instead of slogging through, we decided to wait until a time when we could all approach the project with better attitudes. This allowed for a much more enjoyable and intentional activity and, ultimately, a better feeling around the shrine itself.

3. What Objects Belong on a Buddhist Home Shrine?

Once we’ve clarified our purpose, chosen a site, and decided that the chosen environment is appropriate for a home altar, we can gather the materials/items that we will arrange on it. 

I appreciate how a Shambhala Times article summed up the components of a Buddhist home shrine: “[T]he basic shrine logic is that there are representatives of sacred world, of enlightened mind…And there are offerings to that…”

The following are common components of a Buddhist home shrine regardless of the specific tradition or lineage (note that the first two bullets are representatives of the sacred world or enlightened mind, while the third bullet gives examples of offerings):

  • A statue of the Buddha;
  • Statues of bodhisattvas or lower deities
  • Offerings, including, water, light, flowers, and incense

Other common, but not universal, components of a home shrine include the following:

  • Depictions of the Buddha’s body, speech, and mind, which are represented by a statue of the Buddha, a sacred text (sutra), and a stupa, respectively
  • Offerings of rice (sometimes a bowl of which is used to hold an incense stick upright), fruit, or other foods
  • A bell

Less common, or more lineage-specific items included on some home altars:

  • Thangkas
  • Cloth
  • 7 bowls of water
  • Picture of one’s teacher(s)
  • Pictures/plaques of deceased ancestors

While a simple shrine works well for many Buddhists, some traditions have much more elaborate shrines with a greater number of ritual objects, all rich with meaning. 

Details of Tibetan Buddhist Home Shrines

Tibetan Buddhist home shrines are often ornate. This article from Shambhala discusses in detail what the various objects on a Buddhist home shrine represent, some of which are universal, while others are specific to the Vajrayana tradition.

The seven bowls, mentioned above, that are placed on a Tibetan Buddhist shrine each signify a different type of offering: water for drinking, water for washing, flowers, incense, light, perfume, and food.

The picture below shows seven offering bowls, arranged with what the photographer had available at home. (The photographer’s daughter also added some personal touches of her own to the shrine, in the form white rolls of clay that she made as offerings to each Buddha statue.)

Thangkas, as seen below, are sacred art. They are depictions of the Buddha or a bodhisattva surrounded by images that either tell a story or act as a representation of the deity’s realm. Each color, shape, figure, item, and pattern present on a Thangka conveys a specific meaning. 

If you are interested in Tibetan Buddhism in particular, take a look at this article, which gives detailed information about the process of making offerings on a Tibetan Buddhist shrine, the associated mindset, and the meanings of the offerings themselves.

Vietnamese Home Shrines: Venerating Ancestors of Blood and Spirit

My wife, Trang, is Vietnamese. She grew up watching her mother tend their home shrine or Bàn Thò. She has also seen relatives in Vietnam tending their home altars and altars constructed for specific ceremonies. 

Trang shared with me an important aspect of Vietnamese home shrines: Pictures or other representations of ancestors are placed on the shrine (or a separate shrine constructed just for the ancestors). Blood relatives and spiritual ancestors can both be included.

“A home altar is a way to pay respect to our ancestors and the world around us. It reminds us that whatever we love is also within us.”

Thich Nhat Hanh

Check out this article if you are interested in learning more about the various types of Vietnamese home altars and how they differ depending on the religion(s) practiced by the family and the traditions of the particular locale. 

In a 2021 article in Tricycle, Thich Nhat Hanh reminds us in his typically gentle and practical way that the feel of our space and the intention with which we set up the altar itself are the most important pieces. If we choose meaningful objects and construct and tend our shrine mindfully, then it will be supportive of our practice regardless of whether it meets a specific set of guidelines.

4. How To Source and Arrange the Items on a Home Altar

The central focus of a Buddhist home shrine should be a statue of the Buddha. Other objects should generally be arranged below and/or be smaller than the Buddha. The specifics of how to arrange objects on your shrine will differ depending on its size and shape and the particular Buddhist tradition to which you belong. Thubten Chodron does a good job of showing and explaining the arrangement of ritual objects on her shrine in this video.

If you would like to see some of the different approaches to arranging items on Buddhist home shrines, each of these articles offer their advice on the subject:

Does the source of our objects/materials or how we obtain them matter?

Because a home shrine should reinforce characteristics like integrity, honesty, compassion, mindfulness, and so on, it is important that we feel good about how we obtained the materials used to make our shrine and the objects we place on it. It would not be helpful if every time we looked at an object, we had a memory of something negative or unjust connected with its acquisition.

The article Tibetan Altars by Shambhala Publications speaks directly to this idea of only using things you can obtain without difficulty or negativity (after clicking the link, scroll to the section titled, What’s the proper way to make offerings? The short paragraph in the middle of the section focuses on this topic). 

Using found, inexpensive, and repurposed objects and materials

Trang, Ixora, and I searched the property where we live for materials we could use to build our home shrine. We thought we had found a perfect rock, large and flat, to make up part of the structure. When we saw it up close, however, it turned out that it had some kind of motor oil on it, and there was a dead animal laying just behind it. We decided this was probably not the sort of thing we wanted comprising the base of our shrine. We are still looking for stones, stumps, and/or pieces of wood that we could use to make our “permanent” shrine. For now, a small, old tote covered with a cloth will do.

5. Care & Upkeep for a Buddhist Home Shrine

Caring for a Buddhist home shrine includes making offerings and keeping the space tidy and clean. 

What Kind of Upkeep Should I Do for my Buddhist Home Shrine?

The last paragraph of each of these articles (article 1 & article 2) describe in detail how and when offerings should be removed, as well as how to care for your home altar in general. Guidelines include the following:

  • Change water daily;
  • Dust and tidy regularly;
  • Remove fruit/food before it spoils;
  • Keep flowers fresh;
  • Remember, the most important thing you are offering is your own intention.

Examples of Buddhist Home Shrines

Now, let’s take a look at some examples of home altars. The Brooklyn Zen Center put together a wonderful page (Home altars | Brooklyn Zen Center) describing and showing pictures of numerous home shrines used by members of that community.

At the time the article was written, some of the shrines had been in use for years, while others had been constructed quite recently as a response to people’s desire to create a space supportive of practice at home while social distancing in the early months of the Covid-19 pandemic (credits for each of the following pictures are available at the above link).

These, along with altars shared through links presented earlier in this article, show a wide range of approaches to creating a Buddhist home shrine. That each is unique, composed of traditional and/or personal objects, is a testament to the unique and universal aspects of each individual’s path and practice. We can use home altars as a way to focus our attention on the symbols, teachers, and teachings that are most helpful to us in our quest to develop wisdom and compassion and a life filled with joy and purpose.

How did our process go?

At the outset, it seemed like creating a Buddhist home shrine was going to be a larger undertaking than it turned out to be. I imagined there being more concrete rules for some reason. In actuality, the process has been rewarding and enjoyable, and I think all of us will appreciate adding to and tending it over time. 

As of the time of this writing, our home shrine is still a work in progress. Notably, we have a very small buddha (although, the piece of driftwood the Buddha is sitting on looks a bit like a meditating Buddha), and we have yet to print pictures of loved ones and teachers.

We have already begun making offerings of food and water at our shrine. Each time food is offered or removed, and every change of the water gives us a chance to interact with and be influenced by the altar and its objects. The immediate effect of this simple act is centering and calming. May you find benefit in the process of creating and tending your own Buddhist home shrine.

This article is part of the Shambhala.org Community Blog, which offers reflections by Shambhala community members on their individual journeys in meditation and spirituality.

Mindfulness to Break Bad Habits: 5 Steps to Transform Your Unwanted Habits and Make Positive Changes in Your Life

Mindfulness for Bad Habits

If you are looking to change a habit, mindfulness can be key a strategy. Habits can be hard to break, but the good news is, because they are learned, they can be unlearned. Let’s start at the beginning and take a look at what habits are and how they develop.

Mindfulness for Bad Habits: What are Habits?

Habits are simply learned behaviors that show up on a regular basis and are often automatic, being performed without conscious thought. As humans, we are designed to operate efficiently, so if we can free up our brain space by making something happen automatically, we do. This is partly why habits are so difficult to break. And one reason why mindfulness can help. More on this later.

“Habits are actions that are triggered automatically in response to contextual cues that have been associated with their performance.”

Benjamin Gardner

Habits are not limited to bad behavior. Some habits aren’t ones we want to break. Brushing our teeth or buckling in are examples of beneficial habits. Recognizing that habits are our system’s way of conserving energy can help us develop a non-judgmental attitude toward the ones we would like to toss, but just can’t seem to break. 

Some habits are so ingrained that we believe them to be “who we are,” that they are not something we can change. Identifying with a habit can reinforce it, making it harder to change. Once we realize our habits are not who we are, but what we have learned to do or not do, we have a better shot at changing the automatic behaviors. 

Once we realize our habits are not “who we are,” but what we have learned to do, we have a better shot at changing them. 

Mindfulness for Bad Habits: How Do Habits Develop?

So now that we understand that habits are learned behavior that becomes automatic action or non-action, we can take a look at how we got stuck with the habits we have. How did our “routines” develop? 

Take the example of buckling in. The context (getting in a car, for example) triggers an associated memory (seat belts are required) and then an action (buckling in). We don’t even have to think about it anymore. But when we were first learning to drive, we had to learn that association and subsequent action. It took effort. And likely we resisted. But the more we repeated the action, the more automatic it became. 

The more we repeat an action, the more automatic it becomes.

We can form habits related to emotional expression, interpersonal relationships, and how we take care of ourselves. The list is endless.

Mindfulness for Bad Habits: How Do We Break Habits and Form New Ones?

Once a habit is formed, like driving the same route to work every morning, it becomes automatic. Interrupting that automatic action takes effort. And habits are likely to persist even though the original motivation for the behavior is no longer present. 

So how can we change this automatic behavior once it is carved into our neural networks? How do we jump the tracks to form different associations for cues?

5 Steps to Break Your Unwanted Habits and Make Positive Changes in Your Life

1. Choose your Habit

Decide which habit you want to start with. Maybe that choice jumps right out at you. Maybe you know you want to feel better but aren’t quite aware of what needs to change. Becoming more aware of our habits can help us decide which ones to keep and which we want to change. 

The following exercise can help you not only decide what habits are not serving you, but also make you aware of the many beneficial routines you have adopted which have blended into your life. 

Make a list of your habits, writing the ones you would like to keep in the left hand column, habits you are not sure of in the central column, and habits you are certain you want to ditch in the right. Take some time with this, a few days to a week can really help you become aware of all the ways you act automatically. Be sure to bring a gentle, non-judgmental attitude with you when you do this exercise. It’s not your fault that your system learns shortcuts, and you can only start where you are.

When you have your lists, take a look at the right hand column, those habits you have chosen to eliminate. Rearrange them so the habits you believe might be the easiest to change are first, the most difficult, last.

Choose one from the top. Think about which might be the least challenging to quit. Start small. Work with one habit at a time. Overdoing it could lead to overwhelm, which could lead to giving up. 

2. Slow Down

This is where  mindfulness comes in. We are often not aware of our thoughts, feelings and actions, and that is especially the case when performing a habit. Mindfulness is the act of slowing down to notice, to really pay attention. Meditation can help us develop mindfulness when practiced regularly. Below you will find a guide to a simple form of meditation which can help you develop mindfulness. 

Mindfulness for Bad Habits: Guided Meditation

Choose a place to sit where you feel comfortable. If you are in a chair, sit close to the front edge and make sure your feet are flat on the floor. If you are on a cushion, make sure your knees are lower than your hips. Feel your body upright and relaxed. Imagine your head is suspended from a string attached to the top of your head.

