Meditation Skill 01

Intentional relaxation and tuning into how nice it feels will train your mind to let go of the world around you, cultivating a sense of restful awareness within your body. To help you relax, I recommend using slow diaphragmatic breathing in your belly as learnt in Skill 00; it will help you lower your experience of stress and increase your body awareness. 

*Note: We all come to meditation with different habits. If you find your mind obsessively controlling your breathing, you can develop relaxation by simply sitting in meditation and allowing your mind energy to settle down by doing nothing at all. This is the power of being still and allowing things to be as they are.

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• Set a countdown timer on your phone, set it to do not disturb, and place it behind you. 
• Meditation Length: Initially meditate for 20 minutes, gradually increasing to 30 minutes.
• Benefits: This Meditation Skill will teach you how to lower your experience of physical restlessness and access the first stage of meditation, feeling comfortable in your body.
• Purpose: To teach your mind to find enjoyment in relaxing your body and to settle stress-based restlessness as preparation for mindfulness of your body.

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Meditation Instructions:

When joined, the following five steps create the complete meditation for Skill 01: Body Relaxation. Learn each step individually and then, when comfortable, combine them all together. For insight, be curious about how to calm restlessness and appreciate the feeling of relaxation that comes with it.

• YouTube: Video Instructions.
• SoundCloud: Guided Meditation.
• PDF: Detailed Meditation Instructions Skill 01.

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What Meditation Skill 01 looks like:

• Sit in meditation.

To develop mindfulness:

• Listen to the flow of sounds.
• Feel your clothing on your body.

To relax your body:

• Relax with slow diaphragmatic (belly) breaths.
• Relax with slow, full-body breaths.

For the rest of the meditation:

• Enjoy the relaxation of your whole body.

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Step 1:  Preparation for meditation.

In this meditation, you move from lying down in Skill 00 to sitting upright with your legs crossed on a cushion on the floor, on a kneeling stool, or resting on a comfortable, supportive chair. 

• Sit in meditation: Sit in meditation with one palm resting in the other, and feel the awareness of your whole body as you sit in meditation. You will be using awareness of your body as the meditation object.

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Step 2: Develop mindfulness. 

Mindfulness is the meditative skill of gently remembering (keeping in mind) what you are experiencing now in your body, mind and senses. Mindfulness counters mind wandering and is exercised by placing gentle effort toward remembering an experience that is present to you. To cultivate mindfulness, gradually become aware of simple, present experiences within your whole body awareness.

• Listen to the flow of sound: Actively listen to sounds around you, the way they flow and change. Tip: If no sound is present, use the sound of silence. Allow the presence of sound to develop mindfulness by gently keeping it in mind, remembering it. 
• Feel your clothing on your body: As you relax, you will naturally become aware of your clothing touching your body and the coolness/warmth of air touching your skin. Keep in mind and enjoy these simple experiences to develop mindfulness.

Tip: Tune into how nice it feels to be present with these simple experiences: this is the key to deepening meditation.

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Step 3: Relax your body with slow breaths.

In MIDL, these slow, relaxing breaths are known as softening breaths because your body and mind become softer as you relax. Finding enjoyment in taking slow, softening breaths is key to deepening calm and insight.

• Relax with diaphragmatic (belly) breaths: To relax awareness further into your body, take five softening breaths by slowly moving your belly outward and then slowly lowering it back, as you did in Skill 00. 

Tip: Find the nice feeling in each slow belly breath to deepen your sense of relaxation.

• Relax with full-body breaths: Take five more slow inhales, starting in your belly, bringing the breath up to fill your chest, and then, with each exhale, allow your whole body to relax, being aware of how nice it feels to let go of all effort.

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Step 4: Enjoy the relaxation.

• After taking these softening breaths, allow your breathing to return to its natural rhythm; enjoy the growing relaxation and comfort in your body for the rest of the meditation. 

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Tip: At this stage of meditation, thinking about the past and future and mind wandering are normal, should not be seen as a problem. Your main goal in Skill 01 is to settle any feelings of restlessness in your body that come from stress or anxiety developed throughout the day. To develop insight, take an interest in any feelings of restlessness or the desire to move your body. Playfully, learn how to settle these feelings of restlessness by using slow belly breaths, as learnt above, to develop comfort and ease in your body. When repeated in this way, physical restlessness will come up less in your meditation, and more relaxation will begin to appear in your daily life.

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Progression in mindfulness of breathing can be accurately tracked by observing your ability to access the Meditation Markers. This can be done by developing insight into their associated Meditative Hindrances and then changing the conditions that support them. 

Insight: Insight is developed in this stage of mindfulness of breathing by being curious about creating the conditions that support Marker 01: Body Relaxation to weaken the conditions that support Hindrance 01: Physical Restlessness. 

Progression Map for Mindfulness of Breathing

Meditative Hindrances.                      Meditation Markers.

(Hindrances to calm).                          (Signs of deepening calm).

                                                               00: Diaphragm Breathing.

01: Physical Restlessness.      →    01: Body Relaxation.

02: Mental Restlessness.                  02: Mind Relaxation.

03: Sleepiness & Dullness.                03: Mindful Presence.

04: Habitual Forgetting.                     04: Content Presence.

05: Habitual Control.                          05: Natural Breathing.

06: Mind Wandering.                          06: Whole of Each Breath.

07: Gross Dullness.                            07: Breath Sensations.

08: Subtle Dullness.                           08: One Point of Sensation.

09: Subtle Wandering.                       09: Sustained Attention.

10: Sensory Stimulation.                  10: Whole-Body Breathing.

