Guided Meditations for Healing Body, Mind and Spirit

Softening Pain Meditation

Try to find a comfortable position and settle into it.
Slowly allow your attention to move toward the area of discomfort.
Watch what feelings arise as you let your awareness approach that place.
Let the pain just be there.
Is the mind and body at war? Much resistance? Is the mind cursing the body?
Is there any fear accumulated in the area of discomfort?
Notice if any old mind fears cling there, turning pain to suffering.
Resistance to hellishness. (Read More)

A MEDITATION ON GRIEF

Let your eyes close.
As your eyes close and you feel your body breathing, let your hand,
your thumb, press into that point at the center of the chest between the
nipples where it feels so sensitive to the touch. As sensitive as we are.
And push into it.
Feel all that pushes back. Feel all that tries to resist, that denies the
pain. All the armoring. All the resistance to life.
Push into it. (Read More)

Letting Pain Float Meditation

As the first meditation opens the body and becomes your own, consider expanding the practice.
Find a comfortable place to sit and when the body is soft and
sensations are seen coming and going all by themselves, let the mind and
body settle into that flow.
As you open to the body-moment, receive the mind in that same open spaciousness.
Letting go all about sensations and feelings. Softening. (Read More)

Consciousness Transference at the Time of Death–Phowa

Phowa or the transference of consciousness at the time of death is the sixth yoga of the Tibetan 12th century scholar Naropa. A practice in the Bon religion, phowa is a powerful practice involving intention, psychophysical preparation, visualization, and breath that can be done for oneself or another at the time of death. I prefer to strengthen phowa practice by doing a series of psychophysical practices as outlined by Naropa. The physical preparation done when training to do phowa helps the practitioner to purify and gather the energy necessary to do the practice effectively. (Read More)

Mindfulness Meditation

When we face dying, the empathy that comes through mutuality, spirituality, practice and service can be our strongest allies. I can find no better proof for their power than in the life of Mahatma Gandhi. Whether he was fasting in protest, weaving, meditating or teaching, Gandhi always directed his activities to the good of others. A humble man, we are told, he based his life in altruism, in his connection with those who were suffering, who were marginalized and materially impoverished. (Read More)

The Practice of Presence

No matter what kind of activities we engage in, our attitude of openness and inclusiveness is essential as a basis for our working with dying, death, caring, and grieving. We aspire to develop openness to situations as they are by practicing awareness, acceptance, and presence. We learn to relate to people and experiences without strategy or manipulation. We aspire to experience everything as totally as we can, not withdrawing from the vividness of any experience. (Read More)

Transforming the Suffering of Pain

Pain is part of our experience of life in a human body. There is no way to escape from feeling pain sooner or later. We often fear pain and feel victimized by it. Being in pain now we may remember pain of the past or anticipate more pain in the future. And pain can remind us that our life span is finite, our connection to life fragile, and beings everywhere experience pain in one way or another. (Read More)

Taking & Sending Meditation

This mediation can be done for yourself, for your loved one, or for groups of people (the world, your family, your co-workers etc.). The person or people you are doing it for do not need to be present for the meditation. This is a good exercise for a caregiver to do for themselves. If you are feeling anxious about your loved one’s death, for example, you can visualize the “anxious caregiver”. Any part of you or someone else that needs compassion can be addressed with this mediation. (Read More)

Tonglen or Giving and Receiving: A Practice of Great Mercy

The practice of Tonglen or Giving and Receiving is done to develop our compassion and our ability to be present for our own suffering and the suffering of others. It is also a practice of great kindness that opens up our whole being to the overwhelming presence of suffering and our strength and willingness to transform alienation into compassion through the energy of mercy and the cultivation of openness. (Read More)

The AH Breath

Giver: quiet your own mind. Tell the receiver to relax their body (with a soft voice mention each body part that the receiver should relax). When you are ready, watch the breathing of the receiver. Begin to softly say AH with each out breath of the receiver. The exercise is this simple. The giver should continue the exercise for at least 20 minutes and up to an hour. The giver does not touch the receiver during the exercise. (Read More)

Letting Go Meditation

Let your attention come to the breath.
Not the thought of the breath, but the direct sensation of the breath,
as it comes and goes by itself.
Let the awareness come right to the edge of sensation as the breath
enters and leaves the nostrils.
Let the awareness be soft and open, making contact with each breath
without the least interference. (Read More)

Guided Healing Meditation

(To be read slowly to a friend or silently to oneself.)
Come to a sitting position if possible, or find a posture the body is able to
maintain for a period of time. And feel the body that rests here.
Allow the attention to come into the body.
Feel the breath as it breathes itself in soft belly.
Let the body be soft and open.
Let the awareness be gentle and allowing. (Read More)

Grief Meditation

Forgiveness Meditation

Begin to reflect for a moment on what the word “forgiveness” might mean.
What is forgiveness? What might it be to bring forgiveness into one’s life, into one’s mind? Begin by slowly bringing into your mind, into your heart, the image of someone for whom you have some resentment.
Gently allow a picture, a feeling, a sense of them to gather there.
Gently now invite them into your heart just for this moment.
Notice whatever fear or anger may arise to limit or deny their entrance
and soften gently all about it. (Read More)

Emotions around Pain Meditation

Let your eyes close and bring your attention to the breath.
Let awareness come to the level of sensation.
As awareness begins to establish itself in the moment, allow it to
approach the area of discomfort.
Just feel what is there. Nothing to change. Nothing to do about it.
Just sensations arising in the moment.
Let all be just as it is. (Read More)

Finishing Business Around Pain Meditation

Find a comfortable place to sit and let your eyes close.
Bring your attention to the breath.
Let awareness focus on the sensations that accompany each breath.
Gradually allow awareness to come to the level of sensation.
Feel the breath as it passes in and out of the nostrils.
Focus on the moment-to-moment sensation that accompanies each
inhalation and each exhalation.
Mindfulness of breathing. (Read More)

A Guided Meditation on Dying

Find a comfortable place to sit and let your eyes close.
Bring your attention to the level of sensation. Feel this body you sit in.
Let the body be still.
Focus on the sensation of being in a body.
Notice the body’s substantial quality.
Feel the solidity of the body. Feel its weightiness, how gravity pulls on its substance.
Receive this quality of solidity.
Feel the weight of the head resting on the neck. Feel the musculature
of that neck, its strength, its thickness. (Read More)