Close your eyes. 

Take a minute to check in. In this meditation, we are not looking to control or change anything. Just see what you can notice. Buddhist nun Pema Chödrön suggests beginning the process by asking yourself some questions.

So the first question is: What are you feeling?

Can you contact what you’re feeling? It could be your mood or your physical body, a quality of drowsiness or peacefulness, agitation or physical pain—anything. Can you contact that nonverbally and just get a sense of what you’re feeling?

To refine this question a little bit: Are there any emotions? Can you be present to them? Can you contact them?

We’re not talking about having to name anything or remembering the history of the emotion, or any- thing like that. Just be present to what you’re feeling right now.

Are you experiencing any physical sensations right now? pain, tightness, relaxation?

What about your thoughts? What’s the quality of your thoughts right now? Is your mind very busy? Is it quite drowsy? Is it surprisingly still? Are your thoughts raging or peaceful or dull? Obsessive or calm?

If I were to ask you personally, right now, ‘What is the quality of your mind at this moment?’ Whether it’s still or wild or dull, whatever it might be, what would you say?”

Pema Chödrön

Just allow whatever feelings you are experiencing to be there, without doing anything about them. They may be uncomfortable. See if you can allow them to be there despite the discomfort. Conversely, you may feel yourself getting excited about some new idea that just popped into your head. You can allow this to just be there as well without doing anything about it.

3. Build Your Awareness

As you practice slowing down and simply allowing feelings, sensations and thoughts to exist, you are building your awareness muscle. By continuing to practice mindfulness, you are making awareness itself a habit. The more you allow yourself to just notice what happens for you when you engage in a habit, without any judgment, the more you can be curious about it, breaking the cycle of automation. 

“When we get curious, we step out of our old fear-based reactive habit patterns, and we step into being.”

Judson Brewer

When we are able to be curious, we shift from operating on autopilot to being more intentional about our actions. But this takes practice and repetition. As with any new habit you want to establish, it’s important to start small and to repeat regularly. 

See if you can practice the meditation for 5 minutes several times a week (every day is ideal). Set a timer, and stick with it even through the discomfort. 

4. Bring Your Awareness to the Habit You Want to Break

As you continue to practice allowing whatever feelings, sensations or even thoughts arise to simply be there without taking any action on them, begin to observe objectively what it feels like to crave that ice cream. What are you noticing in your body? What are you feeling, or thinking before you reach into the freezer? Take some time to reflect on this. 

You can try writing those observations down. Or naming them out loud. You mights still reach for the ice cream, but the more you practice this step, the easier it will be to interrupt the habit and actually choose your next action. See more about this below.

What are the associations that are triggering the pull to act habitually? For example, we know that just getting into the driver’s seat can trigger us to reach for the seat belt. Is there something that made you get up and go toward the freezer? 

Was it getting into your comfy clothes? A show you were watching? The mind makes associations, which is another energy saving mechanism. Being aware of those associations can help increase the chances that we break the cycle of automatic behavior. 

5. Make a Different Choice

Maybe when you were going through that painful breakup, the evenings were especially hard, and ice cream made you feel better. In the beginning, reaching for the ice cream in the evening was comforting. And after repetition, the behavior became automatic. So even now, after the painful sting of the breakup is gone, your brain continues to reach for the comfort, even though you are now in a new, loving relationship and you don’t need comforting in the evening in the same way. 

Being curious about why the trigger/behavior association exists in the first place can help break the cycle of default behavior, or habit. What need was the behavior satisfying in the first place? Does that need continue to exist? If it does, can it be satisfied in a different way? Awareness of the reasons behind the habit can help us make a different choice.

So instead of reaching for that ice cream, intentionally notice the feelings compelling you to reach into the freezer, and make another choice instead. Prepare yourself a cup of tea. Pop some corn. Your system will likely rebel, and you may experience some discomfort, but continue to be curious about what you are feeling. Allow the discomfort to be present while you make your new choice.

Conclusion

It takes repetition, awareness and gentleness to change unwanted habits. Remember to start small, be patient and be persistent.

“A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”

Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching

Remember that when you change your automatic, habitual behavior, you are training your brain to walk a different path. Since we are designed to move toward the familiar, this will cause unease. Stay with it. Breaking bad habits is possible. 

So, the next time you find yourself mindlessly engaging in a bad or unwanted habit, tune in to how your body feels, and be curious about the reasons the habit developed in the first place. Your mindful awareness can help you make a different choice. 

This article is part of the Shambhala.org Community Blog, which offers reflections by Shambhala community members on their individual journeys in meditation and spirituality.

Meditation for Beginners: How to Start Practicing Mindfulness Meditation

Meditation for beginners

In this guide to mindfulness meditation for beginners, we will introduce you to meditation, and we’ll share meditation tips for beginners to help you get started on your meditation journey.

Mindfulness meditation is a simple practice that, done regularly, is also life-changing. Through meditation, we can discover and make friends with our own minds. Let’s get started!

Meditation for Beginners: What Meditation Is

Meditation is a practice that works with our minds, to bring out their natural qualities: at rest, open, and alert. When we meditate regularly, these qualities emerge.

Of the many types of meditation, we recommend you begin with mindfulness meditation.

There are many types of meditation, and we recommend you begin with mindfulness meditation. Mindfulness meditation (Sanskrit shamatha, “calm abiding”) is common across Buddhist traditions, as well as widely used in secular traditions like the Mindfulness-Based Stress Relief practice developed by Jon Kabat-Zinn.

If you practice mindfulness meditation regularly, you will begin to find the calm, relief from stress and anxiety, and clarity that most people associate with meditation practice. From there, meditation is an endless journey, and can have all kinds of helpful effects.

If you are specifically interested in heart-oriented meditation practices for beginners, please see our article on meditation for self-love.

Guided Meditation for Beginners: How to Practice Mindfulness Meditation

Here is senior meditation teacher Arawana Hayashi leading a guided meditation practice for beginners, which explains the practice of mindfulness meditation:

If you enjoyed this video, the full five-part series is available to watch at your own pace.

As a complement, here is meditation instruction from Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, given to early students in 1974.

How to Meditate for Beginners: Simple Instructions

In this section, we’ll talk through general meditation steps for beginners. They’ll match what you’ll find in the videos above.

1. Take a Comfortable Meditation Posture

First, before you begin meditating, find a quiet and comfortable place where you won’t be interrupted. You can sit on a chair or cushion, or even lie down if that’s more comfortable for you.

Meditation posture varies by tradition, and there are numerous kinds of seated (most common), lying, and standing postures. Here are a few possibilities:

Shambhala meditation posture
Shambhala-style seated meditation posture on meditation cushions.
Chair meditation posture
Chair meditation posture (source)
Lying down meditation posture (source)

To start with, I recommend finding a seated posture that is simple and comfortable. Starting in a chair could be good, as this will minimize physical distractions as you’re beginning to meditate. If you do wish to meditate on a cushion, consult an in-depth guide on posture or speak with an experienced meditation instructor. Don’t try lotus position or complicated hand poses to start out, unless you are within a specific tradition that emphasizes these.

Whichever posture you choose, make sure your spine is straight, as this supports a settled and wakeful mind.

Whichever posture you choose, make sure your spine is straight.

2. Mindfulness of Breathing

The next element is mindfulness of your breathing. This means to place simple attention on the sensation of each breath moving in and out of your body.

Place simple attention on your breathing.

This should be gentle. You don’t have to focus hard or “concentrate” on your breathing, the way you might concentrate to take a test.

Instead of “concentration,” mindfulness is more like how we pay attention to riding a bike: we notice riding the bike in a simple way, while also having space for relaxation and appreciation of our body, mind, and environment.

3. Let Thoughts Arise Naturally

As you are sitting (or standing or lying down) with a good posture and noticing your breathing, thoughts will arise continually in mind. You can simply let them come and go, without trying to push them away and also without engaging with them.

For example, if you wonder what you’ll have for lunch, simply notice the thought—without trying to stop it, and also without going into a further visualization of the food you have at home, restaurants in the area, and so on.

Simply let thoughts come and go, without trying to push them away and without engaging with them.

4. Return to the Breath When the Mind Wanders

This leads into one of the most important meditation tips for beginner practitioners: expect your mind to wander, and don’t be upset or discouraged when this happens.

As you meditate, you will find that your mind starts to wander and you become distracted by thoughts. (An example would be noticing that your attention has been occupied by imagining the restaurants in the area.) This is completely normal! Simply notice when your mind has wandered, and gently bring your attention back to your breath.

When you notice that your mind has wandered, gently bring your attention back to your breath.

Do this for as long as you like. As you’re getting familiar with meditation, consider keeping your sessions short and enjoyable. You might especially want to end your session if you find yourself starting to become bored or agitated (which is also completely normal!): you want to prioritize enjoying your meditation practice, rather than pushing through discomfort.

7 Meditation Tips for Beginners

Here are some key tips for beginners to help you set out on your meditation journey:

1. Start with small sessions

Start with small meditation sessions of just a few minutes each. As you get more comfortable with the practice, you can gradually increase the length of your sessions. Again, think twice about “pushing through” difficulty (such as intense boredom or impatience) when you’re starting out, as forming unpleasant associations with meditation early on can make maintaining a regular practice difficult.

2. Make it a daily habit

Like any other practice, meditation will benefit you most if you practice regularly. Try to meditate every day, even if it’s just for a few minutes. One way to do this is to make meditation a part of your daily routine; for example, try meditating for a few minutes first thing in the morning or last thing at night. By making it a part of your routine, you’ll have an easier time sticking with the practice.

To learn how to begin meditating daily, look through this in-depth guide:

3. Always be physically comfortable

Find a comfortable position that allows you to sit, stand, or lie down with a straight spine. Always make sure you are physically comfortable, and do not be afraid to try different kinds of meditation cushions or meditating in a chair to achieve this. Don’t worry about sitting in the lotus position or any other way you “should” meditate, as physical discomfort may make you reluctant to continue.

4. Don’t try to stop thinking

This one needs to be emphasized. Mindfulness meditation is not about clearing your mind completely or being without thoughts. It’s normal for thoughts to come and go, and we can acknowledge them and let them pass without getting caught up in them. It’s also normal for the mind to wander—when you notice it’s been wandering, simply return to gently noticing the breath.

5. Don’t judge yourself

Again, meditation is not a contest with ourselves to clear our minds, remain completely undistracted, or otherwise have what we might imagine a “perfect” meditation experience to be. Meditation is about being gentle—to ourselves and others—and we can start this early by being gentle about our meditation practice itself, and relaxing our sense of how it “should” be going.

6. Pay attention to setting

The place where you meditate can greatly affect your experience. A quiet and peaceful environment can help to create a sense of calm and serenity, allowing you to let go of distractions and focus on your meditation practice. Do your best at home, and consider finding a meditation center near you, which can also carry the added support of a community of other practitioners.

7. Use guided meditations

Guided meditations can be a great way to get started with meditation, especially if you’re new to the practice. Guided meditations are recordings that lead you through a meditation session, providing guidance and instruction along the way. They can be found online or in meditation apps such as Calm or Insight Timer, and can help you relax and open.

If you’re looking for more resources to help you get started with meditation, there are many online resources available such as websites, apps, and videos. We have many beginner-friendly meditation courses available online, including the full Learn to Meditate series with Arawana Hayashi, of which the guided meditation above is a part.

How to Meditate for Beginners: Closing Thoughts

I hope you’ve enjoyed these meditation tips for beginners, and that the free guided meditations for beginners I shared above helps you set off on the right foot.

