Learn Buddhist insight meditation in your daily life.
MIDL (Mindfulness in Daily Life) provides a systematic way of practising traditional Buddhist Insight Meditation (satipatthana vipassana) in your daily life.
MIDL takes advantage of the disturbances and overstimulation that are part of living a normal life and uses them as a foundation for both calm and insight.
As a MIDL meditator, you will learn to find the middle way by neither suppressing nor avoiding any experience but rather softening/relaxing your relationship towards it, to gently let it go.
In this section we will cover mindfulness of breathing meditation techniques designed for daily life. The foundation for your meditation will be based on developing skill in relaxation, calm & tranquility (samatha). Anything that hinders samatha is viewed as an opportunity for vipassana insight.
Mindfulness of Breathing in MIDL is divided into 12 Meditation Skills. Insight in each skill is developed by learning to recognise a Meditative Hindrance (disturbance to calm) and developing your skill in transforming it into a Meditation Marker (a sign of deepening calm).
Suitability: Beginner.
Purpose: Creating Your Foundation.
New to Meditation?
Gentle introduction to insight meditation.
Mindfulness of Breathing Skills 01-03.
Develop insight into each hindrance to develop your skill in calm:
Support Articles.
The theory behind the above meditation skills.
Optional Meditation:
If you experience stress, anxiety, or brain fog, practice this first.
Your second step is to cultivate curiosity about balancing mental effort by developing insight into what hinders the development of calm and tranquility.
Suitability: Intermediate.
Purpose: Insight into restlessness.
Mindfulness of Breathing Skills 04-06.
Develop insight into each hindrance to develop your skill in calm:
Support Articles:
Your third step is to cultivate your skill in stable attention during mindfulness of breathing by including joy and tranquility in your attention.
Suitability: Skilled.
Purpose: Insight into dullness.
Mindfulness of Breathing Skills 07-09.
Develop insight into each hindrance to develop your skill in calm:
Support Article:
Your fourth step is to cultivate your skill in samadhi (unification) to develop access concentration.
Suitability: Accomplished.
Purpose: Develop access concentration.
Mindfulness of Breathing Skills 10-12.
Develop insight into each hindrance to develop your skill in calm:
Support Article:
Your fifth step is to cultivate your skill in meditative absorption (jhana), to establish equanimity.
Suitability: Proficient.
Purpose: Develop Factor of Equanimity.
Course Lessons:
This section is advanced and not necessary for completing the meditation course above. It may be offered to you as a support for calm & insight by a teacher or to create the conditions for higher insight paths once you are skilled in jhana (absorption) in Cultivation 05.
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