Breathing into Balance
With each breath, become alert yet relaxed, upright yet settled, neither tight nor loose.
Orienting Your Life
“Respect for ourselves, respect for others, and good ethics is a basis for meditation.”
Mettā for Body and Mind
Let benevolence and love flow into your heart—then outward through your body and mind.
Bringing Presence to the Breath
Use your breath to anchor your emotions against the swings of desire and aversion.
Three Kinds of Feeling Tone
Sweep attention through the body, noticing pleasant, painful, and neutral sensations.
Let Go of the Past and Future
Before and after are abstractions. Connect to what’s real—your experience in this moment.
Exploring the Five Elements
Nature surrounds us, feeds us, fills our lungs, runs in our veins, and gives us warmth.
The Sound of Silence
Listen past the noise to an underlying stillness—steady, expansive, always here.
Refuge in Awareness
Turn toward difficult feelings with curiosity, your mind anchored by physical sensation.
Loving-Kindness
Breathe benevolence into your heart, then into your whole being—then radiate it outward.
Developing Deep Compassion
Meet the world with tenderness and goodwill, wishing that all beings be free from harm.
Opening to Appreciative Joy
Bring to mind a bright, uplifting image—a sunlit leaf, a child’s smile, a loved one.
Knowing a Subtle Kind of Love
With a perspective encompassing all of time and space, embrace things as they are.
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Knowing Presence
For many of us, meditation is private, with eyes closed, in quiet spaces, which can make it seem like an inward journey of self-development. But, says monastic and teacher Ayya Ānandabodhī, meditation at its heart is both an internal and external practice—it’s about recognizing our place in a larger whole.
In these guided meditations, Ayya invites us to see our direct, intimate, first-person experiences—difficult thoughts, pleasant sensations, even rhythms of breath—not as solitary perceptions but as evidence of our connection to the world: to others, to nature, to “the energy shared by all living beings.”
to listen to all 13 sessions in this series.
Artwork by Ceci Erlich