The key, starting out, is to make sure you are physically and mentally comfortable.

The key, starting out, is to make sure you are physically and mentally comfortable, and experiment to find how meditation best fits into your daily routine.

Meditation can be foundational to a happy life. I hope you have a wonderful first experience with it!

This article is part of the Shambhala.org Community Blog, which offers reflections by Shambhala community members on their individual journeys in meditation and spirituality.

Starting a Meditation Practice: How to Start Meditating Daily

Daily meditation practice

Do you want to know how to start meditating? If you’d like to start a daily meditation practice, you’re in the right place! Whether you wish to meditate for help with stress and anxiety, greater emotional attunement and resilience, stronger relationships, or spiritual growth and wisdom, you’ll see these benefits most when you meditate regularly—ideally at least once each day.

Regular meditation practice brings lots of benefits, from stress relief to better relationships to spiritual growth.

The key point of how to start meditating daily is that meditation become a natural and enjoyable part of your daily rhythm. Below, we’ll explore how to start a meditation practice that you’ll enjoy and benefit from. Let’s dive in.

How to Start a Daily Meditation Practice

Below are some tips for starting to meditate daily that most people find helpful. Use them as a jumping-off point, and experiment with what works for you.

1. When: Set a Specific Time to Meditate Daily

Choose a time and place for your meditation practice that will be consistent every day. Depending on your schedule, this could be in the morning, before you start your day, or at night, just before you go to bed.

Is it better to meditate in the morning or evening? There is no one-size-fits-all answer: the best time for your meditation practice depends on your personal preferences, schedule, and energy levels.

Many people prefer to meditate in the morning—before checking their phone or email—to set a positive tone for the day.

Many people prefer to meditate in the morning, to set an positive tone for the day. By default, I’d suggest you go with meditating in the morning, before you check your phone or email. If you’re specifically working with issues sleeping or working with stress or insomnia, also try meditating in the evening to help release the stress you’ve accumulated throughout the day.

In general, experiment with meditating at different times to determine what works best for you. Then, be consistent with that time. Treat it as something real, an official time in your daily schedule that is committed just to meditation, and that small disruptions like last-minute emails cannot derail.

Treat the time you choose as real, “official,” and committed just to meditation.

You can even set a meditation alarm to remind you at the same time each day, so that you don’t miss meditation by forgetting (or by “forgetting,” when work piles up or you’re binge-watching something). These alarms don’t have to be the loud “wakeup” alarms from your phone’s default Alarm app: there are many meditation notification apps that you can customize to show up as a gentle sound or a phone alert, perhaps even displaying a favorite meditation-related quote. Have a look.

2. Where: Choose a Place for Your Daily Meditation Practice

In general, you should meditate in the same place each day. Try to have a place in your house that is clean, comfortable, quiet, and free from distractions.

You can set up a shrine (or altar) with images that inspire you. Below is a picture of the shrine in my house, which is in a room in my house dedicated to meditation (as well as to yoga or related practices) called a shrine room.

You don’t need a full room for this. Even a small table in your bedroom, which you keep clean and clutter-free, would be plenty to get started.

Daily meditation practice shrine room

Having a designated space will make it easier for you to stick to your daily meditation routine. Not only that, but over time and with consistent practice, you’ll find that the physical space itself begins to be imbued with the mind of meditation.

Having a designated space will help you get into daily practice—and over time, you’ll find that the space itself feels imbued with meditative mind.

This happens in a simple way—it’s “ordinary magic,” not as much the Harry Potter kind. You’ll simply find that, just like your kitchen reminds you of food and cooking, your meditation space reminds you of the mind you encounter during meditation. Over time, this connection between physical space and meditative mind can become a powerful support for your meditation practice and your spiritual life. It’s an element of sacred space, like you’d find if you visited the Notre-Dame de Paris.

3. How: Mindfulness Meditation Instruction

If you’d like to learn how to meditate, you’ll want instruction from an expert teacher. Below are some great options from highly esteemed Buddhist teachers.

Meditation Instruction from Pema Chödrön

Here is meditation instruction from the Shambhala and Tibetan Buddhist nun Pema Chödrön:

Meditation Instruction from Thich Nhat Hanh

Here is meditation instruction from the late Vietnamese Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh:

Meditation Instruction from Arawana Hayashi

Here is meditation instruction from Shambhala teacher and movement artist Arawana Hayashi, from our Shambhala Online course Learn to Meditate.

You can repeat these meditation instruction videos as often as you like, and it’s good to hear instruction from a few different reputable sources to see what’s consistent and what varies.

4. How Long: Start with Short Sessions and Build

How long should you meditate daily? The answer is up to you: your schedule, your level of experience with meditation, and your goals for your meditation practice.

Start with a manageable amount of time (five or ten minutes could be good), and, if you like, slowly build from there.

However, the best and safest approach is always to start with manageable durations for your sessions and slowly build from there. Five or ten minutes per session could be a good starting place.

Prioritize consistency over duration. It’s much better to meditate for five minutes every day than for two hours once a month.

Always prioritize consistency over duration. It’s much better to sit for five minutes every day than for two hours once a month.

Go By Feel

As you continue to explore, to find a good duration for your daily meditation practice, let yourself be guided by how you feel while you meditate for different amounts of time.

To find a good duration for your daily practice, let yourself be guided by how you feel while you meditate for different amounts of time.

In general, you should give yourself some time to settle in, and expect a little bit of resistance or turbulence as this happens. Once your mind does start to settle, it can be nice to meditate for a while that way.

Over time, your body and mind will start to “request” you to end the session, in the form of restlessness, boredom, mild physical discomfort, and so on. It’s good to hang with this for a little while—not to let it “blow you off your cushion,” in other words—so that you can experience those things in an open way, and include them as part of your meditation practice itself.

At the same time, don’t push it into a test of grit or endurance: when your body and mind are ready to end the session, go ahead and close.

Avoid Tests of Endurance

Speaking from personal experience, one thing I would definitely not recommend is “powering through” long periods of very unpleasant meditation practice, whether to reach a set duration or for another reason.

Do not “power through” long periods of very unpleasant meditation practice.

You might find advice on meditation encouraging this more strong or stoic approach, perhaps especially in more traditional approaches to meditation.

My reason for not recommending it for people new to meditation is this: our bodies remember things. Whatever your reasons for subjecting yourselves to very unpleasant experiences in meditation, if your body starts associating meditation with “extreme boredom,” “physical pain,” “emotional turmoil,” and so on, then you’re going to have a very hard time meditating regularly from there on out.

If you’re finding meditation unpleasant, seek support to work with the reasons why.

If you’re finding meditation very unpleasant, you should seek additional supports to work with the reasons why. Please note, also, that almost all of us experience very unpleasant passages in our meditation practice at some point, as we get more familiar with meditation itself. Perhaps the most common culprit is “trying to stop thinking,” so you can start there as you look into the source of the challenge.

Overall, as you become more comfortable and experienced, you can gradually increase the length of your practice. Remember, consistency is more important than the duration of your meditation sessions.

Experiment with Guided Meditation Apps or Audio

Related to the topic of session length is whether or not you use a guided meditation. Guided meditation practices can be a great support for your practice, and they’ll also give your practice session a set duration, without that duration feeling like a long breath hold.

Guided meditation practices can be a great support, and they’ll also give your practice session a set duration.

Give them a try and see how they feel. See our Learn to Meditate course series, look on YouTube for guided meditations that suit you well, or try an app like Calm, Headspace, or Insight Timer.

How to Start Meditating: Maintaining and Adapting Your Daily Practice

As with any other practice or discipline, maintaining a consistent daily meditation practice can be a challenge, due to common obstacles such as lack of time, distractions, and self-doubt.

Our meditation practice has distinct rhythms, and will feel very different at different times: everything from free and joyful to challenging and stuck.

Our meditation practice will feel very different at different times. We can keep a steady practice throughout this ebb and flow.

Throughout this ebb and flow, we can maintain a consistent daily meditation practice. Here are some tips to consider.

1. Tailor Your Practice to Your Needs

Your practice will change and flex with your life: your schedule, stresses, energy level, work hours, and so on. As you are setting your daily meditation routine, consider your daily schedule and responsibilities. Choose a schedule that is sustainable for your life. From there, try to be consistent, but be willing to make adjustments as needed.

This also goes for your practice each day. A big point of meditation is to experience all the rhythms of our lives, so don’t just skip meditation on days when you’re feeling “off.”

Don’t skip meditation when you’re feeling “off”—but do be gentle and flexible.

On the other hand, acknowledge that you do feel differently on different days, and don’t force yourself through long meditation experiences on days when you’re in a lot of emotional pain, exhausted, distracted, etc.

Again, prioritize quality over quantity. This is especially important when you’re starting out: You want meditation to be something you enjoy, not something you endure.

2. Experiment with Different Techniques

There are numerous meditation techniques available, each with unique benefits and approaches. As you progress in your practice, consider experimenting with different methods to find what works best for you. A few popular techniques include:

  • Mindfulness meditation practice: Place your attention on your breath or bodily sensations, observing your thoughts and emotions without judgment.
  • Loving-kindness meditation and compassion meditation: Cultivate feelings of compassion and love for yourself and others by repeating phrases such as “May I be happy, may I be healthy, may I be safe.”
  • Body scan meditation: Slowly move your attention through different parts of your body, releasing tension and promoting relaxation.

As you get into meditation, and especially if you embark on a spiritual path, you’ll discover many meditation practices, each with unique benefits.

3. Look for Meditation Community

You can always meditate on your own, based on books, videos, and other supports. In the long run, though, you’ll find that a community of fellow meditators will be among the most important supports for your meditation practice.

A community of fellow meditators is among the most important supports for your meditation practice.

Look around to see who has similar meditation interests to yours. This could be anything from a local mindfulness Meetup, to making a relationship with your local Shambhala centre or other meditation center, to finding a meditation community online.

4. Integrate Meditative Mind into Your Daily Life

In addition to formal meditation, it’s good to touch in with your practice throughout the day.

When I have a few spare moments, I like to let my body relax, and take a few long breaths in and out to let energy circulate.

When I get a few spare moments, I personally like to let my body relax, and take a few long breaths in and out. Feeling connected to my body and my breathing helps energy circulate for me—that’s usually when I can both notice how I’m feeling, and let those feelings circulate fully through my body and mind.

How to Start Meditating: Working With Common Challenges in Daily Meditation

1. Working with Wandering Attention

Wandering attention is a common challenge for both beginners and experienced meditators. Developing “calm abiding”—shamatha, the Sanskrit term for mindfulness meditation—is a process.

When your attention begins to drift during meditation, try the following:

  1. When you recognize that the attention has wandered, “let go of” the wandering thought or distracting emotion by relaxing the attention placed upon it.
  2. Return to the object of mindfulness: Bring your attention back to your breath, to the sounds around you, or to whatever experience upon which you place attention during your meditation practice.
  3. Relax: Relax with your object of mindfulness by releasing any tension you feel in your body. This might feel a bit like the way your body opens up during a sigh of relief.

One of the most important things for a daily meditation practice is being gentle with wandering attention.

One of the most important things for a daily meditation practice is being gentle with wandering attention. Our attention will wander, and if we try to control it tightly, meditation can become very difficult and unpleasant. (It’ll also make our attention more likely to wander, as holding our mindfulness too tightly creates a rebound effect.)

Noticing that your attention has been wandering can be a pleasant reminder to relax, rather than an unpleasant experience of disappointment.

Noticing that your attention has been wandering can be a pleasant reminder to relax, rather than an unpleasant experience of disappointment. See meditation as a process of simply being here, including as the attention moves about, and not as a way to “master” or “control,” and your practice will be set up for success in the long temr.