11: Anticipation of Pleasure.           11: Sustained Awareness.

12: Fear of Letting Go.                      12: Access Concentration.

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Meditative Hindrance. 

Physical Restlessness (01).

Unable to experience physical comfort.

Physical Restlessness refers to feeling of being unsettled in your body, which prompts you to move around and fidget. It occurs during meditation due to the build-up of energy from stress, aversion, or overstimulation in our daily lives. Simplifying your life and relaxing with slow, softening breaths will lower your experience of stress and anxiety and weaken your desire to distract yourself with sensory stimulation.

Antidote. 

Developing your skill in relaxing your body creates the conditions for Marker 01, and is the antidote for the Hindrance of Physical Restlessness. To settle physical restlessness, cultivate curiosity in finding enjoyment as you relax your body with slow, diaphragmatic, belly breaths. As you exhale, allow a part of your body, such as your shoulders, to relax slowly and deliberately so that you can feel the bodily relaxation. You can move through different parts of your body in this way. Once you have a feel for it you will be able to relax your whole body in one go. It is also helpful to bring gratitude to your mind by reflecting on the small things you are grateful for. Take your time at this beginning stage and include in this how fortunate you are to have this time to meditate and spend time with yourself. This will help you to feel more present and find enjoyment in relaxing your body.

Tip: Although your focus is on settling the Hindrance of Physical Restlessness in this Skill, all the other hindrances listed above may also be present during your meditation. While other hindrances are present, it is important to settle each Hindrance in the order presented in the above Map for Mindfulness of Breathing, as each Marker of calm is the antidote for its associated Hindrance.

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The MIDL techniques you are learning will naturally integrate into your daily life. Now that you understand how to relax your body through breathing, your next step is to establish a foundation and reference point in your daily life from which you can develop insight (understanding) about yourself. The Buddha recommended kaya-gata sati: mindfulness immersed within the body.

To develop mindfulness of your body, check in during the day to see if you are holding too much effort in your body. This feeling of 'holding effort' within your body will be most present when your mind and body are stressed. Your task during the day is to be curious about relaxing your body when you notice this internal 'holding' and to observe how you become more mindful and aware of your body, as you relax.

Whenever you notice you are tensing up in your body, take a few slow belly breaths to allow your body to relax. As your body relaxes, observe how awareness of your body increases. This relationship between conscious relaxation and increased awareness of our body is crutial. As awareness of your body increases through relaxation, so will your sense of your body's presence and your enjoyment of it. This mindfulness of your body can then be used as a reference point for developing insight into anything throughout your day that disturbs it.

Meditative Hindrance.                        Meditation Marker.

01: Physical Restlessness.      →    01: Body Relaxation.

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In Skill 01, you will learn four things that you can bring into your daily life:

1. To recognise physical restlessness.
2. To relax physical restlessness.
3. To appreciate how nice it feels to relax your body.
4. To notice that whenever you relax your body, with a clear comprehension of it, awareness of your body increases.

Once you are familiar with Skill 01, you can integrate it into your daily life. The key is to check with how you feel throughout the day, starting with when you wake up in the morning.

• How am I feeling now? 
• Am I holding more effort in my body than I need to?

If so, take a few softening breaths to relax your body, notice how nice it feels to relax, and then immerse yourself back into life. This simple act of taking a few softening breaths will withdraw your awareness from your intellectual mind and bring awareness into your body, therefore developing mindfulness of your body (grounding).

How to do it.

The key to being mindful of your body in daily life is not to try to be mindful of your body in daily life. 'Trying' will take you in the opposite direction, as your mind will see mindfulness as something else that has to do, another problem to solve. It is essential to make being mindful during the day something enjoyable for your mind, rather than just another task to complete. 

This is done by:

1. Enjoy noticing when you've forgotten to be mindful.
2. Take a few breaths to relax your body when you notice.
3. Finding enjoyment in the relaxing breaths.
4. Clearly comprehending awareness returning to your body as you do.
5. Being satisfied with creating small gaps in mind wandering.

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It's all about the gaps.

Being mindful in daily life is not about striving and straining to be mindful; it is about making mindfulness a fun activity for your mind to engage in. By checking in periodically throughout the day and softening or relaxing your body, you will create small gaps in the habitual patterns of your mind and body. With repetition, these gaps of habitual 'mindlessness' will gradually decrease, and your enjoyment of increased mindfulness will increase. By enjoying how nice it feels to return to mindfulness, awareness will begin to naturally rest in your body, creating a safe space for your mind to escape the stresses of daily life.

Stress throughout the day.

You can use the skills you have learnt in Skill 01 to gradually weaken your experience of stress throughout your day, by re-engaging diaphragm breathing by taking slow belly breaths, whenever you notice you are feeling stressed. More information can be found in this section of the MIDL Insight Meditation website: Meditation Skill 00.

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You are ready to progress to Meditation Skill 02: Mind Relaxation when:

• You experience periods of feeling relaxed and comfortable during your meditation, and you understand how to settle physical restlessness and the desire to move around with slow, softening belly breaths.

Tip: During Meditation Skill 01, it is normal for our mind to wander between thoughts and memories or to feel sleepy. This is all part of the natural process of relaxing and settling down and a sign of successful relaxation. These are both signs of imbalances in your mind's energy and will be addressed as your meditation practice deepens. For now, take an interest in how your mind wandering and sleepiness happen by themself (anatta). Observing in this way will increase your mindfulness and help your mind learn to let these imbalances go. The most important part at this stage of meditation is to notice when your mind has wandered, and to return to being curious about how deeply you can relax your body.

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