Meditation Preparation Exercises

For Basic Skill Development

  1. Sit upright in balance (so that your body becomes relaxed and pleasant on its own). See posture
  2. Watch your breath (Be aware of breathing sensations, e.g. inflating, deflating) For more: see Just One Breath
  3. Maintain unbroken continuous awareness from the beginning to the ending while being aware of your breath. For more see, Sustaining focus
  4. Be aware of common phenomena in your body and mind. (For example, breathing sensations, other body sensations, pleasantness, unpleasantness, likes, dislikes, urges, thoughts and others.) For more, see: Body Phenomena Awareness, Body Awareness, Feeling Awareness, Mental State Awareness, Mental Action Awareness, Mind Awareness
  5. If your natural breath is usually shallow, you may try diaphragmatic breathing (belly breathing or danjeon breathing) before meditation.

For Basic Skill Development #2

  • Just be (with what you are experiencing).
  • Be aware of patterns.
  • Intentionally act instead of unintentionally or automatically acting, e.g. thinking, moving, scratching, chewing.
  • Be aware of a contraction when your mind believes it knows something it does not know.
  • Establish an intention.
  • Do it as a whole self.

Just One Breath

Notice your in-breath and out-breath once.

Note: This is just noticing the natural breathing of your body such as expanding or contracting sensations in your belly or coolness or warmth in your nose. The awareness is ideally continuous from the beginning to the ending of your one breath. (This practice is just for one breath. But you could repeat this as many times as you like.)

If this practice is difficult, try training wheel for meditation.

Feeling Awareness

  • Be aware of pleasantness if you are experiencing it.
  • Be aware of unpleasantness if you are experiencing it.
  • Be aware of neutral feeling if you are experiencing it (neither pleasantness nor unpleasantness).

Mental State Awareness

Be aware of the mental state of your mind, for example:

  • peaceful or not.
  • content or not.

Mental Object Awareness

Be aware of the mental object such as a thought in your mind.

Mental Actions Awareness

  • Be aware whether your mind is remembering, planing or doing something else.

Mind Awareness

  1. Be aware your breath and body.
  2. Be aware your breath and mind.
  3. Be aware your mind that is aware of your breath.
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