2. Working with Restlessness and Boredom

Almost all meditators experience boredom as we get deeper into the practice, and learning to rest with boredom can be a profound experience. However, “hot” restlessness and boredom is quite unpleasant, and can be a significant obstacle to maintaining a consistent meditation practice. If you find something extremely boring, it’s hard to commit to doing that thing every day!

To work with this, you can experiment with different techniques—use or don’t use a guided meditation app, for example, or use a different object of mindfulness (the breath, body sensations, sounds in your environment). See what feels best to you, and follow your instincts.

Also, if you’re getting quite bored as you meditate, you may also be sitting for too long per session. Try shorter sessions—again, don’t try to push it too much in your practice.

If you’re getting bored as you meditate, you may be sitting for too long per session.

Learning from Boredom

We might notice different types or causes of boredom in our practice.

One common cause of boredom is the effort to practice mindfulness while experiencing a lot of thoughts. This can feel like swatting away clouds of ever-buzzing insects, and is “boring” in the hot, angry way that a picnic continually interrupted by clouds of mosquitos would be.

If we are experiencing this type of hot boredom, relaxation—including physical relaxation—gentleness, and kindness to ourselves are the best approach. Try physically relaxing the muscles in your body and taking a deep breath. Don’t fight your thoughts, but try to create an open and gentle environment for them and for your other experiences.

Relaxation, gentleness, and kindness to oneself are most helpful for working with hot boredom amid clouds of thoughts.

We may also get bored because we are used to seeking out entertaining, enjoyable, or worthwhile experiences. This might be a subtle feeling that meditation is not a good use of time (not as good a use as whatever else we might want to do).

If we crave entertainment, we can experiment with appreciating the world we see and hear around us as we meditate.

To work with this, we can experiment with appreciating the world we see and hear around us as we meditate. Wood floorboards, the sound of passing cars, or the feeling of the body taking a healthy breath can be surprisingly lovely, if we experience them with a mind that notices their loveliness.

What we experience as boredom may also be fear or anxiety: fear of something we don’t want to look at, like a deeper emotional upset that our thoughts are partially obscuring.

Our boredom may also be related to fear or anxiety. Learning to feel those feelings directly in our bodies can help us be be gentle and kind with ourselves.

Learning to notice tension in our bodies can help us feel the fear directly, which can then help us relax and be gentle and kind with ourselves. You might notice a sensation like part of you (for example, your chest), is in a “force field” of buzzy, unpleasant, anxious energy, or that your upper stomach feels like it’s tensing or “holding its breath” the way you might right before you go on stage.

If you do notice these or other feelings of anxiety within your boredom, try feeling them with kindness and a willingness to open to them, and you may find that they begin to be more in communication with the rest of your system, and less static and “stuck.”

3. Working with Physical Discomfort

In my view, meditation should be physically comfortable. Of course, sitting on a cushion is new for our bodies, so we’ll have to adjust to some extent, but if meditation is causing you real physical discomfort, I’d suggest working to alleviate that.

Meditation should be physically comfortable.

Here are some things you can try:

  • Adjust your posture: Ensure your back is upright but not tight, shoulders are relaxed, and head is held high with your chin slightly tucked. Experiment with different seating options, such as cushions or chairs, to find what works best for you.
  • If you’re sitting on a cushion, make sure it’s the right height. Your knees should generally be below your hips. You can buy all different kinds of cushions and bolsters, so experiment with what feels right for you.
  • Stretch beforehand: Slightly stretching your muscles before meditation can help prevent stiffness and discomfort during your practice. You might especially want to stretch your outer hips (your IT band), as in my experience lots of sitting cross-legged can stiffen this area.
  • Listen to your body: If you experience persistent pain during meditation, adjust your posture or consider trying a different technique, such as lying down, sitting in a chair, standing up, or practicing walking meditation. Do try to have a straight back, though, whichever posture you choose.

Again, don’t feel like you’re doing something wrong if you find yourself sitting in a chair, lying on your bed, or standing up, if that’s what’s comfortable. Meditation is less about being in a specific posture, and more about working with each moment as it arises.

How to Start a Daily Meditation Practice: Get Started Today

The advice above should have you equipped with everything you need to start meditating daily. The important thing is that you start gently but consistently, and make meditation a part of your routine that you’ll look forward to. Do what works for you, and don’t be afraid to experiment freely.

Do what works for you, and don’t be afraid to experiment.

Meditating daily is one of the best things you can do for your health, happiness, relationships, and spiritual growth. Good luck, and if there’s any further help or advice we can offer you, please let us know in the comments below!

This article is part of the Shambhala.org Community Blog, which offers reflections by Shambhala community members on their individual journeys in meditation and spirituality.

Buddhism and Psychedelics: A Practitioner’s Personal Experiences and Reflections

buddhism and psychedelics

Buddhism and psychedelics have a long and mixed history in the West. Overall, the question of how psychedelics and Buddhism mix—and how, when, and whether these experiences benefit the practitioner’s Buddhist and spiritual path—remains a lively one.

I am a lifelong Buddhist practitioner, and beginning in my early thirties, I have had several experiences with psychedelic substances (also called entheogens), specifically psilocybin and ayahuasca.

I have personally found psychedelics extremely helpful on my Buddhist and spiritual path. My experiences are, of course, unique to me, but I hope that sharing and reflecting on them can illuminate some ways in which Buddhist practice and psychedelic experiences might support one another.

Psychedelics and Buddhism: General Background and Caution

To ground the discussion, this section offers general information (not from my personal experience) on psychedelics and their intersection with spirituality, including a caution about the dangers of psychedelics.

General Intersections of Psychedelics and Spirituality

After a history of confusion and boycott in the 20th century, psychedelic use is now experiencing a cultural resurgence in North America, including renewed and rigorous scientific study.

As a mini-summary of some recent results in this field, psychedelics are known to alter people’s beliefs “away from ‘physicalist’ or ‘materialist’ views,” and to directly induce spiritual or mystical experiences. For example, in a study published in 2006, psilocybin delivered in a controlled setting led to the following results:

Twenty-two of the 36 volunteers reported having a “complete” mystical experience, compared to four of those getting methylphenidate.

That experience included such things as a sense of pure awareness and a merging with ultimate reality, a transcendence of time and space, a feeling of sacredness or awe, and deeply felt positive mood like joy, peace and love. People say “they can’t possibly put it into words,” Griffiths said.

Two months later, 24 of the participants filled out a questionnaire. Two-thirds called their reaction to psilocybin one of the five top most meaningful experiences of their lives. On another measure, one-third called it the most spiritually significant experience of their lives, with another 40% ranking it in the top five.

About 80 per cent said that because of the psilocybin experience, they still had a sense of well-being or life satisfaction that was raised either “moderately” or “very much.”

For a detailed, book-length exploration of the current intertwining of Western Buddhism and psychedelic use, read Altered States: Buddhism and Psychedelic Spirituality in America.

Caution on the Danger of Psychedelics

Psychedelics, and mind-altering substances in general, are extremely dangerous.

Psychedelics, and mind-altering substances in general, are extremely dangerous. They can lead to permanent psychotic symptoms, and can take people into terrifying experiences that depress or destabilize us for years. (Less than two weeks ago, I spoke to someone who experienced that life is a hell realm upon taking ayahuasca, and who lived in this experience for several years.)

Psychedelics can cause us to kill ourselves and others. In the week before I was writing this, there were news articles, exactly timed together, about Oregon decriminalizing magic mushrooms, and then about an Oregonian airline pilot who attempted to kill himself and 82 other people two days after consuming psilocybin while badly depressed. The pilot’s statements (which include “I pulled both emergency shut off handles because I thought I was dreaming and I just wanna wake up”) are extremely chilling and could not speak more loudly to the need for caution around these substances.

As well, mind-altering substances can of course be addictive. Even substances which are not physically addictive could still be abused or overused if we grow attached or fascinated, which can ruin our health, our sanity, and our lives.

In my encounters with mind-altering substances, I have felt I was taking a risk: offering my sanity to these experiences, and hoping to receive it back enhanced—but please, at least, unharmed.

In my own, relatively few, encounters with mind-altering substances, I have always felt I was taking a risk: offering my cherished sanity to these experiences, and hoping to receive it back enhanced—but please, at the very least, unharmed. This has been my personal experience with psychedelics and Buddhism, but that is absolutely not true for everyone—including even for everyone I know personally—and I urge caution.

Some Specific Cautions Around Psychedelics

First, psychedelics are simply never safe for some people, including people with personal or family histories of psychiatric disorders like schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. Psychedelics are known to exacerbate these disorders when present, and they are also known to cause the onset of latent psychotic disorders.

Psychedelics are never safe for some people, especially people with personal or family histories of schizophrenia or bipolar disorder.

Psychedelics can also interact with our life experiences—such as grief or depression—in awful ways, especially when taken in excessive doses in an uncontrolled setting. The pilot’s story mentioned above is an example, and demonstrates that the results can be not merely disturbing but deadly.

If you are considering taking mind-altering substances, please carefully consult reputable sources on how to do so safely and responsibly. If you’d like a place to start, here is a good overview article from The New York Times.

If you are considering taking mind-altering substances, please carefully consult reputable sources on doing so safely and responsibly.

Psychedelics and Buddhism: Personal Experiences

In this section, I’ll talk about my personal experiences combining psychedelic substances and lifelong active Buddhist practice, broken down by the two substances I’ve tried.

Psilocybin

I first took psilocybin in 2019, when a friend from my young meditator’s group gifted me enough for two moderate to large adult doses.

First Psilocybin Experience

The main experience of the first dose was that I entered into conversation with two entities, one male and one female. When I asked the female entity her name, she expressed (not in words but in a feeling) a feeling of exasperation at the question, an eye-rolling quality. We had a fountain in our front yard, and she directed my attention to the sound of trickling water, which was suddenly quite beautiful, and expressed the feeling, Call me that. She also encouraged me to pursue sexual satisfaction, even outside my marriage. I didn’t like that, and I said “What about my marriage vows?” She shrugged, like I was bringing up something trivial. I continued to not like the implied dishonesty, and I felt our value systems were different.

The male entity had a very firm, military quality. At the time, I was making mistakes in parenting my newborn daughter. The male entity told me to look in the bathroom mirror, which caused me to laugh in embarrassment. He told me to do it again, and this repeated until my laughter subsided. I found myself standing at attention, looking at myself quite seriously in the mirror, and I felt that the male presence approved, with the sense that “I had the makings of a good soldier”: not in any violent sense, but in showing up as a good father and husband and family member.

Ongoing Effects of This Experience

This experience helped me become a better parent at a crucial time, but it didn’t lead to lasting changes in my Buddhist practice. However, I do believe the entities I spoke to may have been specific deities from Tibetan Buddhism—I’m not sure, as the male deity I suspect (Chakrasamvara) is a practice I don’t currently have.

Second Psilocybin Experience

My second experience with psilocybin, about six months after the first one, was extremely powerful, and has had an enduringly positive effect on my Buddhist practice.

Throughout the experience, which lasted all night, I felt a very strong bodily joy, which rolled through my body in waves. I found myself physically doing body rolls (the dance move) through much of the night—which, oddly, my wife had commented previously that I was unable to do.

The joy was not only physical or emotional, but entered or pervaded other domains of my experience. In particular, I found that doing math brought an immediate and very strong experience of joy that was both bodily and emotional, like scoring a touchdown might feel in normal life. This satisfaction was inseparable from the truth of it: the truth was inherently satisfying, like how cherries taste inherently sweet. The overall sense was that math feels good to the universe itself—a teeming, all-pervasive joy—and that I got to experience that joy for a time.

Ongoing Effects of This Experience

This experience has had two powerful long-term effects on my Buddhist practice. The most important is that it opened my subtle body. The increased physical sensitivity that I experienced as joy has continued since this experience, and the way energy rises through my body (and what causes it to become blocked, often fear in my upper stomach or heavy concept in my forehead) now forms a very vibrant and helpful part of my spiritual practice. Without knowing much about the topic, I suspect that this experience may have been similar to a kundalini awakening.

Second, the experience that existence might feel good to itself has given me a much more direct sense of the possibilities of primordial goodness—as distinct from the more tentative sense that “life has lots of positives in it, if you don’t get overwhelmed by the negatives.” I’m not sure whether the universe actually feels good to itself or not, but the glimpse of “the-universe-to-itself” has opened my experience of existence significantly, like briefly glimpsing a third dimension within an otherwise flat life.

Ayahuasca

At the beginning of this month (October 2023), I attended an ayahuasca retreat in Colombia. The four-day retreat included two ayahuasca experiences, called ceremonies, which lasted from 6 PM until midnight on two consecutive days.

First Ceremony

The first ceremony was challenging, and overall felt like pressing both a car’s gas and brakes. I gradually became aware that I was bringing an eager, curious, scientific, expecting, comparing, assessing mind to the experience, and that this quality of mind was an impediment. Toward the end of the experience, I got a clear statement from a no-nonsense female energy (more a feeling, with my own words following the feeling), like: “Your ability to think and conceptualize things is fine—it’s a good thing to have—but it can sometimes get in the way. This is one of those times, and you need to both know how to disengage it and be willing to do so.”

I believe this energy was ayahuasca itself (often called Madre Ayahuasca). This energy struck me, in both this and the following ceremony, as a feminine, somewhat brusque healing energy that has no use for and no interest in our concepts—the way an emergency room nurse might ignore your small talk while stabilizing you.

In keeping with this bodily focus, the main enduring effect of this ceremony was an enforced reduction of concept, in the form of a bad headache that lasted throughout the following day. My forehead (the central region an inch or so above my eyebrows) felt like crushed crystal. It was partly a feeling of cognitive burnout; if I took the SATs five times in one day, I might get a similar headache. Throughout the following day, if I tried to think about complex things—to speculate about possibilities, argue a point, or any of the kind of thinking that might “furrow one’s brow”—I immediately felt pain.

Ongoing Effects of This Experience

As I had a second ayahuasca ceremony the following day, I’m unsure what persistent effects this experience had. I can name, however, more ability and willingness to disengage my thinking, assessing, cognizing mind when needed, and a sense of being informed (or even chastened) that this is often needed.

Second Ceremony

I was worried headed into this ceremony, as I still had the headache, but fortunately it lifted within the first hour or so. This ceremony was extremely powerful and helpful for me.

An initial experience was the sense that I might be able to connect to occurrences from the past or future, if there was something I wished to explore. I wished to travel to the past to directly hear teachings from Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, who died when I was one year old. I assumed that this would lead to some kind of out-of-body experience, but actually what happened is that the light rain that had begun a few minutes prior turned into a downpour with a full thunderstorm. I have a very acute sense of hearing, and I found that the panoramic sound of the heavy rain, along with the intermittent thunder, was extremely beautiful. I got the sense that this sound was the teaching, and when I listened in this way, I found that each individual sound had the sacred quality of dharma. My bodhisattva name is Chödra Thaye, “Limitless Dharma Sound,” and I felt that I experienced directly how wonderful “limitless dharma sound” actually is—which also felt partly like a statement of affection or encouragement for me on my own path. I also felt clear that this was an experience of connection with Trungpa Rinpoche, especially because of the dense, thundering, wildly magical quality of the storm.

Later, I began to experience a strong psychological light, which manifested in four ways. The first, and I believe primary, was as a field of light, white and with no distinct borders, basically an unbordered field of white light within the space of mind. The other manifestations seemed to bring out elements of this light.

The second manifestation I recognized as the Tibetan Buddhist deity Vajrasattva (Sanskrit “Indestructible Being,” Tibetan Dorje Sempa, “Indestructible Mind”). In practices I’ve done involving Vajrasattva, he symbolizes purity, and I’ve always experienced him as having a cool moonlit quality. In this case, though, he was blazing with white light too brightly to make out the individual features of his face or body (although looking at him was not painful), and was also within a comet-shaped field of the same blazing light.

Vajrasattva
Vajrasattva

The images above are Vajrasattva somewhat as he appeared (but all colors would have been white and too bright to see features distinctly, and he wasn’t specifically giving off “spiky” rays of light).

The third and fourth manifestations were a disclike yellow-white sun “standing” immediately behind my back, which then also rolled itself into a tube of light (the size of a post office mailing tube) that ran from the base of my body through the top of my head. Overall, the light was psychological—in the “mind’s eye,” like if you imagine a landscape—but I did notice an odd experience where, when I positioned my body so that the tube of light passed through my eyes (like a flashlight), the effect became physically visual.

As I experienced the field of light, I also began to connect with a variety of confused and potentially harmful energies, which I experienced as being relatively small, usually about the size of badgers, and covered with something like heavy coal dust. I found that I could redirect these energies—almost physically, like judo, but more gently and with smaller creatures—such that they opened up or liberated into the field of light. This was part of a longer set of experiences that were quite wrathful, including times where I found myself making faces that I recognized from Māori haka.

Ongoing Effects of This Experience

The first enduring effect of this experience, so far, is that I feel a strong connection to light, to luminosity, and to Vajrasattva. In retrospect, Vajrasattva has always symbolized not merely purity but more broadly the luminosity aspect of enlightened mind, and this aspect and its many associations across Kagyu and Nyingma Buddhism and the Shambhala teachings are much clearer to me now.

Following the wrathful experiences in this ceremony, I have also found myself much more comfortable with the fourth karma (form of enlightened action in Tibetan Buddhism), “destroying.” This form of action puts an end to things that aren’t working; an example would be taking a drink out of the hand of an inebriated family member. Previously, I knew this action was needed, but to me it always felt violent—like killing something, extinguishing it into oblivion. My experiences helping bring confused energies into light made me feel that destroying, as enlightened action, isn’t extinguishing at all; instead, it’s liberating both oneself and others from painfully confusing situations and into peace and openness, which are among the innate qualities of the light itself.

Psychedelics and Buddhism: Overall Personal Reflections

In my experiences with psychedelics, I’ve developed a few tentative conclusions, which I hope are helpful.

1. Psychedelics Can Support Consistent Buddhist Practice

Each of my experiences with psychedelics is like being shown a subset of spiritual experiences—this or that energy, presence, or quality of mind. However, without an ongoing spiritual practices, I feel that those experiences will not remain, and there won’t be context for them. (Psychedelic users do speak, sometimes piercingly, about this problem.)

To me, psychedelic experiences feel like being shown different parts of the spiritual path, which are a helpful ally to walking the spiritual path in a daily, consistent spiritual practice.

So to me, psychedelic experiences feels like being shown different parts of the spiritual path—this grove of trees, that rest area, this steep hill. Seeing these unglimpsed parts is extremely helpful, and should be an ally to the process of walking the spiritual path, which is not a job for mind-altering substances but for daily, consistent spiritual practice.

2. Grounding in Nonattachment Can Help with Psychedelic Experiences

I find that psychedelic experiences (and drug experiences more broadly) tend very much to show me something: voices, connections, inspirations, and so on. They are very “content-ful” experiences.

What I feel is so helpful about Buddhism is that it doesn’t view content as being the whole story. There is also the quality of space: freedom, nonconcept, emptiness (Sanskrit shunyata), the open, unfixed nature of mind. This balance of form and emptiness—of “content” and its environment and nature—really feels helpful in not getting attached to vivid psychedelic experiences.

In other words, I’ve found it very helpful not to have the impulse to do things like:

  • Worship the presences or energies I encountered.
  • Try to encounter those energies again, or feel bereft without them.
  • Feel uniquely “chosen” or special based on experiences I’ve had.

I feel that the Buddhist training in nonattachment to the occurrences of mind can help furnish a stable base for psychedelic experiences.

Overall, I feel that the Buddhist training in nonattachment to the occurrences of mind can help furnish a wonderfully stable base for psychedelic experiences.

3. Psychedelic Experiences Can Unlock Elements of Spirituality

At times, I’ve found that psychedelic experiences reveal something helpful and true on my Buddhist path, and strongly supported by the Buddhist teachings themselves—and which I fear I never would have seen otherwise. I don’t know, for example, when my body would have unlocked energetically the way it did during my second psilocybin experience, and my spiritual path is hugely richer for it.

Psychedelic experiences have at times revealed something helpful and true on my Buddhist path, and that I fear I never would have seen otherwise.

This ties into a topic that I am fascinated by, which is trauma. I feel that what stops our spiritual paths is rarely a lack of effort—or that we don’t know the right words or concepts—but rather that we are often blocked by our trauma. An example is the hesitation I always had around the karma of “destroying,” which feel traceable to a number of overwhelming experiences I had as a child.

In my experience, long meditation retreats and other spiritual practices can unlock and reintegrate trauma, but they do not do so as quickly as psychedelics can—if everything goes right. Trauma therapy, which I’ve also tried, is definitely safer than psychedelics and is very effective for trauma, but is also comparatively slow and can be quite expensive.

I feel that Buddhism, as I’ve practiced it, does not have enough means for healing our existing trauma. For me, psychedelics are definitely a support in this area.

I feel that a major challenge in Buddhism is that it does not do enough to address our trauma—and the spiritually limiting effects of carrying it. For me, psychedelics have been one major support in this area.

Buddhism and Psychedelics: Summing Up My Experiences

I can say confidently that my Buddhist practice and spiritual path would not be where it is if I had not experimented with psychedelics. For this reason, I hope to continue to explore psychedelics—again, with the hope and the intention of doing so safely.

More Resources on Psychedelics and Buddhism

For a broader look than these personal experiences, I strongly recommend Shambhala teacher Sara Lewis’s exploration of the topic, Buddhism, Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy and the Spiritual Path.

https://shambhala.org/event/660789-buddhism-psychedelic-assisted-therapy-and-the-spiritual-path/

Thank you for reading!

This article is part of the Shambhala.org Community Blog, which offers reflections by Shambhala community members on their individual journeys in meditation and spirituality.

Animals in Buddhism: What is the Buddhist View of Animal Rights?

animals in tibetan buddhism

I am an animal person. For as long as I can remember, I have adored animals of all species, shapes, and sizes, regardless of their “likeableness,” age or disposition, and I often feel I can relate much more easily with non-human animals than with my fellow human beings. In fact, my first memory is of my older siblings’ black bunny on our screened-in-porch in midwestern Ohio. My sister, six years my senior, still exclaims, “I can’t believe you remember Licorice. You were so young.”

I have been working  for Shambhala for a bit over a year, and I began to wonder about where animals stand in Tibetan Buddhism. I especially wondered how it views eating meat. In my own life, I shifted in and out of vegetarianism until I watched a few documentaries on the treatment of animals within the factory farming and dairy industries. I just couldn’t shake the images from my mind, and nearly four years later, I am a vegan. I don’t believe a vegan diet is the healthiest choice for all people, but I did want to know where Buddhism stands on the subject. Isn’t Buddhism about doing no harm (ahimsa)? How is eating meat permissible if this is a guiding principle of Buddhist ethics?

This article explores overall Buddhist views on animals and animal rights, and in paritcular the range of views present in Tibetan Buddhism.

Animals in Buddhism: The Animal Realm

Buddhist cosmology views animals in a specific way: as sentient beings born into the animal realm, one of the “Six Realms” into which beings can take rebirth.

Buddhism views animals as sentient beings born into the animal realm, one of the “Six Realms” into which beings can take rebirth.

According to teachings common across Buddhist traditions, saṃsāra (the continuous cycle of life, death and rebirth) contains six realms, which include, in order, the “lower” realms of hell beings, hungry ghosts, and animals, and the “higher” realms of humans, demigods, and gods. Karma plays a key role in which realm we’re reborn into.

Geoffrey Barstow, an American religious historian and Buddhist scholar whose research focuses on Tibetan Buddhist ideas about animal ethics and vegetarianism, summarizes what he feels the “Six Realms” teaches about animal rights in Buddhism:

“While humans and animals belong to distinct realms of existence, they are not fundamentally different types of beings, and the boundary between their realms is not fixed or impassable.”

Geoffrey Barstow

Animal Rights in Buddhism: Does Tibetan Buddhism Require Vegetarianism?

Tibetan Buddhism has an active tradition of expressing compassion for animals—for example, below in The Autobiography of Jigmé Lingpa, a master of Nyingma Buddhism living in the 18th century CE:

“Having now become animals, your fathers, mothers, siblings and friends from previous lives tremble with fear in the butcher’s sinful hands, tears streaming from their eyes, and panting for breath. In that state they wonder what to do. Alas, there is no refuge! There is nowhere to go! Thinking that, right now in this place, they may be killed, their urgent suffering is great.”

These practices extended into Tibetan culture. For example, wealthy individuals would on occasion purchase land simply to prohibit hunting, therefore giving animals the “gift of fearlessness” from being stalked and killed by human beings. This sensibility extends to the present day with, for example, community-organized “lobster releases” back into the ocean, and with some contemporary Buddhist masters strongly advocating that only vegetarianism is consistent with Buddhist principles.

As Barstow writes:

“The division between human and animal becomes even more blurred when we consider the common practice of intentionally viewing an animal as no different from one’s own mother.”

Geoffrey Barstow

As Barstow describes, “This contemplative practice draws on the belief that all beings have lived an infinite number of lives: at some point in the past, simple maths suggests that any two beings have, in fact, been related as mother and child. In order to develop compassion towards animals, practitioners are sometimes asked to reflect on this and to see the animal in front of them as no different from their mother in this life, worthy of gratitude and love.”

Despite these currents within Tibetan Buddhism, it is not a strictly vegetarian culture, as we discuss below.

Buddhism and Meat Eating: The Buddha’s Three-Fold Rule

The monastic rules common across Buddhist traditions contain something called The Buddha’s Three-Fold Rule, in which if these three guidelines are taken into account, it is admissible for monks and nuns to eat meat. This is a loophole around the first of The Five Precepts in Buddhism, which is to abstain from killing.

When addressing monks, the Buddha is said to have stated, “Do not eat meat knowing that it has been killed specially for (your) use; I allow the use of fish and meat blameless in three ways, unseen, unheard and unsuspected (Gunasekara).” 

In general, this rule comes to mean monks (there is some controversy here as to whether this is afforded to lay people) are sanctioned by the Buddha to eat meat if they did not witness the killing and they were not told or under any impression that the animal was slaughtered specifically for them to eat. This guideline may have stemmed from Theravada Buddhism in which monastics were not allowed to refuse or be picky about food given to them, even meat, so long as the animal’s life was not ended explicitly for their (the monks) consumption. It may also funnel down to a matter of mindset.

There is also a directive of a monk not being permitted to refuse food given to them by a lay person to eat. And still, there are also those who practice the belief that it is pardonable to eat meat when in not doing so one may bring harm, illness or death upon themselves or when participating in tantric rituals. We will explore these concepts in more detail below.

Vegetarianism Across Buddhist Communities

Humans’ relationship to animals in Buddhist communities are partly a result of circumstance. Tibet’s high altitude and harsh climate may have made eating meat unavoidable. During the winter months, when vegetables were unobtainable, Tibetan monks may have needed to eat animal meat as means of survival during the harsh season. 

Even according to Shabkar Tsokdrük Rangdröl, a devoted proponent of vegetarianism and animal ethics in Tibetan literature, it is acceptable to eat meat when not doing so would lead a person to possible death: 

“[It is allowed] if one is going on a long journey, such as from [the northeastern region of] Amdo to Central Tibet, and can find no other food. If you do not eat meat, your life will be in danger. Similarly, if one is weakened by illness and on the verge of death, where not eating meat would cause them to die. If a great Bodhisattva who dwells on the grounds of liberation were to die, the torch of the teachings would be extinguished, while if they lived a long time it would be very beneficial for the teachings and beings.”

Barstow finds that Tibetan Buddhism places clear precedence on human life. While all sentient beings deserve compassion and have Buddha-Nature, humans are thought to have superiority, because of their ability to teach, receive, and practice the Dharma. This manner of thinking appears to hold true even for those who are faithful advocates of animal rights and hope for compassion towards all sentient beings.

Outside Tibetan Buddhism, the East Asian Mahayana Buddhist traditions are known for the widespread adoption of vegetarianism, at least among their monastic populations:

  • Chinese Buddhism: Most Chinese Buddhist monks and nuns are vegetarian, and the monastic codes often include guidelines that advocate for vegetarianism. Lay followers are also encouraged to be vegetarian, especially on specific lunar calendar days each month.
  • Vietnamese Buddhism: Vietnamese monks and nuns commonly practice vegetarianism, and lay followers are encouraged to do so as well, particularly on certain observance days.
  • Korean Buddhism: While vegetarianism is common among Korean Buddhist monastics, it’s not as universally practiced as in Chinese or Vietnamese traditions. Lay followers may also choose to be vegetarian, but it’s not mandatory.

Animal Rights in Buddhism: A Barstow Conclusion

Geoffrey Barstow sums up the complex topic of animal rights within Tibetan Buddhism beautifully:

“Like other forms of Buddhism, the Tibetan tradition is diverse, with a variety of distinct practices and points of view…

Most Tibetan thinkers agree on the basic point that animal suffering matters, and that humans should take that suffering into account when acting in the world.

…Animals are sentient beings, just as humans are. As such, they have rich mental lives, thinking, feeling, and suffering in ways that would be familiar to any human.

…Animals were assumed to be less intelligent than humans, and incapable of religious practice. Human needs, therefore, did outweigh animal needs. However, this does not mean [animal needs were] inconsequential.

…A variety of common practices reinforced the idea that while animals were below humans, they nevertheless mattered a great deal.”

Animal Rights in Buddhism: A Personal Conclusion

When writing this article, I did my best to not allow my passion for animal welfare to be interwoven into the facts and history of animal rights within Tibetan Buddhism. I must admit, however, the Three-Fold Rule did not sit well with me. There is something about this exception that strikes me as having someone else do your dirty work. With my investigation into the history of this rule, the feeling subsided slightly, however thinking about the advances in our current food industry, I’m not quite sure if this rule has legs in our modern world. It may be because I took a completely different approach when contemplating meat on my dinner plate. While deciding whether eating meat was the correct choice for my personal life, I chose to go hunting a few times with my father. My line of thinking was, “If I am willing to eat an animal, I should be willing to be the person to take its life.” I shot two deer, I cried, I prayed over them and thanked them for their ultimate gift, and I shared and ate them with my family. It was an eye-opening experience for which I am thankful, and which ultimately helped me make my final choice to not eat animals. I felt having less distance between me and the meat on my plate would be more, not less, compassionate.

The conversation about animal rights and eating meat can be a difficult one to have, especially when traditions come into the scene. I believe we all must make choices, as best we can, that sit well within our bodies, minds, and hearts. The above hunting example was how I solidified my choice to not eat meat. The peace I feel in my decision is enough to resist any temptation presented. While two animals did die at my hands, I still thank them to this day for their sacrifice in becoming nourishment for my body and for aiding me in my decision to do my best to do no harm. However, as I would like to continually state, this is my path, based upon what compassion means to me. I leave you to choose yours.

This article is part of the Shambhala.org Community Blog, which offers reflections by Shambhala community members on their individual journeys in meditation and spirituality.

“As You Wish”: On Service and Basic Goodness

As You Wish service basic goodness

The video below traces a thread in the classic movie The Princess Bride: the phrase “As you wish,” as code for “I love you.”

Spoiler alert! The video is the first two minutes and the final minute of arguably one of the best movies of all time. If you haven’t seen it in full, you may want to pause reading this and rent The Princess Bride instead. This article will be here when you’re done.

On Service

To me, the end of The Princess Bride is one of the most touching moments in film. When I try to understand why, what emerges is a discussion of service.

Since I first heard it, I have loved a quote by Rabindranath Tagore:

“I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy.”

Rabindranath Tagore

As is certainly the case in The Princess Bride, the type of service Tagore is describing isn’t a chore, and it isn’t a form of inferiority, being “servile.” Instead, it is a delightful act of putting love into practice.

This form of service is something that we love, and even need. As people attest who work (even well-paid) jobs they find meaningless—jobs that don’t seem to serve the good of others, to be for anything wonderful—a lack of genuine service can be its own kind of starvation.

True service is a delightful act of putting love into practice.

Service and Basic Goodness

For me, service is a direct window into basic goodness, the inherent power, dignity, and worth of our nature itself.

Part of our basic goodness is that we can give boundlessly to one another.

Part of our basic goodness is that we can give boundlessly to one another. In fact, this quality of generosity, known as dana paramita, as well as the broader spirit of love and benevolence known as bodhicitta, form the cornerstone of all Mahayana Buddhism.

Around fifteen years ago, a man named Paul told me a story that has always stayed with me as an example of the spiritual power of generosity. Paul is a senior meditation practitioner who, when he was much younger, had served as security for one of the Sixteenth Karmapa’s visits to the US during the 1970s. (The Karmapa is the leader of the Karma Kagyu lineage, and is one of the most powerful and revered figures in Tibetan Buddhism.)

Paul was standing guard in a hallway late at night, when the Karmapa came out of his bedroom. He saw Paul.

The Karmapa spoke very limited English, and so Paul, not knowing what to do, raised both his palms, in a gesture of “Can I do anything to help you?”

The Karmapa smiled and raised his palms in the same gesture. Can I do anything to help you?

When Paul told me this story, tears almost prevented him from finishing it. More than thirty years on, the spiritual power of the memory was undimmed.

This is the Sixteenth Karmapa:

Service and Gratitude as a Goodness Practice

In my experience, noticing the heart of service, in ourselves and others, can help us directly feel our goodness.

In yourself, if you feel the desire to help the world, or a specific desire to help a loved one overcome an illness or achieve a goal, then you are directly feeling your own goodness.

In others, if you can reflect on and feel gratitude for their service on your behalf—the efforts that your guardians exerted to raise you, or the long hours your teachers put in to help you learn, or the steady and patient support of a best friend—then you are reflecting both on your own basic goodness and on that of others in your life.

As a guided meditation directly in this vein, I strongly recommend Fred Rogers’ 2002 commencement speech at Dartmouth College, beginning at 10:51 (the full speech, but especially these last five minutes, is a spiritual tour de force).

Here is the transcript:

I’d like to give you all an invisible gift, a gift of a silent minute to think about those who have helped you become who you are today. Some of them may be here right now. Some may be far away. Some, like my astronomy professor, may even be in heaven, but wherever they are, if they’ve loved you and encouraged you and wanted what was best in life for you, they’re right inside yourself.

And I feel that you deserve quiet time on this special occasion to devote some thought to them. So let’s just take a minute in honor of those who have cared about us all along the way, one silent minute.

[Silence]

Whomever you’ve been thinking about, imagine how grateful they must be that during your silent times, you remember how important they are to you.

Just to round out where Fred Rogers was going with all this, I’m including the rest of the transcript, which is possibly the most powerful statement of basic goodness I’ve seen from a Western person:

It’s not the honors and the prizes and the fancy outsides of life, which ultimately nourish our souls. It’s the knowing that we can be trusted, that we never have to fear the truth, that the bedrock of our lives from which we make our choices is very good stuff.

There’s a neighborhood song that is meant for the child in each of us. And I’d like to give you the words of that song right now, “It’s you I like, it’s not the things you wear. It’s not the way you do your hair, but it’s you I like. The way you are right now, the way down deep inside you. Not the things that hide you, not your caps and gowns, they’re just beside you, but it’s you I like. Every part of you, your skin, your eyes, your feelings, whether old or new, I hope that you remember even when you’re feeling blue, that it’s you I like. It’s you yourself, it’s you. It’s you I like.”

And what that ultimately means, of course, is that you don’t ever have to do anything sensational for people to love you. When I say, “It’s you I like” I’m talking about that part of you that knows that life is far more than anything you can ever see or hear or touch. That deep part of you that allows you to stand for those things without which human kind can not survive. Love that conquers hate, peace that rises triumphant over war, and justice that proves more powerful than greed.

So in all that you do, in all of your life, I wish you the strength and the grace to make those choices, which will allow you and your neighbor to become the best of whoever you are. Congratulations to you all.

Who Serves Whom

As a final thought, I want to offer something I’ve noticed about the spirit of service I find in the grandfather from The Princess Bride, Tagore, the Sixteenth Karmapa, and Fred Rogers.

“Service” seems to carry lots of different possible senses—including a Downton Abbey sense of oppression, knowing one’s place, sacrificing for one’s betters, settling into being low by contrast. However, what feels to me like true service is extremely different from that.

Instead, for me, the feeling of true service is: One light nurtures another. It’s on equal footing; it carries a recognition, like an eagle feeding a young eagle because it’s an eagle.

For me, acknowledging that a grandfather and his grandson are different people, there’s still the strong, strange, hard-to-describe sense that: The light is the same.

That shiver of recognition, of oneness, of love beyond all separation, seems to be what gives service its true power.

Thank you for reading!

This article is part of the Shambhala.org Community Blog, which offers reflections by Shambhala community members on their individual journeys in meditation and spirituality.

How to Practice Compassion Meditation: Introduction to Tonglen

Chenrezig personification of compassion

In this article, we’ll examine tonglen meditation, a powerful compassion practice from the Tibetan Buddhist tradition.

Compassion is one of the Four Immeasurables in Buddhism, along with loving-kindness, sympathetic joy, and equanimity. These are four virtues of mind that we can develop endlessly: there is no such thing as “too much” of them.

For centuries, Tibetan Buddhist practitioners have found tonglen meditation a powerful way to nurture our minds’ natural compassion.

For more than nine centuries, Tibetan Buddhist practitioners have found tonglen practice to be one of the most powerful ways to nurture the compassion that is naturally present in our minds. Here, we’ll delve into the meaning of compassion itself, and how to begin to explore compassion meditation through tonglen.

Compassion Meditation: Understanding Compassion

Before we practice compassion meditation, we must understand compassion itself. This isn’t as easy as it might sound. The Tibetan Buddhist sense of compassion has many shades of meaning which our language does not capture.

The Tibetan Buddhist sense of compassion has many shades of meaning which our language does not capture.

In English, the root of the word compassion means “to suffer with.” (Com- is “with,” and passion is “suffering,” as in “the passion of the Christ.”) The present definition of compassion in English is: Sympathetic pity and concern for the sufferings or misfortunes of others.

In Tibetan, by contrast, the word for compassion is nyingjé, which means: Noble heart. (The word’s two roots are nying, “mind, heart”, and jé, “lord.”) Nyingjé includes concern for the suffering of others, but also a wealth of other meanings; and it is quite distant from what we now call pity, whose original meaning—”compassion, kindness, generosity of spirit, and disposition to mercy”—was quite close to nyingjé, but which now carries a sense of wretchedness and even condescension.

In Tibetan, the word for compassion is nyingjé, which means noble heart.

His Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai Lama has spoken in depth on compassion, nyingjé. Tibetans consider the Dalai Lama to be a human emanation of Avalokiteshvara or Chenrezig (“Lord Who Gazes Lovingly Upon the World”), who is the personification of compassion across Mahayana Buddhist traditions; so the Dalai Lama has a particularly strong connection to this specific quality.

Chenrezig personification of compassion
Chenrezig, the personification of nyingjé.

Here is the Dalai Lama on nyingjé:

” [Nyingjé] has a wealth of meaning that is difficult to convey succinctly, though the ideas it conveys are universally understood. It connotes love, affection, kindness, gentleness, generosity of spirit, and warm-heartedness. It is also used as a term of both sympathy and of endearment. On the other hand, it does not imply ‘pity’ as the word compassion may. On the contrary nyingjé denotes a feeling of connection with others, reflecting its origin in empathy.

…It is both the source and the result of patience, tolerance, forgiveness, and all good qualities.”

His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama

So when we practice compassion meditation, this is the quality of mind we practice with: not merely “pity and concern,” but rather an underlying empathy that brings connection with others, and that is imbued with “love, affection, kindness, gentleness, generosity of spirit, and warm-heartedness.” This is true compassion, nyingjé, and it is this quality of mind that we practice and discover as one of the Four Immeasurables.

Compassion Meditation: The Practice of Tonglen

Now that we understand compassion, what is compassion meditation? How do we work with, express, and cultivate our heart’s innate nobility?

A key compassion practice in Tibetan Buddhism, dating back just under a thousand years, is tonglen, “sending and taking.” (Tong in Tibetan means “sending” or “giving,” and len means “taking” or “receiving.”)

A key compassion practice in Tibetan Buddhism is tonglen, “sending and taking.”

What Tonglen Meditation Is

“Sending and taking should be practiced alternately.
These two should ride the breath.”

Lojong (Tibetan mind training) Slogan

Like mindfulness meditation, tonglen meditation is a meditation practice that works with our breathing. However, unlike mindfulness meditation, tonglen practice involves actively using our imaginations to bring specific things to mind.

Like mindfulness meditation, tonglen meditation works with our breathing. However, tonglen practice also involves actively bringing things to mind.

The name “sending and taking” refers to what we imagine while we do the practice. On the inbreath (as we breathe in), we bring in what is painful from our own and others’ experience; and on the outbreath (as we breathe out), we share out anything that would alleviate suffering and bring happiness.

As we breathe in, we bring in what is painful from our own and others’ experience. As we breathe out, we share out anything that would alleviate suffering and bring happiness.

Because of this exchange, tonglen is also known as “exchanging self for other.” The engine of tonglen’s transformative effect as a compassion practice is the rhythm of being willing to literally take in beings’ suffering on the inbreath, and then giving out whatever might help them on the outbreath.

Here is a succinct description of tonglen practice from Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche:

“The practice of tonglen is quite straightforward; it is an actual sitting meditation practice. You give away your happiness, your pleasure, anything that feels good. All of that goes out with the outbreath. As you breathe in, you breathe in any resentments and problems, anything that feels bad. The whole point is to remove territoriality altogether.”

Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche

And here is a definition from Pema Chödrön:

“We begin the practice by taking on the suffering of a person whom we know to be hurting and wish to help. For instance, if we know of a child who is being hurt, we breathe in with the wish to take away all of that child’s pain and fear. Then, as we breathe out, we send happiness, joy, or whatever would relieve the child. This is the core of the practice: breathing in others’ pain so they can be well and have more space to relax and open-breathing out, sending them relaxation or whatever we feel would bring them relief and happiness.”

Pema Chödrön

Is Tonglen Meditation Dangerous?

Is tonglen dangerous? This answer may come as a surprise: Yes, it can be.

Although tonglen can have life-changing benefits, we should begin tonglen meditation practice carefully, and only when properly prepared.

Beginning to practice tonglen warrants both care and preparation.

Why could tonglen be dangerous? The reason is because tonglen works with suffering—our own and others’—and, in fact, heightens our connection with the suffering in the world.

Some tonglen practitioners react negatively to this heightening: we might feel overwhelmed by the level of suffering we contemplate, or desperate but unable to take concrete action to combat it, or even physically sick from the suffering we are taking on. Most commonly, we might just really dislike tonglen practice, or feel that it doesn’t “work” for us.

If you find that any of this happens to you, don’t worry. Anyone can practice tonglen with proper preparation.

Tonglen Meditation: Approaching Tonglen Correctly

The steps below will make sure that you practice tonglen meditation in the appropriate spirit, and with the proper resources.

1. Find Appropriate Support

Tonglen is best practiced with the support of a meditation community and a meditation instructor. This is true for anyone, and especially true if you have tried a practice like tonglen and gotten mixed or negative results.

Lastly, if you are experiencing mental health or mood conditions like depression or bipolar disorder, the ideal support could be both a qualified meditation coach and a licensed mental health practitioner.

2. Understand and Practice from the Intended Spirit

As we discussed above, tonglen practice itself works to cultivate nyingjé: noble heart. However, in the West, our experience of our own and others’ suffering is often tied to a general feeling of wretchedness—that nothing is okay, that we or the world are fallen, doomed, ruined, or broken. This is quite different from nyingjé, and it is not the spirit of tonglen.

In the West, suffering often carries an additional sense of wretchedness: that we or the world are fallen, broken, or doomed. However, this is not the spirit of true compassion, or of tonglen.

In general, this quality of wretchedness is a form of aggression: the impulse to view some aspect of the world as the enemy. In the Buddhist view, aggression is always confused, mistaken. As individual practitioners, we do each bring some degree of confusion and aggression to our paths. However, the spirit of Buddhism itself is categorically nonaggressive.

This principle of nonaggression extends to tonglen practice, which deepens our connection to ourselves and other suffering beings from a place of tenderness, love, and equality—and not pity, horror, or revulsion—and which is not a practice of obsessing over the world’s shortcomings.

Tonglen is not a practice of obsessing over the world’s shortcomings.

If you wonder how you could possibly contemplate the experience of others without noticing that the world is doomed (what about climate change?) or fallen (what about oceanic microplastics?), then you may honestly want to examine the extent to which you are carrying a cultural conditioning of aggression. All beings’ lives are pervaded with great suffering: this is the First Noble Truth, the first thing the Buddha taught. However, acknowledging this is different from developing an overriding negativity about life itself. That is not at all what the people who developed and practiced tonglen for the past millennium had in mind, and it can make your tonglen practice both unpleasant and potentially harmful.

3. Develop Maitri First

People who wish to practice tonglen should first gain a solid grounding in maitri: universal, all-encompassing friendliness.

As an antidote to the challenge of aggression mentioned above, people who wish to start tonglen practice should first gain a solid grounding in maitri: universal, all-encompassing friendliness. True compassion is all-inclusive and bountiful, not biased or halting, and the maitri spirit of universal benevolence is the basis for this.

The maitri spirit of universal benevolence is the basis for true compassion.

Maitri is an innate quality of the mind, which we uncover with practice. To the extent we uncover it, we find ourselves actively and wholeheartedly wishing happiness and flourishing, for all beings.

Most importantly, our maitri must include a strong and active element of self-love. If we cannot extend sincere, unhesitating love and friendliness to ourselves, then working with the suffering of others in our tonglen practice will certainly be lopsided, and may be fruitless or even harmful.

If we cannot extend true love and friendliness to ourselves, then working with the suffering of others through tonglen will be challenging, and may even be harmful.

If we are solidly grounded in maitri, then actively practicing compassion through tonglen will feel like a natural step, and one that only intensifies our good wishes for ourselves and all beings. This is the practice’s intended effect.

4. Begin with One’s Own Experience

“Begin the practice of sending and taking with yourself.”

Lojong (Tibetan mind training) Slogan

This piece of advice is for how we proceed through tonglen practice itself. It simply says that, in a given practice session, the first person you practice tonglen for should always be yourself.

The first person you practice tonglen for should be yourself.

This bit of technical advice is helpful enough that it’s been a Tibetan mind-training slogan for around 1,000 years. It’s helpful because it encourages us to check in with our own love for ourselves, and our own difficulties, instead of racing immediately into the problems of the world.

Pema Chödrön discusses this beautifully:

“It is true people fear tonglen practice. Particularly if people have a lot of depression, they fear it is going to be tough to relate with the suffering so directly.

I have found that it’s less overwhelming if you start with your own experience of suffering and then generalize to all the other people who are feeling what you do. That gives you a way to work with your pain: instead of feeling like you’re increasing your suffering, you’re making it meaningful. If you’re taught that you should do tonglen only for other people, that’s too big a leap for most people. But if you start with yourself as the reference point and extend out from that, you find that your compassion becomes much more spontaneous and real. You have less fear of the suffering you perceive in the world—yours and other people’s. It’s a lot about overcoming the fear of suffering.”

Pema Chödrön

Tonglen Meditation Instruction: How to Practice Tonglen

Below are three guided instructions in tonglen meditation practice from contemporary Buddhist teachers.

1. Tonglen Instruction by Pema Chödrön

This brief audio instruction by Pema Chödrön gives a wonderful four-stage breakdown of tonglen practice:

  1. Resting the mind.
  2. Working with texture.
  3. Working with personal situations.
  4. Expanding out further.

2. Tonglen Instruction by Khenpo Sherab Sangpo

This long tonglen instruction is helpful because it gives a clear flavor of the Tibetan thought and culture surrounding tonglen practice itself.

3. Tonglen Instruction by Judith Simmer-Brown

An in-depth tonglen instruction by Judith Simmer-Brown.

Tonglen Meditation: Additional Resources

Here are several book recommendations that go deeply into tonglen meditation and the associated teachings and practices:

Tonglen is also an integral part of the Bodhisattva path of love and compassion, which you can study in-depth on Shambhala Online in our A Year of Deepening in Compassion series:

Compassion Meditation: Try Tonglen Today

Tonglen meditation can transform not only our own lives, but—as the world fills with people whose nyingjé, noble heart, is in full blossom—the world itself. I hope this guide has given you a good starting point for this powerful compassion practice.

This article is part of the Shambhala.org Community Blog, which offers reflections by Shambhala community members on their individual journeys in meditation and spirituality.

Meditation for Anxiety and Sleep: 5 Meditation Techniques to Reduce Anxiety and Improve Sleep Quality

Meditation for anxiety and sleep

Finding moments of calm and stillness can be challenging. The world often seems to waltz in and spill (hopefully not purposefully) the Sleepytime tea we keep making, right as it was cool enough to drink. As life continues to accelerate, reduced opportunities to rest and let go of daily stress has led to an increase in anxiety and sleep difficulties, affecting millions of people worldwide.

For many people, meditation is a simple, free, accessible, and effective solution for anxiety and sleep difficulties.

Fortunately, meditation is a simple, free, accessible, and effective solution for anxiety and sleep difficulties that has been practiced for centuries. Meditation can reduce anxiety and improve sleep quality, as well as calming the mind generally, allowing us to find comfort amidst the challenges, responsibilities, and interruptions of everyday life.

Meditation for Reducing Anxiety: How It Works

Meditation can be an invaluable tool for many when it comes to managing anxiety. Anxiety disorders are among the most common mental health conditions, and they can have a significant impact on our daily lives. The practice of meditation can help reduce anxious thoughts and behaviors by training the mind to focus on the present moment rather than dwelling on the past or worrying about the future.

By observing anxiety without judgment, we can respond to anxiety-inducing situations with greater calmness and clarity.

Regular meditation practice cultivates a state of relaxation and a heightened awareness of the present, allowing us to recognize and interrupt anxious thoughts and patterns. By observing anxiety without judgment, we can develop a sense of detachment (a practice that helps us be more objective and less attached to our assumptions, habitual reactions, and the possible outcomes of a situation), enabling us to respond to anxiety-inducing situations with greater calmness and clarity. Over time, this practice can lead to a reduction in anxiety symptoms and overall improvement in mental well-being.

Meditation for Improving Sleep: How It Works

Sleep is an essential aspect of overall well-being, enabling our bodies and minds to rejuvenate and heal. Anyone who has experienced sleep disturbances knows how debilitating going without sleep can be and many people struggle with falling asleep or staying asleep due to life stressors and/or anxiety. This is where meditation can play a vital role. Incorporating meditation into a daily routine can help us creating calm within the mind and body, helping us to unwind from the day’s trials and successes in order to prepare ourselves for a restful night’s sleep.

Meditation can help us create calm within the mind and body, preparing us for restful sleep.

Meditation also helps to promote deep relaxation by focusing on the breath and bringing attention to the present moment. Being in the present moment helps to quiet the mind and release the grip of anxious thoughts that may be inhibiting sleep. By practicing meditation before bedtime, you can create a transition from the busyness of the day to a more serene state of being, allowing your body and mind to prepare for sleep.

5 Mindfulness Meditation Techniques for Reducing Anxiety and Improving Sleep

One popular meditation technique to reduce anxiety and improve sleep is mindfulness meditation. Mindfulness involves non-judgmental awareness of the present moment by paying attention to sensations, thoughts, and emotions without getting caught up in the story they often create in our minds. By practicing mindfulness, you can cultivate an ability to observe your thoughts without being overwhelmed by them, allowing you to embrace more of a state of passive awareness that will eventually lead to greater relaxation conducive to sleep.

Below are five mindfulness meditation techniques to get you started on your exploration.

1. Breath Awareness Meditation to Reduce Anxiety and Improve Sleep

Find a quiet and comfortable place to sit. Close your eyes and bring your attention to your breath. Notice the sensation of the breath entering and leaving your body. Focus your attention solely on the breath, observing each inhalation and exhalation without trying to control it. Whenever your mind wanders, gently bring your attention back to the breath. You may even think to yourself, “inhale” with each inhale and “exhale” with each exhale to keep your mind focused on your breath.

Try practicing this technique for 10-20 minutes before going to bed and taking note of the sensations you feel in your body both before and after you complete the practice. And remember, it’s okay if you don’t notice a difference right away.

2. Body Scan Meditation to Reduce Anxiety and Improve Sleep

Sit or lie down in a comfortable position. Close your eyes and start bringing your awareness to different parts of your body, starting from your toes and gradually moving upward or starting with the top of your head and gradually moving downwards. Notice any sensations, tensions, or areas of relaxation as you move your focus throughout your body. Simply observe without judgment or the need to change anything.

Only if you would like to take it further, breathe into the space of your body you are focusing on and exhale, imagining any tension that may be living there dissolving. Inhale and exhale as you focus on each area of your body making your focus as broad or detailed as you would like, for as long as you like. Move through each part of your body, bringing your mindful attention to each area. When your mind begins to wander, gently bring it back to whatever area of your body you left off.

Doing a body scan meditation before bed can greatly improve your sleep and reduce anxious thoughts and feelings before going to bed. 

3. Sound Meditation to Reduce Anxiety and Improve Sleep

Sound meditation is a practice that harnesses the power of sound to cultivate deep relaxation and inner awareness. Through the intentional use of various instruments and vocal techniques, such as singing bowls, gongs, chanting, or simply listening to the sounds around you, sound meditation can create a harmonious and soothing auditory environment. Sound meditation can guide practitioners into a meditative state, where the mind becomes calm and focused, quieting mental chatter and promoting a sense of tranquility. Sound meditation can help some us to release tension, resulting in lower levels of stress, reduced anxiety, and improved sleep.

Sit or lie comfortably and bring your attention to the sounds around you whether they be the sounds of your environment, a recording or some other producer. It could be the chirping of birds, the hum of a fan, singing bowls on YouTube, chanting on Spotify, or any other sounds present in your environment. Rather than getting caught up in thoughts or trying to label the sounds, simply observe them without attachment or judgment as much as possible.

Allow the sounds to come and go, while maintaining a sense of presence and openness. When your mind wanders, observe that it has wandered, and then gently guide your attention back to the sounds you hear in your space. Begin with 5-15 minutes of sound meditation practice before going to bed to bring the mind into the present moment and calm the body in preparation for sleep.

4. Restorative Yoga and Meditation to Reduce Anxiety and Improve Sleep

Restorative yoga and meditation involves holding supported poses for an extended period, typically ranging from 5 to 20 minutes, to promote deep relaxation and to release tension in the body improving sleep and reducing anxiety. Unlike more active styles of yoga, restorative yoga is less physically demanding and emphasizes passive stretching rather than active movement. The purpose of restorative yoga is to activate the parasympathetic nervous system, which helps counteract the effects of stress and promotes a state of deep relaxation and healing.

To do restorative yoga, find a quiet space and fill it, if you can, with pillows, blankets, yoga blocks or books, a bolster if you have it, meditation cushions, and any other props that can assist in your comfort (you do not have to buy anything new, you can use what you already have in your home).

Choose a yoga pose that is comfortable for you such as Child’s pose, Shavasana, Legs Up the Wall, or Supported Fish pose, and use your props to support any part of your body that is not touching the ground. For example, if in Butterfly, or Baddha Konasana, pose, place blocks or pillows underneath your knees and let your back rest against the wall. Allowing yourself to be completely supported by props and structures helps to reduce tension by helping the body to feel safe and ultimately aiding the mind in relaxation, reducing anxiety and improving sleep.

If you’ve never done restorative yoga before, try out a video or check out a local or online studio to help you get started safely. And remember, restorative yoga is all about comfort so if you feel any tension, tightness, or discomfort beyond a good stretch, add another prop or release the pose slightly to allow your body to relax in the space. Please speak with your doctor before beginning a new yoga practice.

5. Guided Meditation to Reduce Anxiety and Improve Sleep

Guided meditation is another effective approach for addressing sleep and anxiety issues. Guided meditation involves listening to a recorded meditation session or following an instructor’s voice, providing gentle guidance on relaxation and mental focus. These guided sessions often incorporate soothing music, visualizations, and body scans to help calm the mind and release tension from the body and are great for those looking for more instruction when starting out.

By following the direction of the guide and immersing yourself in the meditation, you can shift your attention away from the anxious thoughts and worries that may be keeping you awake or in a state of anxiousness. Listening to a guided meditation before bed is a wonderful way to reduce anxiety and prepare your body for sleep.

Meditation for Anxiety and Sleep: Do What Works

Remember, mindfulness meditation is a practice, and it’s perfectly normal for your mind to wander. The key is to notice when your attention drifts and gently bring it back to the present moment without judgment. Start with short sessions, finding which techniques work best for you, and gradually increasing the duration as you become more comfortable with your practice.

The goal throughout these practices is simply to help you, so do what works for you. What meditation practices for anxiety and sleep quality have you found helpful? Let us know in the comments below!

This article is part of the Shambhala.org Community Blog, which offers reflections by Shambhala community members on their individual journeys in meditation and spirituality.

2024-11-11 10:42:51